4. FAITHFUL ADHERENTS
1.- Lady Khadijah
No preacher of a cause however physically and mentally strong, can alone carry the burden without staunch adherents to help. His close advisers and helpers must be very well chosen or they may do the cause great harm. Muhammad the youth was wise to the verge of inspiration when he consented to marry Khadijah, though she had married twice before, and was fifteen years his senior. The story of his orphanage must have been mutual since their first meeting after his return from Syria as the leader of her caravan, though his bashfulness and self-respect would have made it very difficult for him to ask for her hand in marriage. She might have refused; he could not tell. The question, however, was settled when Khadijah suggested the match through Nafisah, daughter of Allayed. They married, and their matrimonial life lasted nearly twenty five years full of happiness. She died in the tenth year of his Mission.
A quiet happy matrimonial life affords the best possible help that a great man with a great task ahead of him, can have. To feel that he is trusted, obeyed and believed in by his wife will add to his vigour and courage in his struggle for the triumph of his cause. Mutual loyalty and trust will do away with all distinction between them in respect of riches and poverty. He or she may expend but neither can think of humiliating the other in return. With mutual love and trust, the rich wife will not think-less of her husband for his poverty, but will feel rather happy and proud of his manhood, his protection, and his manly guardianship of her honour.
Loyalty and love between husband and wife are then the holiest of links-the highest blessing that God bestows on the elected great, on the Prophets and Messengers He chooses to send for guiding humanity to Truth and Right.
Khadijah never made Muhammad feel the stern bond of marriage, or the obligations entailed thereby. Their marriage gave him, before his prophethood, the time and opportunity to contemplate other creeds, and, after his prophethood, to devote himself to his Mission and the supreme good of humanity.
When he received the first revelation in the cave of Hiraa, and felt rather overawed by his tremendous mission, he returned to his folk, to Khadijah who noted his new condition and the transformation worked on him by his experience with the Angel, and asked what the matter was. He told her what he saw and what he feared, and her concern changed at once into smiles of encouragement, making her famous remark, quoted above, that God will never disappoint or foresake him. She took him to her relative Warakah son of Noufal to whom he revealed his secret – the vision in the cave and the words he received. Warakah immediately congratulated him on these happy tidings – on the Divine Mission he received, and the new position to which he would rise. When this was heard by Khadijah, she instantly declared. her belief in Muhammad and his mission and henceforth lavished on him the wise counsel and encouragement she had given before.
She began her staunch support of him and of his Call, challenging his heretic opponents, when the time came, with her prestige and means. They were cowed so far, by this and other factors, as not to take against him the severe measures they adopted against Zaid son of Nofile. They were content for a good while with threatening and maltreating his weaker adherents when the time came for the Prophet to publicly send forth his Call.
Khadijah was not an ordinary wife, a mere accident in the life of Muhammad. She had a unique role. She did the Islamic Call the greatest service, and contributed to its success through incessant effective effort.
She was the first woman believer, who devoted life and property to the establishment of the newly begun Islamic Call. No wonder, then, that tradition records the great grief of the Prophet Muhammad on the occasion of the death of Khadijah, his wife and helpmate. After Khadijah’s death, Quraish waged against him unremitting struggle, molesting and maltreating him, and almost forcing his expatriation from his home town
No wonder also that he loved her so far as not to take to himself any other wife throughout her life. Even after her death he kept loving her and cherishing her memory(His wife Ayesha once told him, ” Khadijah was no more than an old woman in place of whom God gave a better wife”. “No”! answered he angrily, (God gave me no better. She believed in me when others disbelieved, had faith in my word when others gave me lie, helped me with her money when others offered none, and through her God gave me children, and not through any other wife.”)
If it is true, what Carlyle says, that in the life of every great man there is some woman who encourages, guides, and inspires him with his classic work, then the nearest to this dictum in the life of the noble Apostle Muhammad would be Lady Khadijah.
2. ABU BAKR EL SEDDIK (The Faithful)
Islamic tradition maintains that Abu Bakr was the first of men believers in the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace. He supported him from the start and was molested and persecuted more perhaps than was the Prophet himself. The reason may be that Abu Bakr, though a member of the tribe of Quraish, belonged to the branch of Teim who had not the honour, prestige, and power of the branch of Beni Hashim, to whom the Prophet, peace be upon him, belonged.
Tradition seldom mentions Muhammad without also mentioning Abu Bakr, who followed the Prophet as his shadow, and was nearer to his heart than the nearest of his kin.
