How Was The Qur'anic Doctrine Announced To the World? (4)

HOW WAS THE QUR’ANIC DOCTRINE

ANNOUNCED TO THE WORLD?(4)

In fact, Tradition preserved a multitude of acts of clemency for crimes committed against his own person and his family. [1]

None tried to explain that this new orientation was the outcome of a pressure exerted on him by his people whose warlike spirit was an essential characteristic because scholars could not rally to such a hypothesis. Scholars proved, on the contrary, how far the effusion of blood provoked horror in the Arabs and even in those of the desert. They affirmed that the Bedouins never seek out war, but when it is imposed upon them, they accept it instead of enduring shame and humiliation.

It is then in a historical fact that we have to search for something which may have led to the determination of that new reaction. And the Qur’an leads us to look on an exciting spectacle. It makes us hear a distressed cry emitted by Muslims without any support, “men, women and children” residing at Makkah, suffering for their faith and invoking the help of God against the oppression of the disbelievers:

“And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the cause of Allâh, and for those weak, ill-treated and oppressed among men, women, and children whose cry is: “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You one who will protect, and raise for us from You one who will help”. (IV, 175).

Apart from any reviving propaganda, the ancient seeds, the lesson and the example, did not cease to be fruitful. As soon as faith palpitated, fury and cruelty were exerted without any scruples for its suffocation. What! Because the Emigrants and their Hosts were enjoying entire liberty of faith and of the cult in the safe refuge, have they the right to lock themselves into their egoism and to remain indifferent to the fate of their brothers?

May we reasonably and impartially refuse the Truth and Virtue of their right to receive help and consequently to let the despotism strengthen itself with weapons against them?

Nevertheless, this material help, justly required, has not been willingly granted by Muslims at least in its real warlike form. Even here, it suffices to consult the Qur’an to see how the hesitations and the retreat which the “free” manifested for liberating the “captives”. However, the hour of the supreme sacrifice had rung and God wanted to entrench, between truth and fraud, the actual struggle.

Such were the circumstances. As much as the persecutions represented an individual and sporadic aspect, Muslims, during their stay at Makkah, were obliged to abstain from any violent reaction and to endure their wounds courageously:

“Have you not seen those who were told to hold back their hands (from fighting) and perform As-Salât and give Zakât but when the fighting was ordained for them, behold! A section of them fear men as they fear Allâh or even more. They say: “Our Lord! Why have you ordained for us fighting? Would that you had granted us respite for a short period?” Say: “Short is enjoyment of this world. The Hereafter is (far) better for him who fears Allâh, and you shall not be dealt with unjustly even equal to scalish thread in the long slit of a date-stone.” (IV, 77).