# The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930)/Introduction

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London: Alfred A. Knopf Ltd, pages 1–19
INTRODUCTION
PART I
At Mecca
Muhammad, son of Abdullah, son of Abdul Mutallib, of the tribe of Qureysh, was born at Mecca fifty-three years before the Hijrah.The Prophet's birth. His father died before he was born, and he was protected first by his grandfather, Abdul Mutallib, and, after his grandfather’s death, by his uncle, Abû Tâlib. As a young boy he travelled with his uncle in the merchants’ caravan to Syria, and some years afterwards made the same journey in the service of a wealthy widow named Khadîjah. So faithfully did he transact the widow's business, and so excellent was the report of his behaviour which she received from her old servant who had accompanied him, that she soon afterwards married her young agent; and the marriage proved a very happy one, though she was fifteen years older than he was.His marriage Throughout the twenty-six years of their life together he remained devoted to her; and after her death, when he took other wives he always mentioned her with the greatest love and reverence. This marriage gave him rank among the notables of Mecca, while his conduct earned for him the surname Al-Amîn, the "trustworthy."
The Meccans claimed descent from Abraham through Ishmael, and tradition stated that their temple, the Ka'bah, had been built by Abraham for the worship of the One God. It was still called the House of Allah, but the chief objects of worship there were a number of idols which were called daughters of Allah and intercessors. The few who felt disgust at this idolatry, which had prevailed for centuries, longed for the religion of Abraham and tried to find out what had been its teaching.The Ḥunafa Such seekers of the truth were known as Ḥunafa (sing. Hanîf), a word originally meaning "those who turn away" (from the existing idol-worship), but coming in the end to ​have the sense of "upright" or "by nature upright," because such persons held the way of truth to be right conduct. These Ḥunafa did not form a community. They were the agnostics of their day, each seeking truth by the light of his own inner consciousness. Muhammad son of Abdullah became one of these. It was his practice to retire with his family for a month of every year to a cave in the desert for meditation. His place of retreat was Ḥirâ, a desert hill not far from Mecca, and his chosen month was Ramaḍân, the month of heat. It was there one night toward the end of his quiet month that the first revelation came to him when he was forty years old.The first revelation He was asleep or in a trance when he heard a voice say: "Read!" He said: "I cannot read." The voice again said: "Read!" He said: "I cannot read." A third time the voice, more terrible, commanded: "Read!" He said: "What can I read?" The voice said:
    "Read: In the name of thy Lord Who createth.
    "Createth man from a clot.
    "Read: And it is thy Lord the Most Bountiful
    "Who teacheth by the pen,
    "Teacheth man that which he knew not."
When he awoke the words remained "as if inscribed upon his heart." He went out of the cave on to the hillside and heard the same awe-inspiring voice say: "O Muhammad! Thou art Allah's messenger, and I am Gabriel." Then he raised his eyes and saw the angel, in the likeness of a man, standing in the sky above the horizon. And again the dreadful voice said: "O Muhammad! Thou art Allah's messenger, and I am Gabriel."The vision of Mt. Ḥirâ Muhammad (God bless and keep him!) stood quite still, turning away his face from the brightness of the vision, but whithersoever he might turn his face, there always stood the angel confronting him. He remained thus a long while till at length the angel vanished, when he returned in great distress of mind to his wife Khadîjah. She did her best to reassure him, saying that his conduct had been such that Allah would not let a harmful spirit come to him and that it was her hope that he was to become the Prophet of his people. On their return to Mecca she took him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Naufal, a very old man, "who knew the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians," who declared his belief that ​he heavenly messenger who came to Moses of old had come to Muhammad, and that he was chosen as the Prophet of his people.
To understand the reason of the Prophet's diffidence and his extreme distress of mind after the vision of Mt. Ḥîra, it must be remembered that the Ḥunafa, of whom he had been one, sought true religion in the natural and regarded with distrust the intercourse with spirits of which men "avid of the Unseen" sorcerers and soothsayers and even poets, boasted in those days.His distress of mind Moreover, he was a man of humble and devout intelligence, a lover of quiet and solitude, and the very thought of being chosen out of all mankind to face mankind, alone, with such a Message, appalled him at the first. Recognition of the Divine nature of the call he had received involved a change in his whole mental outlook sufficiently disturbing to a sensitive and honest mind, and also the forsaking of his quiet, honoured way of life. The early biographers tell how his wife Khadîjah "tried the spirit" which came to him and proved it to be good, and how, with the continuance of the revelations and the conviction that they brought, he at length accepted the tremendous task imposed on him, becoming filled with an enthusiasm of obedience which justifies his proudest title of "The Slave of Allah."