How did this close noble friendship begin? They first belonged more or less to one profession – Abu Bakr was a merchant, and Muhammad did some trading. This would bring them nearer to one another in out look. They were approximately of the same age with a difference not more than two years, and were brought up in the same environment – even in the same town.
A careful study of the two personalities brings out the striking resemblance between them as if they were offshoots of the same branch. Friendship between the two originated therefore before the Muhammadan mission, and it is reasonable to suppose that they discussed the question of their ancestral religious beliefs. More, they must have gone beyond that in their talks. This is natural enough between friends; the contrary is rather unnatural.
This must have cemented their friendship beyond disruption. Muhammad the Apostle, therefore, must have had Abu Bakr as the first man believer Muhammad the persecuted must have had Abu Bakr as his defender; and Muhammad in triumph must have had Abu Bakr, the Faithful, the nearest of the near.
Not only did Abu Bakr believe in Muhammad’s Divine Mission, but he was very energetic and resourceful in calling many into the Faith To him is due the credit of the conversion of a group of early, now famous, disciples, such as Osman, son of Affan, Zobair son of Al Awam, then still young, Saad son of Abi Wakkas, Abd El Rahman son of Awf, and Talha son of Obidallah. Islamic history relates of their respective great contributions to the Islamic cause, and how they did their part in finally establishing the Faith, sacrificing power, prestige, property and life. They materially helped to make it dominant not only in Arabia but also North and West, reducing the Persian, and violently shaking the Roman Empire. Abu Bakr himself saved Islam from collapse after the death of the Prophet by declaring relentless war against apostate tribes till they were reduced to acknowledge Islam again.
Those tribes, only recently converted, had not yet been touched by the spirit of Muhammad’s teachings, nor had they grasped the cardinal principles of the Islamic creed with the death of their Faithful Shepherd, they were led astray into arid heathenism again. No sooner was Abu Bakr proclaimed Calif than he took drastic measures to reclaim them back to the Faith, to its green pastures and clear springs. Having restored the integrity of Islamic union and knitted the Arab tribes into one powerful whole, he sent their echelons into neighboring countries to carry the call of Islam far and wide.
Before his Caliphate, Abu Bakr was the exemplary man, living up to his principles in the face of persecution. Once when he was preaching the new religion at Mecca, he was fiercely attacked by Otba, son of Rabi’a, so fiercely and determinedly, one report says, that he fell speechless on the spot. He bought and emancipated some slaves who were tortured by their masters, among whom may be mentioned the males: Bilal Ibn Rabah, Amer Ibn Fahira, and Abou Fakiha; and the females mother of Gobais, the she-slave of Bani Moamel, and Hamama mother of Bilal.
He converted his parents to the Islamic Faith. He emigrated with the Prophet in person, thereby exposing himself, in case of detection, to all the wrathful revenge of the idolaters. For all these considerations and more. He was the Prophet’s first counsellor amongst the Prophet’s disciples.
There is no doubt whatever that the Islamic Call gained immensely through Abu Bakr who from all men was the Call’s main support and bulwark in peace and war alike. No historical narrative of the Islamic Call would be complete without the mention of its second man Abu
Bakr. This fact had been demonstrated by western historians as well as Muslim biographers. The well known historian, H. G. Wells, gives his own interpretation of this fact when he writes “The true embodiment of the spirit of Islam was not Muhammad, but his close friend and supporter Abu Bakr. There can be little doubt that if Muhammad was the mind and imagination of primitive Islam, Abu Bakr was its conscience and its will “[“The Outline of history”. P. 608]
It is the eternal honour of Muhammad to have carried the burden fully, to have faithfully and ably interpreted into practice the Islam Call, the Divine Mission, in all its ramifications It is the eternal honour of Abu Bakr to have helped without stint, and followed without a swerve – to have so completely identified himself with the Great Call from its very start.
3. – THE DEFENCELESS STRONG
Amongst those who were first to embrace the new faith was the class of “slaves” or bondmen, liberated or not, known as Mawali, to whom Quraish gave the appellation “the fenceless”. They had some slight acquaintance with monotheistic religions and were brought up in civilizations higher than that of the Arab chiefs in whose hands they were destined to fall.
Such persons were undoubtedly potential revolutionists who could never acquiesce in the establish?d order of master versus slave, and must have welcomed any change which promised to better their life, and give them some measure of freedom. Any radical change in the then prevailing social order would have been welcome, for it might have bettered their condition but could not have made it worse.
