Life-of-Muhammad

Life of Muhammad sa 139LETTER TO CHIEF OF BAHRAINThe Prophet sa also sent a letter to Mundhir Taimi,Chief of Bahrain. This letter was carried by ‘Ala’ ibnHadrami ra . The text of this letter has been lost. When itreached this Chief, he believed, and wrote back to theProphet sa saying that he and many of his friends andfollowers had decided to join Islam. Some, however, haddecided to stay outside. He also said that there weresome Jews and Magians living under him. What was heto do about them?The Prophet sa wrote again to this Chief thus:I am glad at your acceptance of Islam. Your duty is to obeythe delegates and messengers whom I should send to you.Whoever obeys them, obeys me. The messenger who tookmy letter to you praised you to me, and assured me of thesincerity of your belief. I have prayed to God for yourpeople. Try, therefore, to teach them the ways andpractices of Islam. Protect their property. Do not letanyone have more than four wives. The sins of the past areforgiven. As long as you are good and virtuous you willcontinue to rule over your people. As for Jews andMagians, they have only to pay a tax. Do not, therefore,make any other demands on them. As for the generalpopulation, those who do not have land enough to maintainthem should have four dirhams each, and some clothto wear (Zurqani and Khamis).The Prophet sa also wrote to the King of ‘Uman, theChief of Yamama, the King of Ghassan, the Chief of BaniNahd, a tribe of Yemen, the Chief of Hamdan, anothertribe of Yemen, the Chief of Bani ‘Alim and the Chief ofthe Hadrami tribe. Most of them became Muslims.These letters show how perfect was the Prophet's safaith in God. They also show that from the verybeginning the Prophet sa believed that he had been sentby God not to any one people or territory, but to all thepeoples of the world. It is true that these letters werereceived by their addressees in different ways. Some ofthem accepted Islam at once. Others treated the letters