The words which came to him when in a state of trance are held sacred by the Muslims and are never confounded with those which he uttered when no physical change was apparent in him. The former are the Sacred Book; the latter the Ḥadîth or Sunnah of the Prophet.The Koran or "Reading" And because the angel on Mt. Ḥira bade him "Read!"—insisted on his "Reading" though he was illiterate—the Sacred Book is known as Al-Qur'ân, "The Reading," the Reading of the man who knew not how to read.
For the first three years, or rather less, of his Mission, the Prophet preached only to his family and his intimate friends, while the people of Mecca as a whole regarded him as one who had become a little mad. The first of all his converts was his wife Khadîjah, the second his first cousin Ali, whom he had adopted, the third his servant Zeyd, a former slave.First converts His old friend Abû Bakr also was among those early converts with some of his slaves and dependents.
​At the end of the third year the Prophet received the command to "arise and warn," whereupon he began to preach in public, pointing out the wretched folly of idolatry in face of the tremendous laws of day and night, of life and death, of growth and decay, which manifest the power of Allah and attest His sovereignty.Beginning of persecution It was then, when he began to speak against their gods, that Qureysh became actively hostile, persecuting his poorer disciples, mocking and insulting him. The one consideration which prevented them from killing him was fear of the blood-vengeance of the clan to which his family belonged. Strong in his inspiration, the Prophet went on warning, pleading, threatening, while Qureysh did all they could to ridicule his teaching, and deject his followers.
The converts of the first four years were mostly humble folk unable to defend themselves against oppression.The flight to Abyssinia So cruel was the persecution they endured that the Prophet advised all who could possibly contrive to do so to emigrate to a Christian country, Abyssinia. And still in spite of persecution and emigration the little company of Muslims grew in number. Qureysh were seriously alarmed. The idol-worship at the Ka'bah, the holy place to which all Arabia made pilgrimage, ranked for them, as guardians of the Ka'bah, as first among their vested interests. At the season of the pilgrimage they posted men on all the roads to warn the tribes against the madman who was preaching in their midst. They tried to bring the Prophet to a compromise, offering to accept his religion if he would so modify it as to make room for their gods as intercessors with Allah, offering to make him their king if he would give up attacking idolatry; and, when their efforts at negotiation failed, they went to his uncle Abû Tâlib, offering to give him the best of their young men in place of Muhammad, to give him all that he desired, if only he would let them kill Muhammad and have done with him. Abû Tâlib refused. The exasperation of the idolaters was increased by the conversion of Omar, one of their stalwarts.Conversion of Omar They grew more and more embittered, till things came to such a pass that they decided to ostracise the Prophet's whole clan, idolaters who protected him as well as Muslims who believed in him. Their chief men caused a document to be drawn up to the effect that none of them or those belonging to them would hold any intercourse with that clan or sell to them or buy ​from them. This they all signed, and it was deposited in the Ka'bah.The Saḥîfah or deed of ostracism Then, for three years, the Prophet was shut up with all his kinsfolk in their stronghold which was situated in one of the gorges which run down to Mecca. Only at the time of pilgrimage could he go out and preach, or did any of his kinsfolk dare to go into the city.
At length some kinder hearts among Qureysh grew weary of the boycott of old friends and neighbours.Destruction of the Saḥîfah They managed to have the document which had been placed in the Ka'bah brought out for reconsideration; when it was found that all the writing had been destroyed by white ants, except the words Bismika Allâhumma ("In thy name, O Allah"). When the elders saw that marvel the ban was removed, and the Prophet was again free to go about the city. But meanwhile the opposition to his preaching had grown rigid. He had little success among the Meccans, and an attempt which he made to preach in the city of Tâ'îf was a failure. His Mission was a failure, judged by worldly standards, when, at the season of the yearly pilgrimage, he came upon a little group of men who heard him gladly.The men from Yathrib
They came from Yathrib, a city more than two hundred miles away, which has since become world-famous as Al-Madînah, "the City" par excellence. At Yathrib there were Jewish tribes with learned rabbis, who had often spoken to the pagans of a Prophet soon to come among the Arabs, with whom, when he came, the Jews would destroy the pagans as the tribes of A'âd and Thamûd had been destroyed of old for their idolatry. When the men from Yathrib saw Muhammad they recognised him as the Prophet whom the Jewish rabbis had described to them. On their return to Yathrib they told what they had seen and heard, with the result that at the next season of pilgrimage a deputation came from Yathrib purposely to meet the Prophet. These swore allegiance to him in the first pact of Al-'Aqabah, the oath they took being that which was afterwards exacted from women converts, with no mention of fighting.First pact of Al-'Aqabah They then returned to Yathrib with a Muslim teacher in their company, and soon "there was not a house in Yathrib wherein there was not mention of the messenger of Allah."
