In Search of The Prophet - 1

It was perhaps the most torturous day he could remember in a long time. The dry blistering heat just serenaded its way through the house and the somewhat busy streets of Taif, the sister city to Mecca which lay about a 100 kilometers southeast to it. The winds that blew over the city brought with it the sand and a sense of impending doom. Ofcourse he had seen many such heat streaks across his life, but this time he felt he couldn’t handle it; partly due to the flu he acquired two weeks ago while at a business trip to Syria.

 

Falah ibn Atah lay still on his cot, tired and wearied. His muscles reeling with fatigue, his bones so weak he thought walking would crumble them. Mentally he was a depressed man. His wife had given birth to a daughter again; her third. How would he face his fellow tribesmen now? He could hear them teasing and taunting him. ‘Look! Here goes Falah the man who has no one to carry forward his name!’ He sighed. He loved his girls. He would give up anything in this world to keep them. When the first girl was born, he defied traditional custom and refused to bury her alive in the sand dunes outside the city. Girls were a burden to the Arabian middle class. At a time when every tribe and town of Arabia were nothing but warring factions ready to spill blood for the silliest of reasons, not having a son to fight battles was a shame.

But burying newborn girls just because they couldn’t grow up to be bloodthirsty hounds was something he could not come to accept. But Falah was nevertheless still a man and he easily fell prey to the constraints and standards of society and becoming the subject of their ridicule was something that bothered him a tad bit too much. And not having a son wasn’t exactly why he was at loggerheads with his tribe.

After growing up and forming his own opinions and perceiving things his own way, Falah, at a very young age had refused to pray to the idols in his city and neither did he take part in the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca where tribes from all over Arabia paid homage to the 360 odd idols inside the Holy structure of the Kaaba. “When I travel the desert at night, I know that God is not kept in a house” he would often say to his detractors.    

Through his travels he had heard about Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus and the message they preached, that which of one God for the universe; the Unseen, the most Sublime. Attributing Him to idols and pictures which can neither harm people nor do any good to them, in his opinion was blasphemy and belittling of God. To prove his point to his father, he had once pushed the idol of the Calf from the tableplace at his house. When it fell and broke into a thousand pieces he commented, “Father, this idol cannot even take care of itself how would it affect the lives of the people who pray to it.”

He was slapped and beaten up for this ‘sacrilegious’ act and at the end his father out of love for his son advised him to keep his feelings about religion to himself if he wanted to live peacefully in the tribe. When his wife failed to give birth to a son the second time, some of his tribesman had observed that he might have incurred the wrath of the gods upon him. Even though in doubt, Falah never wavered and held steadfast on to his doctrine.

But life, as they say is not affable to everyone and he had seen his fair share of bad times and now he lay in this small bijou house of his not knowing what his future had for him. The fever had subsided and he felt a little better and proceeded to sit up at the edge of his bed. He had just got up to get some water for himself when he thought he heard some commotion outside. A clamor of people screaming and shouting aggressively. It was growing louder and louder with every passing second. He could not make any head or tail of what this was about. He turned and moved towards the door slowly, holding onto anything firm and steady for support as his legs still felt feeble.

He opened the door and was surprised to see his wife standing outside facing the street, the basket full of groceries still in her hands. He was about to ask her when she had returned when he realized that everyone was standing at the doors of their respective houses as if awaiting some passing by carnival show.  Falah trained his eyes in the direction of the oncoming pandemonium. He could vaguely make out two men being vigorously chased by children and street urchins of Taif. They were being pelted with stones mercilessly by children. As they came closer, Falah saw one of the men shielding the other with the long cloaks of his garment but this proved to be a futile exercise as both of them were injured pretty badly. He wondered what their fault was. He had never seen such punishment borne out for anyone in Taif in the past.  People were usually flogged for their crimes.

He turned to his wife for answers.

“Don’t you know? The one in the front is the man from Mecca who claims to be the prophet of God and the one shielding him is his adopted son.” She replied.

“Muhammad?” Falah tried to remember. Half a decade of information began to process in his mind. He had certainly heard about him throughout his travels along the desert, the man who talked about absolute monotheism. Some spoke of him as the awaited Prophet while many dismissed him as a madman; a lunatic who just kept blabbering consummate poetry. What did they call it? Ah yes! The Qur’an!

