And the Great Leader made astonishing headway in the task of...

And the Great Leader made astonishing headway in the task of transformation in a very short time, but it was necessary for this task of transformation to continue on its way even after the death of the Prophet, who knew that his death was near sometime before it actually occurred and he disclosed this openly in 'The Pilgrimage of Farewell' ( Hajjat al-Wada ); so his death was not unexpected.

This means that the Prophet had ample time to contemplate the future of the faith after his demise, even if we disregard the factors of contact with the Unseen and the Divine protection for Islam stemming from revelation. In light of this we can see that the Prophet had three possible paths before him to ensure the proper consequences of the future of the faith.

The First Path The first path would have been to adopt a passive attitude towards the future, and to be content with the part which he had played in leading and directing the da'wah during his lifetime, leaving its future to circumstance and chance. It is of course unthinkable to attribute such passivity to the Prophet because it grows from two different possibilities, neither of which can be levelled against the Prophet.

The first possibility is the belief that such passivity and disregard would have no effect upon the future of the da'wah, and that the Ummah which would follow his da'wah would be capable of acting independently in a manner which would protect the da'wah and ensure it against deviation.

But this belief is totally indefensible, and indeed the essential nature of things would seem to indicate the opposite, because the da'wah was by its very nature a radical and transformatory factor, which aimed at building a new community from which all jahili principles would be removed. Dawah was, however, prone to dangerous possibilities when deprived of its leader and of all guidance.

And such perils were sure to arise if no allowances were made for the vacuum left by the Prophet's death, which would leave the Ummah without any guidance. These would also arise from the subsequent needs of the Ummah to adopt an extemporaneous attitude in the shadow of the massive difficulties posed by the death of the Prophet.

Had the Prophet left the Ummah without any guidance regarding the development of Islam, it would have had to face the problem of conducting itself without its leader while facing the most dangerous issues ever to confront Islam without possessing any prior experience thereof.