In the following year, at the time of pilgrimage, seventy-three Muslims from Yathrib came to Mecca to vow allegiance to the Prophet and invite him to their city.Second pact of Al-'Aqabah At Al-'Aqabah, by night, swore to defend him as they would defend their own wives and ​children. It was then that the Hijrah, the Flight to Yathrib, was decided.
Soon the Muslims who were in a position to do so began to sell their property and to leave Mecca unobtrusively. Qureysh had wind of what was going on. They hated Muhammad in their midst, but dreaded what he might become if he escaped from them. It would be better, they considered, to destroy him now.Plot to murder the Prophet The death of Abû Tâlib had removed his chief protector; but still they had to reckon with the vengeance of his clan upon the clan of the murderer. They cast lots and chose a slayer out of every clan. All these were to attack the Prophet simultaneously and strike together, as one man. Thus his blood would be on all Qureysh. It was at this time (Ibn Khaldûn asserts, and it is the only satisfactory explanation of what happened afterwards) that the Prophet received the first revelation ordering him to make war upon his persecutors "until persecution is no more and religion is for Allah only."
The last of the able Muslims to remain in Mecca were Abû Bakr, Ali and the Prophet himself. Abû Bakr, a man of wealth, had bought two riding-camels and retained a guide in readiness for the Flight. The Prophet only waited God's command. It came at length. It was the night appointed for his murder. The slayers were before his house. He gave his cloak to Ali, bidding him lie down on the bed so that anyone looking in might think Muhammad lay there. The slayers were to strike him as he came out of the house, whether in the night or early morning. He knew they would not injure Ali. Then he left the house and, it is said, a blindness fell upon the would-be murderers so that he put dust on their heads as he passed by—without their knowing it. He went to Abû Bakr's house and called to him, and they two went together to a cavern in the desert hills and hid there till the hue and cry was past, Abû Bakr's son and daughter and his herdsman bringing them food and tidings after nightfall.THE HIJRAH (June 20th, 622 A.D.) Once a search-party came quite near them in their hiding place, and Abû Bakr was afraid; but the Prophet said: "Fear not! Allah is with us." Then, when the coast was clear, Abû Bakr had the riding-camels and the guide brought to the cave one night, and they set out on the long ride to Yathrib.
After travelling for many days by unfrequented paths, the fugitives ​reached a suburb of Yathrib, whither, for weeks past, the people of the city had been going every morning, watching for the Prophet till the heat drove them to shelter. The travellers arrived in the heat of the day, after the watchers had retired. It was a Jew who called out to the Muslims in derisive tones that he whom they expected had at last arrived.
Such was the Hijrah, the Flight from Mecca to Yathrib, which counts as the beginning of the Muslim era. The thirteen years of humiliation, of persecution, of seeming failure, of prophecy still unfulfilled, were over. The ten years of success, the fullest that has ever crowned one man's endeavour, had begun. The Hijrah makes a clear division in the story of the Prophet's Mission, which is evident in the Koran. Till then he had been a preacher only. Thenceforth he was the ruler of a State, at first a very small one, which grew in ten years to the empire of Arabia. The kind of guidance which he and his people needed after the Hijrah was not the same as that "which they had before needed. The Madînah sûrahs differ, therefore, from the Meccan sûrahs. The latter give guidance to the individual soul and to the Prophet as warner; the former give guidance to a growing social and political community and to the Prophet as example, lawgiver and reformer.
For classification the Meccan sûrahs are here subdivided into four groups: Very Early, Early, Middle and Late.Classification of Meccan sûrahs Though the historical data and traditions are insufficient for a strict chronological grouping, the very early sûrahs are, roughly speaking, those revealed before the beginning of the persecution; the early sûrahs those revealed between the beginning of the persecution and the conversion of Omar; the middle sûrahs those revealed between the conversion of Omar and the destruction of the deed of ostracism; and the late sûrahs those revealed between the raising of the ban of ostracism and the Hijrah.
PART II
At Al-Madînah
In the first year of his reign at Yathrib the Prophet made a solemn treaty with the Jewish tribes, which secured to them equal rights of citizenship and full religious liberty in return for their support of the new State.The Jews and Hypocrites But their idea of a Prophet was one who would give them dominion, not one who made the Jews who followed him brothers of every Arab who might happen to believe as they did. When they found that they could not use the Prophet for their own ends, they tried to shake his faith in his Mission and to seduce his followers; behaviour in which they were encouraged secretly by some professing Muslims who considered they had reason to resent the Prophet's coming, since it robbed them of their local influence. In the Madînah sûrahs there is frequent mention of these Jews and Hypocrites.
