Bahá’í World/Volume 7/Dawn over Mount Hira
DAWN OVER MOUNT HIRA
BY MARḌÍYYIH NABÍL CARPENTER
BY the noon-day brightness, and by the night when it darkeneth! Thy Lord hath not forsaken Thee, neither hath He been displeased. And surely the future shall be better for Thee than the past. Did He not find Thee an orphan and gave Thee a home? And found Thee erring and guided Thee, and found Thee needy and enriched Thee?” . . . For some days before this, the voice had been silent; now again the comforting spirit enfolded Muḥammad, under the stars on Mount Hira. He remembered how the voice had broken through His thoughts, before, and terrified Him. He had heard on the mountain the word: “Read!”—and had answered: "I do not know how to read.” “Read!” ‘‘What shall I read?” “Read: In the name of Thy Lord who created, Created man from clots of blood:—Read! by Thy most beneficent Lord, who hath taught the use of the pen; Hath taught man that which He knoweth not . . .” He remembered His struggle against the voice; how He had gone from the mountain, thinking Himself possessed. And Khadijih had believed in Him, and Varaqa, a man old and blind, and versed in the Scripture, had cried, “Holy, holy, verily this is the Voice that came to Moses. Tell Him—bid Him be of brave heart.” Then for some time the voice had been silent, and now it had come to Him again. And Muḥammad looked down over Mecca, and He thought of His city, and He began to preach against the things men loved.
"Not a blade of grass to rest the eye . . .
no hunting . . . instead, only merchants,
that most contemptible of all
professions . . .” wrote a Negro poet,
of Mecca.
No trees, gardens, orchards. Only a few
spiny bushes. And the black flagstones
around the Ka‘bih had to be sprinkled to
cool them for the barefoot processions, and
the wells were irregular and brackish.
Caravans came, with jewels and spices, with skins
and metals, and the whole town turned out
to meet them; caravans of two or three
thousand camels, of several hundred men.
And men speculated, winning a fortune in
a day, and lending it out for usury, and
hoarding, and counting it over; and
Muḥammad said to them: “The emulous desire
of multiplying riches employeth you, until
ye visit the graves . . . Hereafter shall ye
know your folly . . . Again, hereafter shall
ye know your folly.” Then He bade them
give alms, telling them: "What good ye have
sent before for your souls, ye shall find it
with God.” The wealthy merchants lived
in the central part of Mecca; they swelled
with pride, but Muḥammad urged them to
walk not proudly in the earth, because all
men are brothers. The common people
lived farther off from the Ka‘bih, in the
slanting streets, and the rabble beyond
them; and away from the town were the
desert Arabs, in their goat-skin tents.
There was wine and gambling, and Muḥammad
forbade them; there were singing girls, and
He was chaste. There were brawls and blood
feuds and feastings; women playing upon
lutes, to welcome such things as the
birth of a boy, the coming to light
of a poet, or the
foaling of a mare. Over this reigned a vague
Being, a supreme Alláh, and his three
daughters; yet Muḥammad said: "He begetteth
not, neither is He begotten.” And closer
to earth, a crowd of idols, who lived in and
about the Ka‘bih, with their leader, a bearded
old man of cornelian, with one hand made
of gold; and his name was Hubal. And
Muḥammad laughed at the Ka‘bih gods:
“Is this wondrous world, the sun and moon,
the drops of rain, the ships that move across
the waters—are these the work of your stone
and wooden gods?” Then He spoke of the
true God, saying: “The seven heavens praise
Him, and the earth, and all who are therein;
neither is there anything which doth not
celebrate His praise; but ye understand
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not.” Here too, set
in the Ka‘bih, was the
Black Stone; men said it was the only thing
from Paradise to be found on earth, and that
it had once been white, till it was
blackened by human sins. There were
other gods
to worship in Arabia, and stars and planets,
but the Ka‘bih drew all men from near and
far on pilgrimage.
Muḥammad’s kinsmen were chieftains in Mecca, and they lived by the things which He now arose to destroy. He summoned them together, told them of His mission; and they laughed Him to scorn. "May you be cursed for the rest of your life,” cried Abú Lahab; "why gather us together for trifles like this?” And when He walked abroad, the wife of Abú Lahab strewed thorns before Him to wound His feet.