Further, such slaves were completely disposed to monotheism, and longed for a spiritual life that had nothing to do with idolatry, with the disgraceful worship to which the Arabs then adhered. This class has been accredited with having prepared the way for the Muhammadan mission. No wonder then that they surrounded the Prophet and were among the first believers in Islam. Their attachment to the Prophet was so strong that they stood firm in their faith despite their long drawn sufferings and persecution by polytheists and masters. History records both their exploits and their martyrdom for the Islamic cause. That is why I call them ” the strong “.
Wanton persecution caused their emigration twice to Abyssinia
along with others. They were subjected to every sort of brutal torment. They were whipped, branded, burned maimed and killed to make them recant, but in vain. They persisted in their faith in spite of all. Chief among those heroes of the Faith is Khabab, son of Al-Arutt, whom his mistress repeatedly branded with red hot iron on the head to make him forego his Faith, but he stood firm. Chief also are Ammar Ibn Yaser, Abu Fakiha, a serf of Safwan son of Omeyyah, Sohaib the Greek, and Amer son of Fahirah.
These, when they got the opportunity, used to sit with the Prophet, and when seen thus by the Quraishites the latter would redicule them. They could ask how it could be that these, from amongst all the people, were alone blessed by God with guidance and, the truth, arguing that if there were any good in the Mission of Muhammad these would not have been the first to accept it in preference to themselves, as if the choice of God would have fallen on such alone. The sitting and the scoffing are both depicted in God’s address to His prophet concerning the demand of the Quraishites that the Prophet should dismiss the bondmen that they might themselves sit with him.
The entire picture found expression in the holy text. rendered thus:
“Repel not those who call upon their Lord at noon and evening, seeking His countenance. Thou art not accountable for them in aught, nor are they accountable for thee in aught, that thou shouldst repel them and be of the wrong-doers. And even so do We try some of them by others, that they say:`Are these they whom Allah favoureth among us ? Is not Allah best aware of the thanks givers? And when those who believe in Our revelations come unto thee, say: Peace be unto you ! Your Lord hath prescribed for Himself mercy, that whoso of you doeth evil and repenteth afterward thereof and doeth right, (for him) Lo ! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful”. (Surah Al An’am; verses 52-54).
Those slaves contributed greatly to the success of the Muhammadan mission through their extraordinary heroism, and their martyrdom, so remarkable and striking in the annals of persecution in history. Their persistency, their sufferance, attracted many to Islam and made possible their assimilation of the creed.
Most of them participated in preaching Islam to others, aiding the Prophet considerably thereby. Many of the Prophet’s utterances have come to us through some of them, and to some is due the credit of lending a hand in social organisation in Medinah.
They proved to be one important factor in disseminating the Islamic creed. They were its heroic silent preachers, carrying its burden and serving its cause when things looked black.
4- OMAR IBN AL KHATTAB
Islam was something in the breasts of its believers, to be discussed in whispers, and practised in secret, for fear of persecution. When Omar became a convert, it was preached openly and unreservedly. He challenged Quraish, not only, like Hamzah before him, by declaring his conversion fearlessly, but also by practising it openly. No wonder, then that the Prophet of the Faith had prayed God :- “O Allah ! strengthen Islam by the conversion of either Omars”
Preaching a cause publicly by its adherents is the first stage of the struggle. That was the step taken by Omar, and by it he inscribed the first line in the history of the open fight for the Islamic cause. It is as if he wanted, by such a step, to atone for having been tardy in joining it. The prestige of Omar, added to that of Hamzah, uncle of the Prophet, sufficed to make the faithful, then about forty, to practice the Faith openly. It is to the credit of Omar that he first proposed it. It will, then, be no exaggeration to maintain that Omar’s conversion was the separating line between two stages in the history of the Mission : the stage of secretly, and the stage of openly, practising and struggling for the Faith by its followers.
To his influence, moreover, were due two things of cardinal importance in the post Apostolic history of Islam, the first saving it from collapse, and the second ensuring its lasting triumph.
The first took place with the death of the Apostle himself, Peace be upon him, which threatened to revive the factious spirit and thus disrupt the unity of the Arabs at Madinah. Omar saved the situation by his strong attitude at the Sakifa (or shed) meeting. He supported Abu Bakr, and did not hesitate to be the first to swear allegiance to him as Caliph, causing the others to do the same, thus avoiding division at
that critical moment in Islamic history.
