Guillaume--Life of Muhammad.pdf - Radical Truth

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The Life of Muhammad
apostle told me to go and dig the holes for them, saying that when I had
'oP done so he would put them in with his own hand. Helped by my companions
I dug the holes and came and told him; so we all went out together,
and as we brought him the palm shoots he planted them with his own hand;
and by God, not one of them died. ThUll I had delivered the palm-trees,
but the money was still owing. Now the apostle had been given a piece of
gold as large as a hen's egg from one of the mines' and he summoned me
and told me to take it and pay my debt with it. "How far will this relieve
me of my debt, 0 Apostle of God I" I said. "Take it," he replied, "for
God will pay your debt with it." So I took it and weighed it out to them,
and by God, it weighed forty okes, and so I paid my debt with it and Salman
was free. I took part with the Apostle in the battle of the Ditch ... a
free man and thereafter I was at every other battle.'
Yazid b. Abu J:labib from a man of 'Abdu'l-Qays from Salman told me
that the latter said: 'When I said, "How far will this relieve me of my
debt I" the apostle took it and turned it over upon his tongue, then he said,
"Take it and pay them in full" ; so I paid them in full, forty okes."
'~im b. 'Vmar b. Qatlida on the authority of a trustw0!1flY informant
from 'Vmar b. 'Abdu'l-:Aziz b. Marwan said that he was told that Salman
the Persian told the apostle that his master in 'Ammuriya told him to go to
a certain place in Syria where there was a man who lived between two
thickets. Every year as he used to go from one to the other, the sick used
to stand in his way and everyone he prayed for was healed. He said, 'Ask
him about this religion which you seek, for he can tell you ofit.' So I went
on until I came to the place I had been told of, and I found that people
had gathered there with their sick until he came out to them that night
passing from one thicket to the other. The people came to him with their
sick and everyone he prayed for was healed. They prevented me from
getting to him so that I could not approach him until he entered th~
'43 thicket he was making for, but I took hold of his shoulder. He asked me
who I was as he turned to me and I said, 'God have mercy on you, tell me
about the J:I.nifiya, the religion of Abraham.' He replied, 'You are asking
about something men do not inquire of today; the time has come near
when a prophet will be sent with this religion from the people of the
/.Iaram. Go to him, for he will bring you to it.' Then he went into the
thicket. The apostle said to Salman, 'If you have told melthe truth, you
met Jesus the son of Mary.'
FOUR MEN WHO BROKE WITH POLYTHEISM
One day when the Quraysh had assembled' on a feast day to venerate and
circumambulate the idol to which they offered sacrifices, this being a feast
I For an interesting account of the reopening of an ancient mine in the Wajh~Yanbu' area
of the Hijaz see K. S. TwitChell, Saudi Arabia, Princeton, 1947, pp. 159 f. Kufic inscrip~
tiona said to date from A.D. 750, were found there, and this may well have been one of'King
So~·.mines'. :& The oke being roughly an ounce, • miracle is implied.
The Life of Muhammad 99
which they held annually, four men drew apart secretly and agreed to keep
their counsel in the bonds of friendship. They were (i) Waraqa b. Naufal
b. Asad b. 'Abdu'l-'Vzzii b. Qusayy b. Kiliib b. Murra b. Ka'b b. Lu'ayy;
(ii) 'Vbaydullah b. Ja\>sh b. Ri'iib b. Yamar b. !;iabra b. Murra b. Kabir
b. Ghanm b. Dudiin b. Asad b. Khuzayma, whose mother was Vmayma
d. 'Abdu'l-Munalib; (iii) 'Vthman b. aI-J:luwayrith b. Asad b. 'Abdu'l­
'Vzzii b. Qusayy; and (iv) Zayd b. 'Amr b. Nufayl b. 'Abdu'l-'Vzzii b.
'Abdullah b. Quq b. Riyii\>' b. Razii\> b. 'Adiyy b. Ka'b b. Lu'ayy. They
were of the opinion that their people had corrupted the religion of their
father Abraham, and that the stone they went round was of no account; it
could neither hear, nor see, nor hurt, nor help. 'Find for yourselves a
religion,' they said; 'for by God you have none.' So they went their
several ways in the landa, seeking the J:lanifiya, the religion of Abraham.
Waraqa attached himself to Christianity and studied its scriptures until
he had thoroughly mastered them. 'Vbaydullah went on searching until
Islam came; then he migrated with the Muslims to Abyssinia takiog with
him his wife who was a Muslim, Vmm J:labiba, d. Abu Sufyan. When he
arrived there he adopted Christianity, parted from Islain, and died a
Christian in Abyssinia.
Muhammad b. Ja'far b. al-Zubayr told me that when he had become a
Christian 'Ubaydullah as he passed the prophet's companions who were there
used to say: 'We see clearly, but your eyes are only half open,' i.e. 'We
see, but you are only trying to see and cannot see yet.' He used the word
fa'fa' because when a puppy tries to open its eyes to see, it only half sees.
The other word faqqaIJa meaas to open the eyes. Mter his death the
apostle married his widow Vmm J:labiba. Muhammad b. 'Ali b. J:lusayn
told me that the apostle sent 'Amr b. Vmayya al-Oamri to the Negus to ask
forh er and he married him to her. He gave her as a dowry, on the apostle's
behalf, four hundred dinars. Muhammad b. 'Ali said, 'We think that
'Abdu'l-Malik b. Marwan fixed the maximum dowry of women at four
hundred dinars because of this precedent.' The man who handed her over
to the prophet was Khiilid b. Sa'id b. aI-'As'
'Vthman b. al-J:luwayrith went to the Byzantine emperor and became
a Christian. He was given high office there (If2).
Zayd b. 'Amr stayed as he was: he accepted neither Judaism nor Christianity.
He abandoned the religion of his people and abstained from idols,
animals that had died, blood, and things offered to idols.' He forbade the
killing ofinfant daughters, saying that he worshipped the God of Abraham,
and he publicly rebuked his people for their practices.
Hishiim b. 'Vrwa from his father on the authority of his mother Asmii'
d. Abu Bakr said that she saw Zayd as a very old man leaning his back'on
the Kaba and saying, '0 Quraysh, By Him in whose hand is the soul of
I So C.
• ,:& The influence of the Jewish fonnula, taken over by early Christianity (Acts 15. 29) is
clear.