And Muḥammad preached to the tribes, when they flocked to Mecca and the neighboring fairs, during the pilgrimage seasons; then His uncle, Abú Lahab, would follow, and shout: "He is an impostor who seeketh to draw you from the faith of your fathers . . .”; and the tribesmen would laugh at Him, saying: "Thine own people and kindred know Thee best: then wherefore do they not believe?” One day as He prayed at the Ka‘bih, men turned upon Him, and mocked Him, saying: “It is you who pretend that our fathers were in the wrong! It is you who call our gods impotent!” “Yes, it is I who say that.” And they struck Him, and would have put Him to death. And once He went back to His dwelling without having met that day "a single man, a single woman, a single child, a single slave, who did not insult Him on His way, calling Him madman and liar . . .”
And as men do in every age, the Meccans called for signs and wonders, bidding Him turn their hills to gold, or bring them a well of pure water, or prophesy the coming price of goods. “Cannot your God disclose which merchandise will rise in price?” He answered, saying, “The miracle that I bring you is the Qur’án, a Book revealed to an illiterate man, a Book no other man can equal.” Then He taught them of the life after death; and one, who owed money to a Muslim, said that he would repay him in the next world. Then He warned them of the terrors of the “Last Day,” and said strange things about the coming of "The Hour”: “Whosoever can find a refuge, let him hide . . . On that day humble herders of camels will sprawl about in palaces; people will be set to work building houses of extraordinary height . . . The Hour will come upon us so quickly that two men having unfolded some goods, shall not have time to conclude their bargain or fold up the goods again . . .” And they reviled Him, saying, “Know this, O Muḥammad, we shall never cease to stop Thee from preaching till either Thou or we shall perish.”
To kill Him, member of a ruling clan, would have meant a civil war; so they put to death His followers, the weak and poor, or tortured them. Among them was Balal, the African slave, who lay many days in the Meccan sun, stretched out with a rock on his breast; they told him to forsake Muḥammad or die, and leaned down to hear him whisper: "There is only one God—one.” He lived, and was the first muezzin. Of him Bahá’u’lláh has written: "Consider how Balal, the Ethiopian, unlettered though he was, ascended into the heaven of faith and certitude.” And Muḥammad sorrowed over the wrong that was done His disciples, and He cried out: "I fly for refuge unto the Lord of the Daybreak, that He may deliver Me from the mischief of those things which He hath created . . . I fly for refuge unto the Lord of men, the King of men, the God of men . . .”
And He sent His followers into Ethiopia, to the pious Christian king. The Negus questioned them, and bade them speak, and they answered: “O King, we adored idols, we lived in unchastity, we ate dead bodies, we spoke abominations . . . when God raised up among us a Man . . . and He called us to the unity of God, to fly vices and to shun evil.” And the Negus traced a line on the ground with his stick, and he said: “Truly, between your faith and ours there is not more than this little stroke.”
Then the Meccans gathered to plot against Muḥammad: "Would you say He is a sorcerer?” "No, He hath not the emphatic tone, the jerky language.” “A madman then?" "He hath not the bearing.” "A poet inspired by a jinn?” “He doth not speak in classic verse.” “A magician?” "He
Naw-Rúz Feast held jointly by the communities of Oakland and Berkeley, California, U. S. A., March 21, 1937.
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doth not perform wonders.”
And since
great converts had now been made, they
bargained with the Prophet, offering gold
and honors in exchange for silence, saying,
"We shall make Thee our chieftain and our
king.” He answered them, “I am only a
man like you. It is revealed to Me that
your God is one God: go straight then to
Him, and implore His pardon. . . . Do ye
indeed disbelieve in Him? . . . Do ye assign
Him peers? The Lord of the worlds is He!”
So they shut Muḥammad and His people
out of Mecca into the mountains, and
forbade that any buy or sell with him. And
after three years were passed and Muḥammad
and His disciples had hungered and
suffered, the ban was lifted. Then the black
days came, when the Prophet lost the two
whom He loved dearest, His chief defender
and His wife. “When I was poor she
enriched Me. When all the world abandoned
Me, she comforted Me.” They had lived
together over a score of years, and contrary
to the way of His times He had married no
other. And yet He taught and none
listened, and He put His agony into the
words of the Prophet Noah: “My cry only
maketh them flee me the more.”