Till then the Qiblah (the place toward which the Muslims turn their face in prayer) had been Jerusalem.The Qiblah The Jews imagined that the choice implied a leaning toward Judaism and that the Prophet stood in need of their instruction. He received command to change the Qiblah from Jerusalem to the Ka'bah at Mecca. The whole first part of sûrah II relates to this Jewish controversy.
The Prophet's first concern as ruler was to establish public worship and lay down the constitution of the State; but he did not forget that Qureysh had sworn to make an end of his religion, nor that he had received command to fight against them till they ceased from persecution.The first expeditions After he had been twelve months in Yathrib several small expeditions went out, led either by the Prophet himself or some other of the fugitives from Mecca, for the purpose of tions reconnoitring and of dissuading other tribes from siding with Qureysh. These are generally represented as warlike but, considering their weakness and the fact that they did not result in fighting, they can hardly have been that, though it is certain that they ​went out ready to resist attack. It is noteworthy that in those expeditions only fugitives from Mecca were employed, never natives of Yathrib; the reason being (if we accept Ibn Khaldûn's theory, and there is no other explanation) that the command to wage war had been revealed to the Prophet at Mecca after the Yathrib men had sworn their oath of allegiance at Al-'Aqabah, and in their absence. Their oath foresaw fighting in mere defence, not fighting in the field. Blood was shed and booty taken in only one of those early expeditions, and then it was against the Prophet's orders. One purpose of those expeditions may have been to accustom the Meccan Muslims to going out in warlike trim. For thirteen years they had been strict pacifists, and it is clear, from several passages of the Koran, that many of them, including, it may be, the Prophet himself, hated the idea of fighting even in self-defence and had to be inured to it.
In the second year of the Hijrah the Meccan merchants' caravan was returning from Syria as usual by a road which passed not far from Yathrib. As its leader Abû Sufyân approached the territory of Yathrib he heard of the Prophet's design to capture the caravan. The campaign of Badr At once he sent a camel-rider on to Mecca, who arrived in a worn-out state and shouted frantically from the valley to Qureysh to hasten to the rescue unless they wished to lose both wealth and honour. A force a thousand strong was soon on its way to Yathrib; less, it would seem, with the hope of saving the caravan than with the idea of punishing the raiders, since the Prophet might have taken the caravan before the relief force started from Mecca. Did the Prophet ever intend to raid the caravan? In Ibn Hishâm, in the account of the Tabûk expedition, it is stated that the Prophet on that one occasion did not hide his real objective as had been his custom in other campaigns. The caravan was the pretext in the campaign of Badr, the real objective was the Meccan army. He had received command to fight his persecutors, and promise of victory; he was prepared to venture against any odds, as was well seen at Badr. But the Muslims, disinclined and ill-equipped for war, would have despaired if they had known from the first that they were to face a well-armed force three times their number.
The army of Qureysh had advanced more than half-way to Yathrib before the Prophet set out. All three parties—the army of Qureysh, ​the Muslim army and the caravan—were heading for the water of Badr. Abû Sufyân, the leader of the caravan, heard from one of his scouts that the Muslims were near the water, and turned back to the coast-plain. And the Muslims met the army of Qureysh by the water of Badr. Before the battle the Prophet was prepared still further to increase the odds against him. He gave leave to all the Ansâr (natives of Yathrib) to return to their homes unreproached, since their oath did not include the duty of fighting in the field; but the Ansâr were only hurt by the suggestion that they could possibly desert him at a time of danger. The battle went at first against the Muslims, but ended in a signal victory for them.
The victory of Badr gave the Prophet new prestige among the Arab tribes; but thenceforth there was the feud of blood between Qureysh and the Islamic State in addition to the old religious hatred. Those passages of the Koran which refer to the battle of Badr give warning of much greater struggles yet to come.
In fact in the following year, an army of three thousand came from Mecca to destroy Yathrib. The Prophet's first idea was merely to defend the city, a plan of which Abdullah ibn Ubeyy, the leader of "the Hypocrites" (or lukewarm Muslims), strongly approved. But the men who had fought at Badr and believed that God would help them against any odds thought it a shame that they should linger behind walls. The Prophet, approving of their faith and zeal, gave way to them, and set out with an army of one thousand men toward Mt. Uḥud, where the enemy were encamped.The battle on Mt. Uḥud Abdullah ibn Ubeyy was much offended by the change of plan. He thought it unlikely that the Prophet really meant to give battle in conditions so adverse to the Muslims, and was unwilling to take part in a mere demonstration designed to flatter the fanatical extremists. So he withdrew with his men, a fourth of the army.
Despite the heavy odds, the battle on Mt. Uḥud would have been an even greater victory than that at Badr for the Muslims but for the disobedience of a band of fifty archers whom the Prophet set to guard a pass against the enemy cavalry. Seeing their comrades victorious, these men left their post, fearing to lose their share of the spoils. The cavalry of Qureysh rode through the gap and fell on the exultant Muslims. The Prophet himself was wounded and the cry arose that ​he was slain, till someone recognised him and shouted that he was still living, a shout to which the Muslims rallied. Gathering round the Prophet, they retreated, leaving many dead on the hillside.
