The polytheists were daunted and dismayed by the united and...

The polytheists were daunted and dismayed by the united and defiant front presented by the Banu Hashim to them, and to the rest of the world. The day Abu Talib died, it appeared to Muhammad that the mighty bulwark of Islam had caved in. The death of Abu Talib did not, however, interrupt the tradition of protecting Muhammad and defending Islam that he had founded; it was carried on by his son, Ali, who was destined to distinguish himself even more than his illustrious father in service to Islam.

His genius unfolded in Medina. He busted up the pagan monolith of Arabia. But just as the support of Banu Hashim was found to be indispensable for Islam in Makkah, the support of the Ansar was found to be indispensable for it in Medina. The Ansar rallied behind Muhammad in Medina just as the Banu Hashim had rallied behind him in Makkah. Abu Talib and Ali, and the men and women of the Banu Hashim and the Ansar were extraordinary by the standards of their day as well as by our own.

They took up every challenge to Islam, and they overcame ever crisis in its career. They alone protected and defended the principles, the honor and the heritage of Islam. The names of all these heroes are not known to history but each of them was indispensable for Islam. Each of them, man or woman, made up the “indispensability equation” of Islam. Without the contribution in services of each of them, the “equation” of Islam might not have “jelled” at all.

There were other Muslims also – the companions of the Prophet – who played roles of their own in varying degrees of importance in the history of Islam. Some of them played major roles and others played minor roles but no one among them played roles that were great enough to make them indispensable. Many of them distinguished themselves after the death of the Prophet but if they had died in his lifetime, they would not have even been heard of.

In his lifetime, they were secondary and marginal characters who assumed individual reality and complexity only after the death of their master. John Kenneth Galbraith, the American economist and diplomat, once isolated the journalistic malady he called “the build-up.” The essence of the build-up, he said, is to recast a personage of average attributes into historic, indeed immortal image. This appears to have been done in the case of many of the Muhajireen.