He spoke with the tribes, who came into Mecca for trade and to circle around the Ka‘bih. And once He went to the beautiful mountain town of Ta’if, where the fruit trees grow, and the people stoned Him, shouting, “If God had wanted to send a Prophet, could He not have chosen a better one than Thee?” But later in vision He journeyed by night to where the Lote-Tree flowers beside God’s invisible throne; and He found thousands of choirs of angels, bowed down and motionless, in utter quiet, and then He felt Himself in the light of His Lord. He beheld God with His soul’s eyes, and He saw what the tongue cannot express.
Now at last the men of Yathrib asked of Him to come and rule among them, so that He sent His disciples ahead, out of Mecca. And the Meccans gathered around His house in the dark to kill Him, but when the dawn showed white, they saw that He had gone. And Yathrib became Medina, which means "The City of the Prophet.”
Muḥammad never first withdrew His hand out of another man’s palm, nor turned away before the other had turned. He visited the sick, He followed any bier He met, He accepted the invitation of a slave to dinner. His food was dates and water, or barley bread; the people of His house “did not eat their fill of barley bread, two days successively, as long as He lived.” He mended His own clothing and sandals, and milked the goats, and wiped sweat from His horse with His sleeve. He gave alms when He had anything to give. Once a woman brought Him a cloak, which He needed sorely, but they came and asked for it to make a shroud, and He gave it up, “for He could refuse nothing.” He loved perfumes, and dyed His fingernails with henna, and was immaculate. Men said He was more modest than a virgin behind her curtain. Those who came near to Him loved Him. His countenance shone “with a majestic radiance at the same time impressive and gentle.” A follower said of Him: "I never saw anything more beautiful than Lord Muḥammad; you might say the sun was moving in His face.”
Medina was an oasis, rich in palm groves, an agricultural center, not a place of trade like Mecca. Its malarial fever was notorious, its water tainted so that even the camels sickened of it. And now the Prophet became a temporal as well as a spiritual Lord. And Arabia rose against Him, to kill belief in the one true God, so that Muḥammad prayed: “O Lord, forget not Thy promise of help. O Lord, if this little band were to perish, there will be none to offer Thee pure worship.” He who had never wielded a weapon, who wept at the sight of pain, whose heart was so tender that His enemies called Him womanish, had now to drive back Arabia by force of arms. Mecca and her idols marched against Islám, and her women too came singing to battle, their skirts tucked up, the bangles flashing on their legs, and they tore and mangled the Muslim dead. But at last Hubal, the old man of red agate, lost to the Prophet of God, and "Arabia that had never before obeyed one prince, submitted to Him . . . His word created one nation out of hundreds of warring tribes.”
At Medina, Muḥammad built a mosque of
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brick and earth, and
He preached in it,
leaning against a tree. One day they asked,
"What is the greatest vice of man?” He
answered, "You must not ask Me about vice,
but about virtue;” and He repeated this
three times, after which He said, "Know
ye! The worst of men is a bad learned
man, and a good learned man is the best.”
Again He said, “If the unbeliever knew of
the extent of the Lord’s mercy, even He
would not despair of Paradise.” And at
other times: “Death is a bridge that uniteth
friend with friend . . . Misfortune is
always with the Muslim and his wife, either
in their persons or their property or
children; either death or sickness; until they die,
when there is no fault in them . . . Act, as
regards this world, as if you were going to
live forever; and as regards the other world,
as if you were going to die tomorrow . . .
You will not enter Paradise until you have
faith; and you will not complete your faith
till you love one another . . . Trust in God,
but tie your camel . . .” One day as He
walked with His disciples He said, “The
Garden (Paradise) is nearer to you than the
thongs of your sandals; and the Fire
likewise.” They came to a woman suckling her
child, and He said, “Do you think this
woman will cast her own child into the fire?
Verily God is more compassionate to His
creatures than this woman to her child.”
Once on a journey, when His companions
were praying with loud voices, Muḥammad
told them: “Be easy on
yourselves . . . Verily you do not call
to One deaf or absent,
but verily to One who heareth and
seeth . . . and He to whom you pray is nearer to
you than the neck of your camel.” He said
these things and many others, and He talked
to His disciples of kindness to the Jews and
Christians and other “People of the Book”;
of the rights of women; of gentleness to
animals; of the Last Day; and of the life
beyond this.