On the following day the Prophet again sallied forth with what remained of the army, that Qureysh might hear that he was in the field and so might perhaps be deterred from attacking the city. The stratagem succeeded, thanks to the behaviour of a friendly Bedawi, who met the Muslims and conversed with them and afterwards met the army of Qureysh. Questioned by Abû Sufyân, he said that Muhammad was in the field, stronger than ever, and thirsting for revenge for yesterday's affair. On that information, Abû Sufyân decided to return to Mecca.
The reverse which they had suffered on Mt. Uḥud lowered the prestige of the Muslims with the Arab tribes and also with the Jews of Yathrib. Tribes which had inclined toward the Muslims now inclined toward Qureysh. The Prophet's followers were attacked and murdered when they went abroad in little companies.Massacre of Muslims Khubeyb, one of his envoys, was captured by a desert tribe and sold to Qureysh, who tortured him to death in Mecca publicly. And the Jews, despite their treaty, now hardly concealed their hostility. They even went so far in flattery of Qureysh as to declare the religion of the pagan Arabs superior to Al-Islâm. The Prophet was obliged to take punitive action against some of them. The tribe of Banî Naḍîr were besieged in their strong towers, subdued and forced to emigrate.Expulsion of Banî Naḍîr The Hypocrites had sympathised with the Jews and secretly egged them on.
In the fifth year of the Hijrah the idolaters made a great effort to destroy Al-Islâm in the War of the Clans or War of the Trench, as it is variously called;The War of the Trench when Qureysh with all their clans and the great desert tribe of Ghatafân with all their clans, an army of ten thousand men rode against Al-Madînah (Yathrib). The Prophet (by the advice of Salman the Persian, it is said) caused a deep trench to be dug before the city, and himself led the work of digging it. The army of the clans was stopped by the trench, a novelty in Arab warfare. It seemed impassable for cavalry, which formed their strength. They camped in sight of it and daily showered their arrows on its defenders. While the Muslims were awaiting the assault, news came that Banî Qureyẓah, a Jewish tribe of Yathrib which had till then been loyal, ​had gone over to the enemy. The case seemed desperate. But the delay caused by the trench had damped the ardour of the clans, and one who was secretly a Muslim managed to sow distrust between Qureysh and their Jewish allies, so that both hesitated to act. Then came a bitter wind from the sea, which blew for three days and nights so terribly that not a tent could be kept standing, not a fire lighted, not a pot boiled. The tribesmen were in utter misery. At length, one night the leader of Qureysh decided that the torment could be borne no longer and gave the order to retire. When Ghatafân awoke next morning they found Qureysh had gone and they too took up their baggage and retreated.
On the day of the return from the trench the Prophet ordered war on the treacherous Banî Qureyẓah, who, conscious of their guilt, had already taken to their towers of refuge.Punishment of Banî Qureyẓah After a siege of nearly a month they had to surrender unconditionally. They only begged that they might be judged by a member of the Arab tribe of which they were adherents. The Prophet granted their request. But the judge, upon whose favour they had counted, condemned their men to death, their women and children to slavery.
Early in the sixth year of the Hijrah the Prophet led a campaign against the Banî'l-Mustaliq, a tribe who were preparing to attack the Muslims.The slander against Ayeshah It was during the return from that campaign that Ayeshah, his young wife, was left behind and brought back to camp by a young soldier, an incident which gave rise to the scandal denounced in sûrah XXIV. It was on this campaign also that Abdullah ibn Ubeyy, the "Hypocrite" chief, said: "When we return to the city the mightier will soon expel the weaker" at sight of a quarrel between Muhâjirîn (immigrants from Mecca) and Ansâr (natives of Yathrib).
In the same year the Prophet had a vision in which he found himself entering the holy place at Mecca unopposed; therefore he determined to attempt the pilgrimage. Besides a number of Muslims from Yathrib (which we shall henceforth call Al-Madînah) he called upon the friendly Arabs, whose numbers had increased since the miraculous (as it was considered) discomfiture of the clans, to accompany him, but most of them did not respond. Attired as pilgrims, ​and taking with them the customary offerings, a company of fourteen hundred men journeyed to Mecca. As they drew near the holy valley they were met by a friend from the city, who warned the Prophet that Qureysh had put on their leopard-skins (the badge of valour) and had sworn to prevent his entering the sanctuary; their cavalry was on the road before him. On that, the Prophet ordered a detour through mountain gorges and the Muslims were tired out when they came down at last into the valley of Mecca and encamped at a spot called Al-Ḥudeybiyah; from thence he tried to open negotiations with Qureysh, explaining that he came only as a pilgrim.Al-Ḥudeybiyah The first messenger he sent towards the city was maltreated and his camel hamstrung. He returned without delivering his message. Qureysh on their side sent an envoy who was threatening in tone, and very arrogant. Another of their envoys was too familiar and had to be reminded sternly of the respect due to the Prophet. It was he who, on his return to the city, said: "I have seen Caesar and Chosroes in their pomp, but never have I seen a man honoured as Muhammad is honoured by his comrades."
