Desacralization after the ‘Umrah or Lesser Pilgrimage
When the procession reached Sarif, midway between Makkah and Madinah, Muhammad said to his companions: “Those of you who do not have any sacrificial animals with them may perform the lesser pilgrimage. But those who do, must perform the complete ritual.” The procession continued and reached Makkah on the fourth of Dhu al Hijjah. Upon arrival, the Prophet, followed by the Muslims, hastened to the Ka’bah. There, the Prophet went to the Black Stone and kissed it. Then he circumambulated the holy sanctuary seven times, the first three of which he did at a trotting pace, just as he had done in the lesser pilgrimage. He then proceeded to the Sanctuary of Ibrahim where he performed a prayer. Returning back to the Black Stone, he kissed it once more and then left the temple area for the Mount of al Safa, and from there performed the Sa’y between that mount and the mount of Marwah. [Le., running to and fro between the two mountains. This part of the pilgrimage ritual is a recreation of Hagar’s desperate running on the same plain in search of water for her son Isma’il. -Tr.] He then announced to the Pilgrims that whoever did not have an animal to sacrifice should now desacralize himself and bring his pilgrimage ritual to a close. Some pilgrims hesitated, and this angered the Prophet. He repeated his command. When he entered his tent, the anger visible on his face, ‘Aishah inquired about it. He answered, “How can I be otherwise when my commands are not obeyed?” As a visiting companion inquired again, adding, “Whoever angers the Prophet of God will taste of the fire,” the Prophet said, “Is it not strange that I command the people and find them hesitant to obey? If it were permissible to come to pilgrimage without animals to sacrifice, I too would have been content to perform the lesser pilgrimage and desacralize at this moment.” So relates Muslim. [Muslim ibn al Hajjaj, 817-865 C.E., compiler of the Sahih, the second canonical collection of Hadith. -Tr.] When the news of the Prophet’s anger reached the people, thousands of them terminated their pilgrimage regretfully. Even the wives of the Prophet, including his daughter Fatimah, did likewise. Only those people who had brought sacrificial animals with them kept themselves in the sacral state.
‘Ali’s Return from Yaman
While the Muslims were performing their pilgrimage, ‘Ali returned from his campaign in Yaman. Before entering Makkah, and upon hearing that the Prophet of God was leading the pilgrimage, ‘Ali put himself in a sacral state and wore the pilgrim garments. Upon finding that his wife Fatimah, had desacralized herself, he asked for an explanation. He was told that the Prophet had commanded that only lesser pilgrimage was permitted to those who did not bring their sacrificial animals with them. ‘Ali went to the Prophet and there related to him the news of his campaign in Yaman. When he finished, the Prophet asked him to circumambulate the holy sanctuary and then to desacralize himself like the rest. ‘Ali retorted: “Prophet of God, I have recited exactly the same prayers as you have.” The Prophet said. “Even so, desacralize yourself as your companions have done.” ‘Ali rejoined again: “Prophet of God, when I put myself in the sacral state, I recited: ‘O God, I intend to perform this pilgrimage in identically the same manner as Your Prophet, Servant, and Apostle Muhammad.’” The Prophet then asked ‘Ali whether he had any sacrificial animals and, when ‘Ali answered in the negative, Muhammad gave him some of his own. For this reason, ‘Ali kept his sacral state and performed the ritual of pilgrimage in its complete form.
Performance of the Pilgrimage Ritual
On the eighth day of Dhu al Hijjah, the day of al Tarwiyah, Muhammad went to Mina and spent the day and night in that locality. There, he performed all the prayers incumbent during that period. The following day, Muhammad recited his dawn prayer and, at sunrise, proceeded on his camel, al Qaswa’, to the Mount of ‘Arafat, followed by all the pilgrims. As he ascended the mountain, he was surrounded by thousands of his companions reciting the talbiyah and the takbir. [The invocations which include either “At your service, O Lord” or “God is Great” as dominant theme. -Tr.] The Prophet naturally heard their recitations but made no effort either to stop them or to encourage them. He commanded some of his companions to put up a tent for him on the east side of the mountain at a spot called Namirah. When the sun passed the zenith, he ordered his camel to be saddled, and rode on it until he reached the valley of ‘Uranah.
