Seerah 022 – Prophetic Stages of Dawah in Mecca and the Early Converts
Phases and Stages of The Call:
The Prophet’s Call (Dawah) could be divided into two
phases distinctively demarcated:
1. The Meccan phase: nearly thirteen years.
2. The Medinan phase: fully ten years.
Each of the two phases included distinctive features
easily discernible through accurate scrutiny into the circumstances that
characterised each of them.
The Meccan phase can be divided into three stages:
1. The stage of the Private Call: three years.
2. The stage of the open proclamation of the Call in Mecca
(Public Dawah): from the beginning of the fourth year of Prophethood to almost the
end of the tenth year.
3. The stage of the call to Islam and propagating it
beyond Mecca by seeking an alternative base for Islam (Nusrah): it lasted from the end
of tenth year of the Prophethood until Muhammad’s* emigration to Medina
(Yathrib). The Medinan phase will be considered later in its due course
inshaAllah.
The stages of dawah are few, each is a
legitimate stage for any Muslim community:
1. Private dawah - let the public status quo remain. This was the
first 3 years.
2. Just preaching with the tongue and no military / physical action.
Even if they harm you, the command was not to retaliate. This was 10 years of
dawah for the Prophet*. To the extent of multiple killings and multiple assassination
attempts - even if they kill one of us, we cannot touch one of theirs.
3. Seeking physical support to establish Islam (Nusrah) as a way of
life through allegiance of the people with power and influence and carrying
public opinion. In this phase there are distinct levels of Dawah (according to some
scholars) with are under the control of the Amir al-Mumineen:
i)
Dawah with the tongue along with physical fighting. The Muslims thus fought only the
Quraysh of Mecca - no other tribe. This happened for the first 6 years after
the hijrah. So open dawah along with military confrontation.
ii) Open dawah to all with honour - you have political power but you
only attack in defence if you need to. You don't utilise it for military power
or expansion. This happened in the Madinah stage after the treaty of Hudaibiyah
after the conquest of Mecca.
iii) Open dawah along with physical confrontation to anyone who opposes the
spread of Islamic Dawah. This was stage the Prophet* passed away upon. That
he was sending out armies to i.e. the Romans etc. And the sahaba continued on
this stage which is why they took over nearly the whole known world. They
conquered Persia, most of the Roman empire, Egypt, North Africa.
The First Stage
Strife In The Way Of The Call - Three Years Of Private Call:
It is well-known that Mecca was the centre
for the Arabs, and housed the custodians of Al-Ka‘bah. Protection and guardianship
of the idols and stone graven images that received veneration on the part of
all the Arabs lay in the hands of the Meccans. Hence the difficulty of hitting
the target of reform and rectitude in a place considered the den of idolatry.
Working in such an atmosphere no doubt requires unshakable will and
determination, that is why the call unto Islam assumed a clandestine form so
that the Meccans should not be enraged by the unexpected surprise.
The Early Converts:
The Prophet* naturally
initiated his sacred mission right from home and then moved to the people
closely associated with him. He called unto Islam whomsoever he thought would attest
the truth which had come from his Lord. In fact, a host of people who nursed
not the least seed of doubt as regards the Prophet*, immediately responded and
quite readily embraced the true faith.
That is he preached to his friends and
family. The first revert was Khadija which shows how much faith she had in the Prophet*.
She converted without even knowing. The second was Wariqah ibn Nawful. He converted
without even saying the shahada and died with Islam without ever praying /
fasting.
The third is either Ali, Abu Bakr or
Zaid. One of the easiest to resolve is: first child was Ali, first adult man
was Abu Bakr and first freed slave was Zaid. As for Ali there is no question
because he is being raised by the Prophet* and Khadija themselves in their
household. At this time he was around 10 years old. When Abu Talib had Ali, the
Prophet* offered to take care of Ali as Abu Talib was very poor. So Ali was
raised in the house of the Prophet*.
And then of course Zaid whose story we
went have already covered.