The Prophet sought some messenger who would impose respect. Othmân was finally chosen because of his kinship with the powerful Umayyad family. While the Muslims were awaiting his return the news came that he had been murdered. It was then that the Prophet, sitting under a tree in Al-Ḥudeybiyah, took an oath from all his comrades that they would stand or fall together. After a while, however, it became known that Othmân had not been murdered. A troop which came out from the city to molest the Muslims in their camp were captured before they could do any hurt and brought before the Prophet, who forgave them on their promise to renounce hostility. Then proper envoys came from Qureysh. After some negotiation, the truce of Al-Ḥudeybiyah was signed.Truce of Al-Ḥudeybiyah For ten years there were to be no hostilities between the parties. The Prophet was to return to Al-Madînah without visiting the Ka'bah, but in the following year he might perform the pilgrimage with his comrades, Qureysh promising to evacuate Mecca for three days to allow of his doing so. Deserters from Qureysh to the Muslims during the period of the truce were to be returned; not so deserters from the Muslims to Qureysh. Any tribe or clan who wished to share in the treaty as ​allies of the Prophet might do so, and any tribe or clan who wished to share in the treaty as allies of Qureysh might do so.
There was dismay among the Muslims at these terms. They asked one another: "Where is the victory that we were promised?" It was during the return journey from Al-Ḥudeybiyah that the sûrah entitled "Victory" was revealed. This truce proved, in fact, to be the greatest victory that the Muslims had till then achieved. War had been a barrier between them and the idolaters, but now both parties met and talked together, and the new religion spread more rapidly. In the two years which elapsed between the signing of the truce and the fall of Mecca the number of converts was greater than the total number of all previous converts. The Prophet travelled to Al-Ḥudeybiyah with 1400 men. Two years later, when the Meccans broke the truce, he marched against them with an army of 10,000.
In the seventh year of the Hijrah the Prophet led a campaign against Kheybar, the stronghold of the Jewish tribes in North Arabia, which had become a hornets' nest of his enemies.The campaign of Kheybar The forts of Kheybar were reduced one by one, and the Jews of Kheybar became thenceforth tenants of the Muslims until the expulsion of the Jews from Arabia in the Caliphate of Omar. On the day when the last fort surrendered Ja'far son of Abû Tâlib, the Prophet's first cousin, arrived with all who remained of the Muslims who had fled to Abyssinia to escape from persecution in the early days. They had been absent from Arabia fifteen years. It was at Kheybar that a Jewess prepared for the Prophet poisoned meat, of which he only tasted a morsel without swallowing it, then warned his comrades that it was poisoned. One Muslim, who had already swallowed a mouthful, died immediately, and the Prophet himself, from the mere taste of it, derived the illness which eventually caused his death. The woman who had cooked the meat was brought before him. When she said that she had done it on account of the humiliation of her people, he forgave her.
In the same year the Prophet's vision was fulfilled: he visited the holy place at Mecca unopposed.Pilgrimage to Mecca In accordance with the terms of the truce the idolaters evacuated the city, and from the surrounding heights watched the procedure of the Muslims. At the end of the stipulated three days the chiefs of Qureysh sent to remind the Prophet ​that the time was up. He then withdrew, and the idolaters reoccupied the city.
In the eighth year of the Hijrah, hearing that the Byzantine emperor was gathering a force in Syria for the destruction of Al-Islâm, the Prophet sent three thousand men to Syria under the command of his freedman Zeyd.Mû'tah expedition The campaign was unsuccessful except that it impressed the Syrians with a notion of the reckless valour of the Muslims. The three thousand did not hesitate to join battle with a hundred thousand. When all the three leaders appointed by the Prophet had been killed, the survivors obeyed Khâlid ibn al-Walîd, who, by his strategy and courage, managed to preserve a remnant and return with them to Al-Madînah.
In the same year Qureysh broke the truce by attacking a tribe that was in alliance with the Prophet and massacring them even in the sanctuary at Mecca.Truce broken by Qureysh Afterwards they were afraid because of what they had done. They sent Abû Sufyân to Al-Madînah to ask for the existing treaty to be renewed and its term prolonged. They hoped that he would arrive before the tidings of the massacre. But a messenger from the injured tribe had been before him, and his embassy was fruitless.
