MUHAMMAD'S FIRST FORTY YEARS

 MUHAMMAD'S FIRST FORTY YEARS


THE CHILDHOOD YEARS OF THE FUTURE PROPHET

As Muhammad's father `Abdullah had died before he was born his grandfather `Abd al-Muttalib became his guardian according to Arab custom. His mother Amina decided to send him away to be nursed by a woman from one of the local nomadic tribes of the Hawazin known as the Banu Sa`d. A number of possible maids turned down the opportunity as they did not expect a reasonable remuneration from the widow but one of them, Halima, eventually took the infant Muhammad over. The women arranged for the child to be weaned over a period of two years but, when Halima endeavoured to return him after this period, Amina remarked that she did not think the climate of Mecca would be good for him and she accordingly arranged for a further two-year period during which Halima was to remain responsible for him.
Shortly before the end of this period a strange experience took place which greatly disturbed Halima and her husband. Muhammad was playing with their children among the cattle close to their settlement. He suddenly had an unusual fit and for a time went into an apparent trance. They were greatly troubled as it was commonly believed that such behaviour was a sign of the influence of an evil spirit and they decided to return the child to his mother immediately. With some difficulty Amina managed to get a report of what had happened and, after persuading them that the experience was nothing to be concerned about, they took the child back and kept him for one more year.
Islamic legend has invested this story with marvellous details. It is said that two angels actually visited the young Muhammad and, after cutting open his chest, they took out his heart and removed a black clot which they promptly threw away. After washing his heart and the inside of his chest, they sealed them both up again and left, saying that if he was to be weighed against the whole of his people, he would most certainly outweigh them all.
Ignoring the legendary narrative that has embellished the incident it appears that the young boy indeed suffered from strange physical experiences that were later to manifest themselves again when he believed he was the recipient of a divine revelation. They may well have been epileptic fits though nothing certain can be said about them.
`Abd al-Muttalib died when Muhammad was only eight years old and his uncle Abu Talib thereafter became his official protector. While he was still a boy Abu Talib decided to take him on a trading expedition to Syria. Islamic tradition states that when the caravan reached Busra a certain Christian monk named Bahira came out to greet the party. It is said that he was well-versed in the Christian faith and that he had gained most of his knowledge from a book which he had in his cell. Noticing that Muhammad seemed to fit the description of a last prophet to come whom Bahira eagerly awaited, he questioned him at some length and looked at his back to see if he could find a certain mark which was believed to be a sign of the seal of prophethood between his shoulders. Discovering it he called for Abu Talib and instructed him to look very carefully after the lad when he returned to Mecca as he was destined to have a great future. The monk is said to have particularly warned him to beware of the Jews.
The full story of this incident is supplemented with much fanciful legendary material but the event as a whole is regarded by the Muslims as a salutary witness to the growing future Prophet of Islam by a learned Christian and the legend about the seal of prophethood between his shoulders is a basic tenet of Muslim belief to this day.
HIS MARRIAGE TO THE WEALTHY KHADIJA
At the age of twenty-five Muhammad married for the first time. A widowed woman of substance and dignity named Khadija had heard of his trustworthiness (he was called Al-Amin – "the Faithful One" – by his associates) and employed him to look after her next trading expedition to Syria. He was accompanied by her son Maysara and when this young man gave a good report of Muhammad's conduct throughout the journey she sought his hand in marriage. It appears the proposal came from her side and, although she was already forty years of age, Muhammad accepted her offer of marriage and a lifelong relationship resulted.
Seven children were born of the marriage but their three sons unfortunately died in infancy. Khadija was destined to die some ten years later but their four daughters all outlived her and followed Muhammad to Medina when he left Mecca shortly after her death. His daughters' names were Zaynab, Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum and Fatima though only the last was to become prominent in Islam as the wife of `Ali, one of Muhammad's first converts and his fourth official successor.
The marriage was a happy one and, although Muhammad married
