ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Muhammad the Messenger of Allah Beginnings of Bitter Strugle The reaction of the pre-Islamic Arabs towards the call of the Prophet (s.a.w.) took many forms: ATTACKING THE PROPHET (S.A.W.) IN PERSON At the beginning of the Prophet's divine mission, the Quraish looked at him as a monk or a sage, whose influence would soon wane, and the people, accordingly, would return to the religion of their fathers and ancestors.

But, contrarily, the new faith swept through the community, scoring victories on the social level. The Qur'anic verses condemned the idols and idolatry, calling for the worship of the only God and- warning the infidels of a terribly severe punishment in the hereafter. At that point the Quraish felt the dangerous reverberations of this call, and so they publicly proclaimed their hostility towards it. Their animosity, was, however, peaceful at first.

It was expressed in degrading the Prophet and slandering him. They challenged him to perform miracles. Could he change the hills of al-Safa and al-Marwa into gold? Could he make a spring to flow in the earth more limped than the well of Zamzam? Could he move the mountains from their places or return the dead to life? Seeing that this method was fruitless and could not dissuade him from carrying on his divine call, they resorted to wildly slanderous propaganda and spreading of rumours.

They accused him of being a liar, then a poet, and another time, a sorcerer. They left no stone unturned to distort his image, seizing every chance to do so. Even in Yathrib (Medinah) and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), their lies were intense spread. One day, they gathered at the house of al-Walid bin al-Mughirah, one of the widely known and shrewd men of among the Arabs and one who used to bitterly mock the Prophet (s.a.w.) and Islam. "O Abu Abd-Shams.?," they asked him. "What is Muhammad saying?

Is it poetry, soothsaying or sermonizing?" "Let me," he suggested, "hear his talks". He came near the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.), who was near the Black Stone reciting verses from the Qur'an. He asked the Prophet (s.a.w.), "O Muhammad, recite some of your poetry to me!" "It is not poetry," the Prophet (s.a.w.) replied, "It is the discourse of Allah, which He has conveyed to his angels, prophets and messengers." "Recite something of it to me," persisted al-Walid.

The Prophet (s.a.w.) recited the chapter (surah) of "Ha' Mim al-Sajdah". When he read "But if they turn aside, then say.