But that was all the much he had heard about him. He didn’t know what he professed or what he taught or what were the contents of this poetic prose they called the Qur’an. But first things first. Why was he here and why is he being pursued like this?

“Muhammad has gone against established order. He is challenging what the people of Arabia have been doing for centuries! Stopping the worship of the sacred idols of Arabia? I think he just wants to be seen as the ruler of Mecca. All he wants is power.”, his wife went on, a tone of evident bias in her voice; she obviously didn’t share Falah’s views on this subject.

“He obviously doesn’t want power.”, Salam al Uteybi, his neighbor interrupted. “He belongs to the very tribe that has custody over the Kaaba – The Quraish- they are Mecca’s defacto rulers. Early into his preaching, the chieftains had offered him wealth as much as he wanted and the sole leadership of the tribe. But he refused. His own uncle is opposed to him. So money; I don’t think so. He is probably mad, that’s what everyone in Mecca says he is.”

“Whatever. Overtime, life in Mecca became hard for this man and his small band of his followers. He was under the protection of his uncle who died last year. To top that even his wife passed away. He reached here today morning with his son seeking the aid and support of this city. The chieftains welcomed him and allowed him to speak freely of his message. But he started speaking of his monotheism and women rights and slave rights and what not! Some say he even told the chief of one of the tribes that in the sight of God, he is equal to his black Abyssinian slave standing next to him.” 

“He what?” Falah exclaimed. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. But he couldn’t say Muhammad was wrong either. This man was saying and advocating ideas which for years he thought were legitimate. What if he is indeed the prophet the Jews in Medina and elsewhere talked about? The ideas he preached certainly did not sound like that of a lunatic. And if he wanted power and wealth, he could have easily accepted the Quraish’s offer a long time back and escape being persecuted like this. He had no reason to be chased around the streets of Taif in this unsparing manner.

He was shaken out of his thoughts as the men neared their house still being pelted with stones the size of apples. Falah looked at the Prophet. Never in his life had he seen such exuberance and radiance emanate from a person’s face. He had a collective air of humbleness and sincerity. At the first glance itself, Falah could make out that this man possessed a very sound intellect and even when being assaulted ruthlessly, he still was not desperate as any other man in his place would be.

As they came closer, he saw that both the men were bleeding from cuts and bruises all over the body. He noticed that Muhammad’s shoes were clotted with blood and he barely could keep himself up to walk the distance to the city walls. When they reached Falah’s house, Muhammad almost collapsed but Zaid held him and they both kept on moving; half walking, half running till they saw a vineyard. Once inside, the chase stopped as the vineyard was private property and belonged to Atabah and Shaibah, two wealthy chiefs of Mecca. Falah saw Muhammad take refuge under one of the bigger trees and sit there breathing heavily. He wondered whether the people to whom this vineyard belonged would drive him out of there; afterall they too belonged to the upper echelons of the Quraish.

After some time he saw Adaas, their Christian slave come out with a plateful of grapes and inch towards the resting men. Maybe they took pity in their condition; religious ideologies aside, they both belonged to the same noble tribe. Adaas was having a conversation with Muhammad and then suddenly he fell on his knees and kissed Muhammad’s hands.

Falah was stunned. Who was this man? Should he be in awe of him or should he stay clear of him? What sort of sorcery did he possess that the poor herded towards him? He had known that one of the earliest converts to Muhammad’s religion was a black slave named Bilal. Why? What did he give them? Certainly not a life of ease and comfort. Instead, he had heard that they were persecuted like animals in Mecca. Why would a person abandon the pleasures of life and flock to this illiterate man to live a life of tyranny?

Questions began to build up inside him. He looked at Muhammad. He was just fifty yards away. He could walk straight up to him and get each one of his doubt cleared. But could he do that? If the chieftains got whiff that one of their tribesman made contact with this prophet of God, they would make both his and his family’s life a living hell.

Falah restrained himself. But he still was restless. He had to talk to Muhammad come what may. But not here; not at Mecca. As Falah sat at his bedside he felt his head getting heavier again and the fever that had once subsided was creeping its way up again. He turned and lay down his mind bellowing with uncertainties that needed explanations. After a few minutes he fell asleep.......