Then the Prophet summoned all the Muslims capable of bearing arms and marched to Mecca.Conquest of Mecca Qureysh were overawed. Their cavalry put up a show of defence before the town, but were routed without bloodshed; and the Prophet entered his native city as conqueror. The inhabitants expected vengeance for their past misdeeds. The Prophet proclaimed a general amnesty. Only a few known criminals were proscribed, and most of those were in the end forgiven. In their relief and surprise, the whole population of Mecca hastened to swear allegiance. The Prophet caused all the idols which were in the sanctuary to be destroyed, saying: "Truth hath come; darkness hath vanished away;" and the Muslim call to prayer was heard in Mecca.
In the same year there was an angry gathering of pagan tribes eager to regain the Ka'bah. The Prophet led twelve thousand men against them. At Ḥuneyn, in a deep ravine, his troops were ambushed by the enemy and almost put to flight.Battle of Ḥuneyn It was with difficulty that they were rallied to the Prophet and his bodyguard of faithful comrades who alone stood firm. But the victory, when it came, was complete ​and the booty enormous, for many of the hostile tribes had brought out with them everything that they possessed.
The tribe of Thaqîf were among the enemy at Ḥuneyn.Conquest of Ṭâ'îf After that victory their city of Ṭâ'îf was besieged by the Muslims, and finally reduced. Then the Prophet appointed a governor of Mecca, and himself returned to Al-Madînah to the boundless joy of the Ansâr, who had feared lest, now that he had regained his native city, he might forsake them and make Mecca the capital.
In the ninth year of the Hijrah, hearing that an army was again being mustered in Syria, the Prophet called on all the Muslims to support him in a great campaign.The Tabûk expedition The far distance, the hot season, the fact that it was harvest time and the prestige of the enemy caused many to excuse themselves and many more to stay behind without excuse. Those defaulters are denounced in the Koran. But the campaign ended peacefully. The army advanced to Tabûk, on the confines of Syria, and there learnt that the enemy had not yet gathered.
Although Mecca had been conquered and its people were now Muslims, the official order of the pilgrimage had not been changed; the pagan Arabs performing it in their manner, and the Muslims in their manner. It was only after the pilgrims' caravan had left Al-Madînah in the ninth year of the Hijrah, when Al-Islâm was dominant in North Arabia, that the Declaration of Immunity, as it is called, was revealed.Declaration of Immunity The Prophet sent a copy of it by messenger to Abû Bakr, leader of the pilgrimage, with the instruction that Ali was to read it to the multitudes at Mecca. Its purport was that after that year Muslims only were to make the pilgrimage, exception being made for such of the idolaters as had a treaty with the Muslims and had never broken their treaty nor supported anyone against them. Such were to enjoy the privileges of their treaty for the term thereof, but when their treaty expired they would be as other idolaters. That proclamation marks the end of idol-worship in Arabia.
The Year of DeputationsThe ninth year of the Hijrah is called the Year of Deputations, because from all parts of Arabia deputations came to Al-Madînah to swear allegiance to the Prophet and to hear the Koran. The Prophet had become, in fact, the emperor of Arabia, but his way of life remained as simple as before.
​The number of the campaigns which he led in person during the last ten years of his life is twenty-seven, in nine of which there was hard fighting. The number of the expeditions which he planned and sent out under other leaders is thirty-eight. He personally controlled every detail of organisation, judged every case and was accessible to every suppliant. In those ten years he destroyed idolatry in Arabia; raised woman from the status of a chattel to complete legal equality with man; effectually stopped the drunkenness and immorality which had till then disgraced the Arabs; made men in love with faith, sincerity and honest dealing; transformed tribes who had been for centuries content with ignorance into a people with the greatest thirst for knowledge; and for the first time in history made universal human brotherhood a fact and principle of common law. And his support and guide in all that work was the Koran.
The Farewell PilgrimageIn the tenth year of the Hijrah he went to Mecca as a pilgrim for the last time—his "pilgrimage of farewell," it is called—when from Mt. 'Arafât he preached to an enormous throng of pilgrims. He reminded them of all the duties Al-Islâm enjoined upon them, and that they would one day have to meet their Lord, who would judge each one of them according to his work. At the end of the discourse, he asked: "Have I not conveyed the Message?" And from that great multitude of men who a few months or years before had all been conscienceless idolaters the shout went up: "O Allah! Yes!" The Prophet said: "O Allah! Be Thou witness!"