often after Khadija's death and had a number of wives at any time, he maintained a monogamous marriage with her throughout the remaining years of her life. His betrothal to a wealthy merchant-woman proved to be an advantage to him when he began to reconsider the religious heritage of his people and his forefathers for he found ample leisure time to retreat to the hills around Mecca to quietly contemplate the meaning of life and to attempt to discover divine truths. An incident during this period, however, was destined to have a remarkable effect on him and probably contributed in no small measure to his eventual conviction that he was called to be a prophet of God in the line of the former prophets, firstly to his own people and ultimately to the whole world.
THE REBUILDING OF THE KA`ABA IN MECCA
At the age of thirty-five Muhammad one day walked into the Ka`aba precincts and was suddenly apprehended by large numbers of the Quraysh who were busy rebuilding the structure. They had not been willing to demolish the former shrine completely for fear of some reaction from the Arabian gods and goddesses and were keen to put a roof on it to protect its interior. A Greek ship had been wrecked fortuitously off Jiddah, the town on the Red Sea coast just forty miles from Mecca, and the Quraysh promptly arranged for its timbers to be transported to Mecca to be used as construction material.
The old structure was decrepit but the people withdrew from it in awe. One of them, al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, plucked up enough courage for the task, however, and plucked up an axe with which he demolished a part of it pleading with Allah all the while to recognise that the act was not intended to be sacrilegious but was necessary to improve the shrine. When the bystanders saw no evil befall him they joined in the task and, after the demolition work was completed, they set about rebuilding its walls without further ado.
The central feature of the Ka'aba was the black stone built into its north-east corner. Legend has it that the stone was originally pure white and that it was brought down from heaven by angels upon a cloth to Adam (or, as other traditions have it, to Abraham) to be inserted in the shrine. By Muhammad's time it was pitch black and it is said it turned this colour through bearing the sins of those who had kissed it. (It was in all probability a meteorite and was held in sacred awe solely because it had fallen from the sky. A similar stone held to be sacred in Paul's time at Ephesus also gained its sanctity through having fallen out of the sky – Acts 19:35). The Quraysh got to the point where the stone had to be replaced in its original position in the shrine.
The sub-tribes soon began to argue about who was to have the privilege of actually taking the stone and sealing it again in the walls. The dissension became so serious that one of the sub-tribes, the Banu `Abdud- Dar, brought a bowl full of blood and washed their hands in it with one of the other groups present, pledging a battle to the death to resolve the matter. The rest saw the issue was getting out of hand and, to solve the conflict, persuaded them to let the next person who came into the precincts have the honour of replacing the stone. Muhammad unwittingly became the very next person to come on the scene.
The first person to enter through the gate of Banu Shaybah was the Apostle Of Allah, may Allah bless him. When they saw him they said "This is Al-Amin (the Trusted). We agree to what we have decided". Then they informed him of the affair. Thereupon the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him, took his mantle and spread it on the earth, then he put the black stone on it. He then said, "Let a person from every quarter of the Quraysh come ... let every one of you hold a corner of the cloth". Then all of them raised it and the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him, put it in its place with his own hand. (Ibn Sa`d, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, Vol.1, p.166).
This story is almost certainly true in its essential details. It goes a long way to explaining why, shortly after this, Muhammad began to retire to the hill outside Mecca known as Hira where he meditated for long periods about the religious beliefs of his countrymen, the place of the Ka'aba in divine history, and his own personal role and destiny as a possible leader of his people.
Within seven years the otherwise ordinary citizen of Mecca was to boldly proclaim that he had been commissioned as a divine messenger by Allah, the Lord of the Ka'aba, to call the Arab peoples of the regions about Mecca to forsake the worship of idols and to revere Allah alone. There can be little doubt that the incident where he was elected to be the arbiter between the sub-tribes of Mecca in the matter of replacing the most sacred object in the Ka'aba had much to do with his later conviction and may well have been the express cause of his belief that he had been singled out as the divinely appointed warner and messenger to the very same people between whom he had mediated only a few years earlier.

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