The second is Omar’s propagation of the Islamic call itself, and the establishment of the Islamic cause beyond any possible threat during his long happy reign, remarkable for the series of brilliant martial successes of the Arabs, their territorial expansion, and the high morale and prestige they enjoyed everywhere.
His personal character as a ruler, remarkable for austerity, asceticism, moderation and justice, afforded an exemplary type of refined leadership, and an ideal Islamic type well worth mutation. Not only did he preach the rights of man liberty, fraternity and equality but made them a realised fact, and enforced them as the working principles of his rule.
Throughout the then vast Islamic Empire, he established justice and fair play, for he maintained equality between governor and governed, shepherd and shepherded both getting their due, with strict control over local governors lest they should deviate from Islamic standards, and abuse the power vested in them, with the result that they feared his question, and ruled with right and justice.
To this great man is due a big share of the credit for the later propagation and success of the Muhammadan Call. Under the Romans and Persians, the masses suffered from unjust irresponsible governors. Islamic rule presented an entirely different picture, characterised with justice and exceedingly humanitarian administration, honest and pure. That is why multitudes were converted to the?Islamic faith, and were ready to sacrifice much for its sake.
Omar was the embodiment of humility and continence, never corrupted by riches or made vainglorious through power. He remained throughout. the true spiritual Successor, the Calif true to his Master, the Prophet.
His asceticism afforded a practical example for his local governors to follow. When he travelled to Jerusalem to take over the keys of this holy city, he was attended by no train of retainers except his henchman. For this tedious journey he was provided only with loaves of barley, some dried dates, a skin of water, and a wooden plate. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem saw him, he did not recognise him until he was pointed out. Perhaps he had thought of Omar as or some Caesar or Khisroe of the day, till the picture of finery and pomp gave place to that of humility and asceticism.
Omar’s life was one continual chain of unremitting activity. He believed, I think, that governance was a holy trust, to be preserved from frivolity and corruption, and safeguarded by justice and counsel, if security and satisfaction are to prevail.
To him constant activity was a pleasure. He was, in truth, a holy torch that Providence raised to illuminate in after years the road of the Islamic Call for every true believer in generations to come.
The Apostle of God, upon whom be peace, gave twenty three years of his life to establishing the call of Islam in Arabia, addressing it to rulers of neighboring states and through them to their peoples, and to the training of his train of faithful disciples that they might maintain and safeguard the Cause against any possible disruption or collapse. Then came the first disciple, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, who cemented it beyond division in Arabia, and started sending its legions abroad. But it was Omar, the second Caliph, nominated by Abu Bakr, who following in Abu Bakr’s steps, completed the great work of establishing the Call abroad to an extent that still stands without compare; conquering the Roman and Persian empires in Africa and Asia, and, through his exemplary justice and humility and continence, enlisting in the end their vast populations under the banners of Islam. He and Abu Bakr stand, after the Prophet, as the deal rulers of Islam, for humanity to look up to and follow. It was a bad day for Muslims when their rulers lost this ideal.
5 – THE BELIEVING YOUTHS
By these are meant the body of young men under twenty who were converted to the faith in the early stage of the Call, and who were numerous enough to constitute a remarkable feature worthy of record. They believed in the Prophet, upon whom be peace, at his critical moments when he stood almost one, and when the battle between belief and disbelief, between truth and falsehood, was pending
Those young converts were never slighted or disregarded by the Prophet. On the contrary he used to welcome them, give them room to sit, spiritually dominating and regenerating them, himself being their exemplary practical ideal. He educated them and completed their bringing up as nobody else could. Muhammad in conformity with the then established Arab tradition, honoured and valued youth and assigned for young men the appropriate status expressed by the Arab poet in the words:
“A proper youth copes with adversity;
He is not born for endearment by mates”.
In search for a secret place for their meetings where they could neither be detected nor suspected, one of those young men, Al Arkam by name, offered his house to become the first hall for the Islamic Call. This he presented to his brothers in the faith willingly, though he knew that the unbelievers would pull it down stone by stone if they could detect the purpose for which it was used. No earthly menace, however, could have made the young man change his mind, given devotedly as he was to the way of God. Yet Al Arkam was then only twelve years of age.
One of those young was Ali, son of Abu Talib, the earliest boy believer, the valiant hero destined to be the fourth Calif. He was a steadfast warrior when valiant warriors gave way under strain. His duel with the veteran Arab knight, the hero of the idolaters Amr Ibn Wud, in the battle of the Moat, is famous in Islamic history, and no better example of heroism can be cited. He killed the famous knight, though only a youth of twenty six. He killed Amre, the experienced, the hero of many battles, and the victor of many duels.
