Guillaume--Life of Muhammad.pdf - Radical Truth

18z
'30 The Life of Muhammad
Rise and pray to your Lord and rub yourselves
Against the comers of this house between the mountains.
He gave you a convincing test l
On the day of Abu Yaksum, leader of the squadrons,
His cavalry was in the plains,
His infantry upon the passes of the hills.
When the help of the Lord of the throne reached you. .
His armies repulsed them, pelting them, and covenng them wIth
dust;
Quickly they turned tail in flight
And none but a few returned to his people from the army.
If you perish, we shall perish, and the fairs by which men live.
These are the words of a truthful man (176).
Ijakim b. Umayya b.Ijaritha b. al-Auq"" al-Sulami,an allyofB. Umayya
who had become a Muslim, composed the following verses to turn hIS
people from their determined enmity to the apostle. He was a man of
good birth and authority.
Does one who says what is right stick to it,
And is there one lilltening who would be angry at the truth 1
Does the chief whose tribe hope to profit from him
Gather friends from near and far 1
I disown all but Him who controls the wind
And I abandon you for ever.
I submit myself utterly to God
Though friends threaten me with terror.
The Life of Muhammad 13 1
mode of life foolish, insulted their forefathers, reviled their religion,
divided the community, and cursed their gods. What they had borne Was
past all bearing, or words to that effect.'
While they were thus discussing him the apostle came towards them and
kissed the black stone, then he passed them as he walked round the temple.
As he passed they said some injurious things about him. This I coald see
from his expression. He went on and as he passed them the second time
they attacked him similarly. This I could see from his expression. Then
he passed the third time, and they did the same. He stopped and said,
'Will you listen to me 0 Qurayshl By him who holds my life in His hand
I bring you slaughter. >I This word so struck the people that not one of
them but stood silent and still; even one who had hitherto been most
violent spoke to him in the kindest way possible, saying, 'Depart, 0 Abu'l­
Qiisim, for by God you are not violent.' So the apostle went away, and on
the morrow they assembled in the Ijijr, I being there too, and they asked
one another if they remembered what had taken place between them and
the apostle so that when he openly said something unpleasant they let him
alone. While they were talking thus the apostle appeared, and they leaped
upon him as one man and encircled him, saying, I Are you the one who said
so-and·so against our gods and OUf religion?' The apostle said, 'Yes, I am
the one who said that.' And I saw one of them seize his robe. Then Abu
Bakr interposed himself weeping and saying, 'Would you kill a man for
saying Allah is my Lord I' Then they left him. That is the worst that I
ever saw Quraysh do to him.
One of the family of Umm Kulthum, Abu Bakr's daughter, told me that
she said, 'Abu Bakr returned that day with the hair of his head torn. He
was a very hairy man and they had dragged him along by his beard' (177).
HOW THE APOSTLE WAS TREATED BY HIS OWN PEOPLE
When the Quraysh became distressed by the trouble caused by the enmity
between them lUld the apostle and those of their people who accepted .his
teaching, they stirred up against him foolish men who calle? h,m a har,
insulted him and accused him of being a poet, a sorcerer, a dlvmer, and of
being posses~ed. However, the apos:le cont~ued to pr~c!aim w~at. G.od
had ordered him to proclaim, conceahng not~mg, and excltmgtheir dlshke
by contemning their religion, forsaking their idols, and leavmg them to
their unbelief.
Yahya b. 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr on the authority of his father from 'Abdullah
b: 'Amr b. al-'~ told me that the latter was asked what was the worst
way in which Quraysh showed their enmity to the apostle. He ~~plied: 'I
was with them one day when the notables had gathered m the IjIJr and ~he
apostle was mentioned. They said that they had never known anything
like the trouble they had endured from this fellow; he had declared their
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For this and the following lines, except the last, see p. 39 of the Arabic text.
ij:AMZA ACCEPTS ISLAM
A man of Aslum, who had a good memory, told me that Abu Jabl passed
by the apostle at al-$afa, insulted him and beltaved most offensively, speaking
spitefully of his religion and trying to bring him into disrepute. The
apostle did not speak to him. Now a freedwoman, belonging to 'Abdullah
b. Jud'an b. 'Amr b. Ka'b b. Sa'd b. Taym b. Murra, was in her house
listening to what went on. When he went away he betook himself to the
assembly of Quraysh at the Ka'ba and sat there. Within a little while
Ijamza b. 'Abdu'I-Mullalib arrived, with his bow hanging from his shoulder,
returning from the chase, for he was fond of hunting and used to go out
shooting. When he came back from a hunt he never went home until he
had circumambulated the Ka'ba, and that done when he passed by an 185
assembly of the Quraysh he stopped and saluted and talked with them. He
Was the strongest man of Quraysh, and the most unyielding. The apostle
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Dhabb-.