Seerah 022 – Prophetic Stages of Dawah in Mecca and the Early Converts

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* ".