It was during that last pilgrimage that the sûrah entitled "Succour" was revealed, which he received as an announcement of approaching death. Soon after his return to Al-Madînah he fell ill.Illness and death of the Prophet The tidings of his illness caused dismay throughout Arabia and anguish to the folk of Al-Madînah, Mecca and Ṭâ'îf, the hometowns. At early dawn on the last day of his earthly life he came out from his room beside the mosque at Al-Madînah and joined the public prayer, which Abû Bakr had been leading since his illness. And there was great relief among the people, who supposed him well again. When, later in the day, the rumour grew that he was dead, Omar threatened those who spread the rumour with dire punishment, declaring it a crime to think that the Messenger of God could die. He was storming at the people in that strain when Abû Bakr came ​into the mosque and overheard him. Abû Bakr went to the chamber of his daughter Ayeshah, where the Prophet lay. Having ascertained the fact, and kissed the dead man's forehead, he went back into the mosque. The people were still listening to Omar, who was saying that the rumour was a wicked lie, that the Prophet who was all in all to them could not be dead. Abû Bakr went up to Omar and tried to stop him by a whispered word. Then, finding he would pay no heed, Abû Bakr called to the people, who, recognising his voice, left Omar and came crowding round him. He first gave praise to Allah, and then said: "O people! Lo! as for him who used to worship Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. But as for him who used to woship Allah, Allah is Alive and dieth not." He then recited the verse of the Koran:
"And Muhammad is but a messenger, messengers the like of whom have passed away before him. Will it be that, when he dieth or is slain, ye will turn back on your heels? He who turneth back doth no hurt to Allah, and Allah will reward the thankful."
"And," says the narrator, an eye-witness, "it was as if the people had not known that such a verse had been revealed till Abû Bakr recited it." And another witness tells how Omar used to say: "Directly I heard Abû Bakr recite that verse my feet were cut from beneath me and I fell to the ground, for I knew that Allah's messenger was dead. May Allah bless and keep him!"
All the sûrahs of the Koran had been recorded in writing before the Prophet's death, and many Muslims had committed the whole Koran to memory. But the written sûrahs were dispersed among the people; and when, in a battle which took place during the Caliphate of Abû Bakr—that is to say, within two years of the Prophet's death—a large number of those who knew the whole Koran by heart were killed, a collection of the whole Koran was made and put in writing. In the Caliphate of Othmân, all existing copies of sûrahs were called in, and an authoritative version, based on Abû Bakr's collection and the testimony of those who had the whole Koran by heart, was compiled exactly in the present form and order, which is regarded as traditional and as the arrangement of the Prophet himself, the Caliph Othmân and his helpers being Comrades of the Prophet and the ​most devout students of the Revelation. The Koran has thus been very carefully preserved.
The arrangement is not easy to understand. Revelations of various dates and on different subjects are to be found together in one sûrah; verses of Madînah revelation are found in Meccan sûrahs; some of the Madînah sûrahs, though of late revelation, are placed first and the very early Meccan sûrahs at the end. But the arrangement is not haphazard, as some have hastily supposed. Closer study will reveal a sequence and significance—as, for instance, with regard to the placing of the very early Meccan sûrahs at the end. The inspiration of the Prophet progressed from inmost things to outward things, whereas most people find their way through outward things to things within.
There is another peculiarity which is disconcerting in translation though it proceeds from one of the beauties of the original, and is unavoidable without abolishing the verse-division of great importance for reference. In the Arabic the verses are divided according to the rhythm of the language. When a certain sound which marks the rhythm recurs there is a strong pause and the verse ends naturally, although the sentence may go on to the next verse or to several subsequent verses. That is of the spirit of the Arabic language; but attempts to reproduce such rhythm in English have the opposite effect to that produced by the Arabic. Here only the division is preserved, the verses being divided as In the Koran, and numbered.
* ↑ Sûr. XCVI, 1-5.
* ↑ LXXXI, 24.
* ↑ Or "The Lecture," as it is here translated in passages where the term will bear translation, on the analogy of "Scripture," used for sacred "writing."
* ↑ LXXIV, 2.
* ↑ See XIX, introductory note.
* ↑ See XX, introductory note.
* ↑ VIII, 39.
* ↑ IX, 40.
* ↑ II, 144, 149, 150.
* ↑ e.g. II, 216.
* ↑ See also Sûr. VIII, introductory note.
* ↑ See also III, introductory note.
* ↑ IV, 51.
* ↑ LIX.
* ↑ See also XXXII, introductory note.
* ↑ XXIV, 11 ff.
* ↑ LXIII, 8.
* ↑ XLVIII, 27.
* ↑ XLVIII, 11 ff.
* ↑ XLVIII, 18.
* ↑ XLVIII, 24.
* ↑ XLVIII.
* ↑ XVII, 81.
* ↑ IX, 38-99.
* ↑ IX, 1-12. 3
* ↑ XLIX.
* ↑ CX.
* ↑ III, 144.
Footnotes