He was the man who forced the fort of Naim in the battle of Khaiber, after it had successively resisted the efforts of Abu Bakr and Omar. The occasion is famous for, having lost his shield, he wielded a door as a buckler and fought on till he forced his way into the fortress in the face of the desperate resistance of the Jews. His notable physical strength was aided by a spiritual power arising from his deep faith.
Like Ali in courage was Zobair Ibn Al Awam who highly distinguished himself in the first two battles fought by the Prophet, upon whom be peace. He defended the Prophet very heroically in the battle of Ohod, where he was commissioned by the Prophet to lead the right wing against the great commander Khalid Ibn El Waild who then led the enemy’s left. He, much to the satisfaction and encouragement of the Muslims, killed in a duel a noted adversary who stood in the lists challenging the whole Muslim army.
Some of these young men emigrated to Abyssinia after having been
subjected to painful persecution and torture in property and limb.
But the young believers were not all males; some were females remarkable for their patience, and fortitude in the struggle for the Cause. Amongst these may be mentioned Asma daughter of Abu Bakr, Fatimah daughter of Al Khattab, sister of Omar that is, and Asma daughter of Omise.
The teachings of Islam could reach and dominate the hearts of those young believers because they had not yet imbibed the heathenish spirit, or developed into rigid followers of abhorrent custom and wrong tradition. They were tutored by the Prophet himself, who instilled into them of his spirit, opened to them his great heart, widened their horizon, enlivened their right emotions, moved them to seek godly honour, and was to them a teacher and a guide. And what tutor for the young could be better than the master teacher, the Apostle o whom God Himself testifies:
“Thou art surely of great morality and noble nature”. (Surah Al Qalam, verse 4).
And what can we expect of such young men brought up in such a school under such a tutor ? Nothing less than the heroism and glory alluded to. From amongst them arose such a rightly guided Caliph as Ali Ibn Abi Talib, such distinguished savants as Abdullah Ibn Massoud, such eminent commanders as Zobair Ibn Al Awam and Saa’d Ibn Abi Wakkas, and such faithful believers as Al Arkam and Taiha Ibn Obeidillah.
Some of them were the first to die martyrs for their convictions in the Islamic battles, and some worked hard to instill their own true spirit in others who were thus spurred on to great efforts under the banner of Islam. To quote in effect, a divine verse:
“They were young men who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance”. (Surah. Al Kahf, verse 13).
6- Al-Ansar (The Helpers)
What might have become of the Islamic Call had it not been for the Helpers, the Muslims of Madinah, who sponsored and gallantly defended it? Careful analysis shows that the Call then would have been diverted into different channels of perhaps uncertain or unfavorable results, and history would have taken a different aspect.
During: pilgrimage days, the Prophet used to address Arab tribes – particularly Thakif, Kindah, Kalb, Bani Hanifah and Bani Amer, telling of his divine mission and asking each in turn to accept and defend him. They turned their backs to him, returning rather uncivil answers.
With the death of Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib, the Prophet met with more cruelty and more stubborn resistance at Mecca, so much so that it became clear that there was no use in his continuing to stay in that city God, however, sent His prophet due help in the form of a small group of pilgrims from Yathrib, of the Aus and Khazrag tribes, who responded to his teachings, and swore allegiance to him at Al-Aqabah. Next pilgrimage season, a larger more representative group met the Prophet at the same place, swore allegiance, and undertook to defend him if he would go to their city. These are the two famous pacts of Al-Aqabah.
The researcher would have to pause and consider the reasons why the Arabs of Yathrib, contrary to other Arab tribes, came to believe so readily in the Prophet’s mission.
One possible reason is that Muhammad was not a total stranger to Yathrib and the Arabs there. A noted Yathrib family, the family of Banil Naggar, comprised his uncles. His father’s grave was in Yathrib (Madinah) and his mother, as mentioned before, used to take him as a child to visit his uncles and the grave, in memory of the father and husband who died in his youthful prime. His mother died while returning to Mecca from one such visit, and was buried at Abwa’, between Mecca and Madinah. These happenings had probably something to do with the mental and spiritual approachment which led to the immediate response which the Prophet’s call met with from those people. In his own words
“Souls are organised into groups, affection developing between the similar, disaffection between the dissimilar”.