Now the Prophet, clothed as a pilgrim and wearing a black turban, rode into Mecca. He circled the Ka‘bih, and entered, and He wiped away the frescoes from the walls-the pictures of Abraham and Ishmael, and the female angels; and He struck Hubal from his place, and tore down a wooden dove that hung from the roof. Then He prayed in the Ka‘bih to His Lord; and leaving He touched with His stick each of the three hundred and sixty stones surrounding the holy place, and said: “Truth is come and error is gone.” He drank from the well of Zemzem out of a goblet that men have kept, and He prayed at Khadijih’s tomb. Then He sent His disciples abroad to break every idol and to teach Islám.
One day while Abú Bakr sat in the mosque at Medina, Muḥammad suddenly appeared before him; and Abú Bakr said, “Ah, Thou for whom I would sacrifice father and mother, white hairs are hastening upon Thee!” And the Prophet raised up His beard with His hand and gazed at it; and Abú Bakr’s eyes filled with tears . . . Long years now Muḥammad had suffered and struggled, been hunted and stoned, been wounded in battle, and He carried as well the mark of the poisoned feast they had spread Him at Khaybar. And Muḥammad wrote to the rulers of the earth, proclaiming His mission. Many replied with gifts: silk and honey; a white mule; from the Negus a pair of black boots, which He wore several times while praying. But Khusraw, the
Íránian emperor, seeing Muḥammad's name
ahead of his own on the missive, tore it to shreds; “God will tear up Khusraw’s kingdom in the same way,” said Muhammad. And He had men pitch a tent of red leather, and here He received the deputations who flocked from all over the land to pledge Him allegiance.
Then for the last time Muḥammad stood
on the hills over Mecca, and His voice rang
out and the multitude listened: “I do not
know whether I shall ever see you again as
today . . . but I have made it possible for
you to continue on the straight Path . . .
This day and month shall be held sacred
. . . ye shall have to give account for your
actions before your Lord . . . Ye have
rights over your wives and your wives have
rights over you . . . Feed your slaves with
such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe
them with the stuff ye wear . . . All
Muslims are brothers—nothing which belongeth
to another is lawful unto his brother.” Then
He cried, “O Lord, have I fulfilled
My mission?” And the multitude answered, “Yea,
verily Thou hast!” And the Prophet
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concluded, "O Lord,
I beseech Thee, bear Thou
witness to it!”
On the long way home, He stopped the caravan, and taking the hand of ‘Alí, husband of his dearest child, He said: “Whoever hath Me as his Master hath ‘Alí as his master . . . God be a friend to his friends and a foe to his foes.” Then He told them of two treasures He was leaving them: “The greatest is the Book of God . . . The other is the line of My descendants.”
And He went one midnight to the graves of His old companions who lay at Medina, and He prayed for them. The last time He entered the mosque, He was supported by two of His kinsmen; and after the service, He said: “If I have wronged any one of you, here I am to answer for it; if I owe aught to anyone, all I possess belongs to you.” A man in the crowd claimed three dirhems which Muḥammad had once bidden him give to a beggar. The Prophet paid him, saying, "Better to blush in this world than the next.”
As Muḥammad lay dying, He called for writing materials to appoint His successor again; but ‘Umar said, "Pain is deluding God’s Messenger; we have God’s book, which is enough.” And they wrangled at His bedside, whether to bring the materials or no. And the Prophet sent them from Him. He was praying in a whisper, when He ascended.
Bahá’u’lláh says of Him: “How abundant the thorns and briars which they have strewn over His path! The . . . divines of that age . . . pronounced Him a lunatic and an impostor. Such sore accusations they brought against Him that in recounting them God forbiddeth the ink to flow, our pen to move, or the page to bear them . . . For this reason did Muḥammad cry out: ‘No Prophet of God hath suffered such harm as I have suffered.’ ”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I.
Bahá’u’lláh: The Kitáb-i-Íqán.
Qur’án: Sale and Rodwell translations.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Some Answered Questions.
II.
‘Abdu’lláh Al-Ma’mún As-Suhravárdi: The Sayings of Muhammad—London, 1905.
Siyyid Amir-‘Alí: The Spirit of Islám—London, 1891.
Arnold, T. W.: The Preaching of Islám—New York, 1913.
Dermenghem, Emile: Life of Mahomet—London, 1930.
Encyclopedia of Islám.
Lane-Poole, S.: Speeches and Table-Talks of the Prophet Muḥammad—-London, 1882.
Nicholson, R. A.: Literary History of the Arabs—Cambridge University, 1930.