Jihad (Struggle, effort, endeavour) - Part 10

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('Jihad' - Struggle, effort, endeavour. [Muhammad Prophet For Our Time Glossary

pg. 217].)

 

 

Jihad - Part 10

 

(p.152) In Medina, Muhammad's position was still weak. [38] But in the peninsula

as a whole, the tide was beginning to turn in his favor. Whenever he heard that

a Bedouin tribe had joined the Meccan confederacy, he would lead a ghazu [raid]

to capture its flocks and herds--even if it meant a trek of five hundred miles

to the Syrian border. In June 626, he learned that some clans of the Bedouin

tribe of Ghatafan were planning a raid against Medina, so he set out to repel

the expedition. When the Muslims came face to face with the enemy at Dhat

al-Riqa, he once again avoided a direct confrontation, but for three days the

Muslims remained face to face with the enemy. Both Tabari and Ibn Ishaq make it

clear that the Muslim troops were terrified. But so, it seems, were the

Ghatafan. In this atmosphere of terror, the Prophet received a revelation that

instituted the Prayer of Fear, an abridged form of the usual prostrations

adapted for a military emergency. [39] Instead of making themselves vulnerable

to the enemy by praying en masse at the appointed times, Muslims should pray in

relays, with their arms at the ready. In the end, the battle simply fizzled out

before it began; Ghatafan withdrew and Muhammad could return to Medina, having

achieved a symbolic victory.

 

The Prayer of Fear showed how beleaguered and defensive the new religion had

become. It is in this context that we must see the Qur'an's apparent retreat

from gender equality. (p.153) In January 626, his new wife Zaynab had died, just

eight months after their wedding. Not long afterwards, he approached Hind bint

Abi Umayyah, the widow of his cousin Abu Salamah, who had died after Uhud,

leaving her with four children. Hind--or Umm Salamah, as she was usually

known--was twenty-nine years old; beautiful, sophisticated, and extremely

intelligent, she would provide the Prophet with the kind of companionship he had

enjoyed with Khadijah. She was also the sister of a leading member of Makhzum,

one of the most powerful Meccan tribes. At first, she was reluctant to marry

Muhammad. She had loved her husband very much, she explained; she was no longer

young, had a jealous disposition, and was not sure that she could adapt to life

in the harem. Muhammad smiled--he had a smile of great sweetness, which almost

everybody found disarming--and assured her that in his late fifties, he was even

older than she, and God would cure her jealousy.

 

She was right to be wary, because life in the mosque was not easy. [40] The

apartments of Muhammad's wives were so tiny that it was almost impossible to

stand upright inside them. Muhammad did not have a house of his own. He passed

the night with each of his wives in turn and her hut became his official

residence for the day. There was practically no privacy, as Muhammad was

constantly surrounded by crowds of people. He had frequent visits from his

daughters and grandchildren. He was devoted to Hasan and Husayn, the sons of

'Ali and Fatimah, and was especially fond of his little granddaughter Umamah,

whom he would carry into the mosque on his shoulders. (p.154) He was constantly

closeted with his closest companions: Abu Bakr, Zayd, 'Ali, 'Uthman,

and--increasingly--'Umar. As he became more widely respected in Arabia, he also

received delegations from the Bedouin tribes, who crowded into the courtyard

with their camels.

 

When he left the mosque after prayers, hordes of petitioners herded around their

Prophet, pulling at his garments and yelling their questions and demands in his

face. [41] They would follow him into his wife's hut, thronging round the table

so tightly that it was sometimes impossible to pick up a morsel of food. [42]

This was stressful for Muhammad, who was shy, fastidious, and sensitive to

unpleasant bodily odors and bad breath. He was also getting older. He still had

only a few grey hairs and walked so energetically that his feet seemed scarcely

to touch the ground, but he was nearly sixty--a not inconsiderable age in

Arabia, he had been injured at Uhud, and the constant pressure was beginning to

tell on him at a time when the whole of Medina was waiting in terror for the

inevitable return of the Meccan army and the ummah was more divided than ever

before. [43]

 

This internal dissension became apparent as soon as Umm Salamah took up

residence in the mosque. 'A'isha fiercely resented the arrival of this

distinguished, superior woman, and a rift developed in the harem that reflected

tensions within the ummah itself. Umm Salamah represented the more aristocratic

Emigrants, while 'A'isha and Hafsah, the daughters of Abu Bakr and 'Umar, came

from the more plebeian party in power. Each of Muhammad's wives sided with one

of these two rival factions. Umm Salamah often relied upon the support of a

third group, the 'ahl al-beit', the " people of the household, " who were members

of Muhammad's immediate family. At the time of her marriage to Muhammad, these

divisions were only in their infancy, but it would soon become clear that the

ummah was not a monolithic [one-minded] group, and that the people who entered

Islam had done so with very different expectations.

 

Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)

Chapter 4, 'Jihad', p. 152-155

Karen Armstrong

Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

ISBN-13 978-0-00-723248-2

ISBN-10 0-00-723248-9

 

Notes:

 

[38] Qur'an 24:53, 32:29, 47:35, 46. Watt, 'Muhammad at Medina', 231-4.

 

[39] Qur'an 4:102; Lings, 'Muhammad', 208-10; Mernissi, 'Women and Islam',

163-7.

 

[40] Lings, 'Muhammad', 21-212; Mernissi, 'Women and Islam', 153-4, 172.

 

[41] Qur'an 49:2, 4-5.

 

[42] Muhammad ibn Sa'd, 'Tabaqat al-kubra' (Beirut, n.d.), 8:174; Mernissi,

'Women and Islam', 172.

 

[43] Lings, 'Muhammad', 107-8; Mernissi, 'Women and Islam', 174.