The Prophet’s Last Sermon
It was there that he, while sitting on his camel, delivered his sermon in a loud voice to his people. Rabi’ah ibn Umayyah ibn Khalaf repeated the sermon after him sentence by sentence. He began by praising God and thanking Him, and then turning to the people, he said:
“O Men, listen well to my words, for I do not know whether I shall meet you again on such an occasion in the future. O Men, your lives and your property shall be inviolate until you meet your Lord. The safety of your lives and of your property shall be as inviolate as this holy day and holy month. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. Thus do I warn you. Whoever of you is keeping a trust of someone else shall return that trust to its rightful owner. All interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to ‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived. Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived. And the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabi’ah ibn al Harith ibn ‘Abd al Muttalib. O Men, the devil has lost all hope of ever being worshipped in this land of yours. Nevertheless, he still is anxious to determine the lesser of your deeds. Beware of him, therefore, for the safety of your religion. O Men, intercalation or tampering with the calendar is evidence of great unbelief and confirms the unbelievers in their misguidance. They indulge in it one year and forbid it the next in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to forbid that which God has made permissible. The pattern according to which the time is reckoned is always the same. With God, the months are twelve in number. Four of them are holy. Three of these are successive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumada and Sha’ban. O Men, to you a right belongs with respect to your women and to your women a right with respect to you. It is your right that they not fraternize with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to commit adultery. But if they do, then God has permitted you to isolate them within their homes and to chastise them without cruelty. But if they abide by your right, then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers. Remember that you have taken them as your wives and enjoyed their flesh only under God’s trust and with His permission. Reason well, therefore, O Men, and ponder my words which I now convey to you. I am leaving you with the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Prophet. If you follow them, you will never go astray. O Men, harken well to my words. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to your own selves. O God, have I conveyed Your message?”
As the Prophet delivered his speech, Rabi’ah repeated it sentence by sentence and asked the people every now and then whether or not they had understood the Prophet’s words and committed them to memory. In order to make sure that the people understood and remembered, the Prophet used to ask his crier to say: “The Prophet of God asks, ‘Do you know which day is this?” The audience would answer, “Today is the day of the greater pilgrimage.” The Prophet then would say, “Tell them that God has declared inviolate your lives and your property until the day you will meet your Lord; that he has made the safety of your property and of your lives as inviolate as this day.” At the end of his speech, the Prophet asked, “O God, have I conveyed your message?” And the people answered from all corners, “Indeed so! God be witness.”
When
the Prophet finished his sermon, he dismounted and waited until noon, at which time he performed both the noon and the midafternoon prayers. He then mounted his camel and proceeded to al Sakharat where he recited to the people the concluding divine revelation:
“Today I have completed for you your religion, and granted you the last of my blessings. Today I have accepted for you Islam as the religion.” [Qur’an, 5:4]
When Abu Bakr heard this verse he realized that with the completion of the divine message, the Prophet’s life was soon to come to a close.
The Prophet left ‘Arafat and spent his night at Muzdalifah. In the morning, he visited first the sanctuary of al Mash’ar, and then Mina on the road to which he threw pebbles against the symbol of Satan. When he reached his tent, he sacrificed sixty-three camels, one for each year of his life. ‘All sacrificed the rest of the animals which the Prophet had brought with him from Madinah. The Prophet then shaved his head and declared his pilgrimage completed. This pilgrimage is sometimes called “the Farewell Pilgrimage.” Others have called it the “Pilgrimage of the Annunciation” and others, the “Pilgrimage of Islam.” In truth, the Prophet’s pilgrimage was all these at once. It was the “Farewell Pilgrimage” because Muhammad saw Makkah and the holy sanctuary for the last time. It was also the “Pilgrimage of Islam” because God completed His religion for the benefit of mankind and granted to them His total blessing. Finally, it was also the “Pilgrimage of the Annunciation” because the Prophet had completed his announcement and conveyance to the people of what he has been commanded by God to announce and to convey. Muhammad was truly only an announcer, a conveyor, and a warner sent to a people who see the truth and believe.
Chapter 30
The Prophet’s Sickness and Death
Effects of the “Farewell Pilgrimage”
The “Farewell Pilgrimage” completed, tens of thousands of pilgrims began their return home. Those who came from the desert returned to the desert; those who came from Tihamah returned hence, and those who came from the south, from Yaman, Hadramawt and neighboring territories, did likewise. The Prophet and his immediate companions set out in the direction of Madinah. When they reached it, they settled down confident that peace had covered the entire Peninsula. Henceforth, it was natural that Muhammad became preoccupied with the conditions of those countries under the dominion of Byzantium and Persia, especially al Sham, Egypt, and ‘Iraq. Now that the people have converted to Islam in such large groups, that their delegations had already declared in Madinah their obedience and committed their peoples to serve under its banner and, finally, now that all the Arabs have united in this “Farewell Pilgrimage,” the Arabian Peninsula became secure in its entirety. Indeed, there was no reason for any of the Arab kings and princes to withdraw or to violate loyalty to the Prophet or to his religion. Under no other regime did they enjoy more power and internal autonomy than under that which the unlettered Prophet had instituted. 8adhan, the Persian governor of Yaman, was reinstated in his governorship as soon as he converted to Islam. In recognition of this, Badhan preserved the unity of Arabia and threw off the yoke of the Zoroastrian Persians. Whatever little rumblings took place in the Peninsula never came close to resembling rebellion, and they did not occupy the Prophet or raise in him any apprehension for the future. The dominion of the new religion had firmly spread over all parts of the Peninsula; all faces were turned to the living and eternal God, and all hearts truly believed in the One, the Almighty.