Then the conversion of Abu Bakr: when
the Prophet* presented Islam, he converted instantly. In a hadith, once when
the companions began to argue the Prophet* said to Umar, "Allah sent me
with the truth, and all of your accused of me lying but it was only Abu Bakr
who said you are telling the truth". In another hadith, "there was
not a single person who accepted with doubt except for Abu Bakr". Thus we
see Abu Bakr was the best of companions. The Prophet* said "Allah has
chosen me as a kaleel - but were I to choose a kaleel it would have been Abu Bakr".
The only sahabi to be mentioned by name is Zaid in the Qur'an. The other sahabi
that is mentioned is Abu Bakr - when Allah says "when the TWO of them is
in the cave". So Allah called him "the second of the two". That
is, second to none but the Prophet*.
Abu Bakr proved to be an
energetic and most zealous activist. He was wealthy, obliging, mild and
upright. People used to frequent his house and draw nigh to him for his
knowledge, amity, pleasant company and business. He invited whomever he had
confidence in to Islam and through his personal efforts a good number of people
converted to Islam. The
next batch of converts were all converted by Abu Bakr:
1. Sa`ad ibn Abi Waqqas
2. Uthman ibn Affan
3. Zubayr ibn al-Awam
4. Abdur Rahman bin Awf
Sa'ad was the youngest, around 16, and
he was from a great family of the Quraysh. His mother threatened him, tried to torture
him etc. She then used emotional blackmail "I will stop eating and
drinking if you don’t worship idols. And I will die a painful death in front of
you". He tried to convince her but she withered away and on her deathbed
until Sa'ad became very emotional "I swear by Allah I will not give my
religion up no matter what you do - even if I had 100 lives and in each life I
saw you die I will not go back to worshipping idols". When his mother saw
this determination, she broke her fast and started eating again. In response to
this Allah said "if they force you to try and worship idols, don’t listen
to them but be good to them".
Sa’ad is the first person to throw a
bow and arrow for Islam. He is the only person where the Prophet* said to him
"may my father and mother be given to you in ransom". The Prophet* never
said this to anyone. This is a huge honour. And he was chosen in the Shura,
Umar on his deathbed said "I will choose the only people I am sure the Prophet*
was happy with him, the first was Sa'ad".
Uthman was also in this Shura and
there are blessings associated with him that we will cover in more detail later
(InshaAllah) – including the fact that the Prophet* married two of his
daughters to Uthman and the Prophet prophesised he would be Khalife and he
should remain steadfast. We have also covered Uthman’s importance in compiling
a standardised Qur’an.
Zubayr ibn al-Awam was the third
convert - a direct cousin through the aunt of the Prophet*. His mother is
Saffiyah bint Abdul-Muttalib. He is the son, brother and father of a sahabi.
The Prophet* said "every prophet has been given a special friend/disciple
[Hawarin], my friend is Zubayr".
Abdur Rahman who was very wise and
honest in his business. He is the famous one who had to give up all of his
belongings to Quraysh when he left Mecca. And he came to Madinah with just the
clothes on his back. He took some butter and started selling etc until he
became a rich businessman again who lived a long and noble life. He turned down
the offer from his ‘brother’ of the Ansar of a garden / house floor and wife !
All of these are from the Quraysh and
are noblemen who all have prominent lives in Islam. Every one of these early
converts became a legend.
The next companion to convert was
Abdullah ibn Masud. He was the first to convert not of the nobleman of the
Quraysh. He wasn’t noble nor was he a slave - he was in the middle. And he said
"one day I was with my flock and I saw two men. I didn't know who they
were... they said "oh young man, we are thirsty can you give us some
milk?"." Ibn Masud said "this milk isn't mine to give I cannot
give it to you". So the Prophet* said "show us a she goat that
stopped producing milk". And then the Prophet* rubbed the goat and started
producing milk. And so Ibn Mas'ood is astonished, he is seeing a miracle - and
he converts right there and then. He is the one where the Prophet* said
"if you want to learn the Qur'an, read it like Ibn Masud". He said
"I learnt over 70 surahs directly from the Prophet* ".