Another probable reason why they were so easily converted to Islam was the prominent existence of Judaism at and around Yathrib. They had for neighbours the Jews of Khaiber, of Beni Koraizah, of Beni Kinakaa and of Banil Nadaer, who believed in Monotheism, and decidedly and steadfastly condemned idol worship. This undoubtedly familiarised them at least with monotheism, and prepared mind and heart to accept a monotheistic call for the worship of the true God, should it arise through an Arab and not through a Jew.
There was also that relentless internecine war between their principal tribes, the Aus and the Khazrag tribes, who were equal in valour, almost equal in strength the recurring war between them, therefore indecisive, threatening to bring them both ultimately to destruction, leaving their city free to the Jews. Would it not be natural for their representatives at Al-Aqabah to think of the benefit of accepting such a neutral fair authority as the Prophet himself, who could bridge the gap between them and realize their ideal of peace?
Moreover, it is recorded that they thought Muhammad to be the prophet expected by the Jews to come and make Israel dominant, unifying the world under Judaism. They sought, therefore, to forestall the Jews, and believe in him first that they might have the precedence over the Jews.
It may also be that the incessant war between them made them long for a life, for a spiritual life, based on Faith and communion with God.
Whatever may have been the reason, Muhammad found in them a way out of the narrow circle in which he was then labouring, and they found in him the able arbiter and leader who could rescue them from the destruction that threatened them, in addition to the eternal life that they would secure by believing in, and living up to, his divine Mission. The pact entered into, therefore, was a triumph for all.
Furthering the cause of Muhammad and protecting him was an act of sheer defiance to the rest of the Arabs, and they knew it before taking their oath, as may be evidenced by the speech of Saad Ibn Obadah at the second conference before the oath of allegiance was sworn at Al Aqabah : ((You people of Khazrag )) – Saad was a Khazragite -“Do you know what you are doing when you swear allegiance to this man ? you are swearing to defend him against all people, red and black”.[Hussein Heikal, “Life of Muhammad”, P. 201 (in Arabic).]
But they knew well what they were doing, and all Aus and Khazrag representatives including Saad himself took their oath with confidence, to defend the Prophet, come what might. Henceforth they were called Al Ansar, the Helpers and defenders of Muhammad, the Apostle of God.
The Helpers were throughout loyal to the Islamic Call, were the faithful soldiers of the Prophet, ran the risk of long wars, and bore large sacrifices in body and property. They fought in fact against both Arabs and Jews, but never gave way. They took their oath and stuck to it with the undaunted spirit and the readiness expressed by Saad Son of Maazin a speech made on a famous occasion before the battle of Badr “We believed in you, and consequently in your word. We gave you our pledges, so proceed, O Apostle of God ! to the fulfillment of your heavenly orders. For, by Him who has sent you with Truth, should it be your will to wade the sea, we shall be ready to wade it with you. Nor do we shun the idea of your sending us against the enemy tomorrow. We are patient in war, true in battle; so proceed with God’s blessing”.
This splendid morale was one chief factor in securing the victory for the Muslims in the battle of Badr decisive for the success and dissemination of the Cause.
But it is no wonder that those Helpers should be so, their natural valour having been stirred up, and their martial spirit, ever watchful wary and ready, having been marshalled by the Prophet into a formidable force with which he struck right and left when occasion arose. With it he struck at Quraish, and with it he met the clans of the Moat, and with it he reduced the Jewish tribes one by one until God sent final victory, and caused the Call to conquer all. The Helpers, then, having been through God’s mercy brought together into one whole after their pre-Islamic wars, became God’s instrument for securing the victory for the cause of Islam, shielding it from the many dangers that threatened it.
The Prophet, upon whom be peace, returned the strong attachment the Helpers felt towards him, and, at the moment of his final victory, fulfilled his part of the Aqabah pact. On that famous occasion, Abu Al Haitham asked “O Apostle of Allah! we shall sever connections existing between us and men (the Jews). When this is done and Allah gives you triumph, would you go back to your folk and leave us?”.
“No!” answered the Prophet “Your blood is my blood, and your abode is my abode. You are of me and I am of you. I fight whom you fight, and make peace with whom you make peace”.
And so it was. The Prophet, true to his word, did not move to Mecca after the conquest. He stayed on with his faithful Helpers who supported him at the critical time, and aided in propagating his Call. He made their city his abode until he was recalled by his Lord.
Source: Islam Basics by Mohamed Moustafa Atta
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