The Prophetic Pretenders
It was natural, therefore, that the pretenders to prophethood who arose at the time were not the object of anxiety or care on Muhammad’s part. True, some of the tribes in the outlying distances hastened to listen to any pretender, especially after they had heard of the Prophet of God and of the success of his mission. Obviously, such tribes wished they had the same good fortune as the Prophet’s tribe, Quraysh. Precisely because of their distance from Makkah and from the headquarters of the new religion, such tribes did not yet fully absorb the new religion. However, this new religion, this honest and candid call to God, struck its roots firmly everywhere else. To resist it would not be easy. The anecdotes of Muhammad’s travails and sacrifices for the sake of his mission had already spread to the horizons, and everyone knew that none but Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah was capable of such sacrifice. Every false pretension, however, must sooner or later be exposed; and no pretender to prophethood can meet with any long lasting success. Tulayhah, for instance, the leader of Banu Asad and one of the greatest war heroes, a real lord of the desert, pretended that he, too, was a prophet and an apostle. He claimed that his true prophesying about the exact location of water when his people were lost in the desert, and almost perished from thirst, was the proof of his prophethood. But he remained afraid of contradicting Muhammad or withdrawing his loyalty to him as long as the Prophet lived. He therefore rebelled only after Muhammad’s death. It was Ibn al Walid that led the Muslim forces in suppressing the rebellion of Tulayhah. Upon his defeat, Tulayhah once more joined the ranks of Islam and henceforth led, a virtuous life. On the other hand, neither Musaylimah not al Aswad al ‘Ansi fared any better than Tulaybah as long as the Prophet lived. The former sent to the Prophet-may God’s blessing be upon Him-a message saying, “I, too, am a prophet like you. To us belongs half the earth, and to Quraysh belongs the other half, if Quraysh were only just.” When Musaylimah’s two messengers delivered this message of their master to Muhammad, the Prophet told them that, were it not for the conventional security granted to messengers, he would have ordered them executed. He then asked them to convey to Musaylimah the reply that Muhammad heard his message and realized its lies. The earth belongs to none but God, and God grants it to whomsoever He chooses among His worthy and righteous servants. Peace belongs to the rightguided.”
As for al Aswad al ‘Ansi, the Governor of Yaman after the death of Badhan, he began to practice magic and to call people to believe in him until he had achieved a measure of strength. Then he marched from the south toward Yaman and expelled Muhammad’s governors from the territory. He marched on Najran and killed its governor, the son of Badhan who inherited the office from his father. Al Aswad then married the widow of the fallen ruler and brought the whole area under his dominion. All this, however, did not worry Muhammad nor did it call, in his judgment, for more than a word to his governors and agents in Yaman to pull al Aswad down. The Muslims of the area fulfilled the command of the Prophet by themselves, turned- the tables on al Aswad and ended his regime. And it was his own wife who put an end to his life in vengeance for the blood of her first husband.
The Prophet’s Concern for the Northern Front
Muhammad’s care and preoccupation, therefore, were directed toward the north, not toward the south of Arabia. This was especially so following his return from the “Farewell Pilgrimage.” In fact, ever since the campaign of Mu’tah, when the Muslims returned without conquest after the clever and strategic withdrawal of Khalid ibn al Walid, Muhammad had been giving to Byzantium a good portion of his thought and careful planning. He was convinced that Muslim power at the northern frontier with al Sham should be firmly established if those who had been evacuated from the Peninsula and who had emigrated to Palestine were not to return and attack again. It was in consequence of this care that Muhammad mobilized a very massive army when he heard that the Byzantines were about to advance on the northern frontier, and he himself led that army all the way to Tabuk. The Byzantines had withdrawn toward the interior upon hearing of the march of that army. This notwithstanding, Muhammad continued to plan for the day when the lords of Christendom who dominated the world through Byzantium might be stirred to attack in resentment against those who had brought Christianity to an end in Najran and other places in Arabia. Consequently, the Muslims did not stay long in Madinah following their return from the farewell Pilgrimage in Makkah. The Prophet had immediately ordered the mobilization of a large army and commanded it to march on al Sham. That is why he sent along with that army a nu
mber of the elders of Islam, the earliest Muhajirun, among whom were Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. That is why he gave the command of the army to Usamah ibn Zayd ibn Harithah.
The Prophet’s Counsel to Usamah
Usamah ibn Zayd, the commander of the army, was then a young man hardly twenty years of age. His appointment and precedence over the elders of Islam, the early Muhajirun, and greater companions of the Prophet, would have caused quite a stir among the people had it not been for everybody’s genuine faith in the Prophet’s judgment and calculation. By appointing him, the Prophet sought to place him in the same command in which his father fell in the campaign of Mu’tah. The Prophet had wanted to give Usamah cause for pride in victory tantamount to a reward for the martyrdom of his father. Moreover, such an appointment was sure to stir within the soul of the youth the greatest resolution, determination, and bravery. It was also meant as an example for the youths of Islam to carry the burden of great responsibility. Muhammad commanded Usamah and his army to enter the approaches of al Balqa’ and al Darum in Palestine, in the vicinity of Mu’tah where his father had fallen. He also commanded him to fight the enemy in the early hours of dawn, to fight them fearlessly, and to shower them with fire. He also commanded him to surprise the enemy, never to let the news of his advance reach them beforehand. Once victory was achieved, Usamah was to return home quickly and not to extend his stay in those lands.
The Life of Muhammad Page 67