The Life of Muhammad ﷺ Chapter 11: A Pact of Chivalry (2022-02-10) #

0:00:05 a reading from muhammad his life based
0:00:07 on the earliest sources by martin ling's
0:00:11 chapter 11 a pact of chivalry
0:00:15 when he had finished his trading in
0:00:17 arabia abu talib returned to mecca with
0:00:20 his nephew who continued his solitary
0:00:23 life as before
0:00:25 but his uncle saw to it that he as also
0:00:28 abbas and hamza had some training in the
0:00:31 use of weapons of war
0:00:34 hamza was clearly destined to be a man
0:00:36 of mighty stature endowed with great
0:00:39 physical strength
0:00:41 he was already a good swordsman and a
0:00:44 good wrestler
0:00:45 muhammad was of average height and
0:00:47 average strength
0:00:49 he had a marked aptitude for archery and
0:00:52 gave every promise of being an excellent
0:00:55 bowman like his great ancestors abraham
0:00:58 and ishmael
0:01:00 a powerful asset for this lay in the
0:01:02 strength of his eyesight he was reputed
0:01:05 to be able to count no less than 12 of
0:01:08 the stars of the constellation of the
0:01:10 pleiades
0:01:13 in those years quraysh were not involved
0:01:15 in any fighting except for sporadic and
0:01:18 intermittent conflict which came to be
0:01:21 known as the sacrilegious war because it
0:01:24 has started in one of the sacred months
0:01:28 a profligate of kinana had treacherously
0:01:31 murdered a man of emir one of the
0:01:33 howards in tribes of najd and had taken
0:01:36 refuge in the impregnable fortress
0:01:39 township
0:01:40 of khabar
0:01:42 the secret of sequence of events
0:01:44 followed the usual desert pattern
0:01:47 honour demanded revenge so the tribe of
0:01:49 the murdered man attacked kanana the
0:01:53 tribe of the murderer and creature were
0:01:55 involved somewhat in gloriously as
0:01:58 allies of kinana
0:02:00 the conflict dragged on for three or
0:02:03 four years in which there were only five
0:02:06 days of actual fighting
0:02:09 the head of the clan of hashem was at
0:02:11 that time zubair
0:02:14 full brother like abu talib of
0:02:16 muhammad's father
0:02:18 zubair and abu talib took their nephew
0:02:22 muhammad with them to one of the first
0:02:24 battles
0:02:25 but they said he was too young to fight
0:02:28 he was nonetheless allowed to help by
0:02:30 gathering enemy arrows that had missed
0:02:33 their mark and handling them to handing
0:02:36 them to his uncles so that they could be
0:02:39 shot back with them
0:02:41 but at one of the subsequent battles
0:02:43 where quresh and their allies had the
0:02:45 worst of the day he was allowed to show
0:02:48 his skill as a bowman and was praised
0:02:51 for his valor
0:02:53 the war helped to fan the growing
0:02:55 discontent which every sedentary
0:02:58 community tends to feel with the law of
0:03:01 the desert
0:03:03 most of the leading men of quraish had
0:03:05 traveled to syria and had seen for
0:03:07 themselves the relative justice which
0:03:10 prevailed in the roman empire
0:03:13 it was also possible in abyssinia to
0:03:16 have justice without recourse to
0:03:18 fighting
0:03:20 but in arabia there was no comparable
0:03:23 system of law by which a victim of crime
0:03:26 or his family might obtain redress
0:03:30 and it was natural that the sacrilegious
0:03:32 war like other conflicts before it
0:03:35 should have set many minds thinking of
0:03:37 ways and means to prevent the same thing
0:03:40 from happening again
0:03:43 but this time the result was more than
0:03:45 mere thoughts and words
0:03:48 as far as quraish were concerned there
0:03:50 was now a widespread readiness to take
0:03:53 action
0:03:54 and their sense of justice was put to
0:03:56 the test by a scandalous incident which
0:03:59 took place in mecca in the first few
0:04:02 weeks after the end of the fighting
0:04:06 and here is the story a merchant from
0:04:08 the yemeni port azabeed had sold some
0:04:12 valuable goods to a notable of the clan
0:04:16 of sham
0:04:17 having taken possession of these the
0:04:19 shamite refused to pay the promised
0:04:22 price
0:04:23 the wronged merchant as his wronger well
0:04:26 knew was a stranger to mecca and had no
0:04:30 confederate or patron in all the city to
0:04:33 whom he might go for help
0:04:36 but he was not to be overawed by the
0:04:38 other man's insolent self-assurance and
0:04:42 taking his stand on the slope of abu
0:04:44 kubays he appealed to quraish as a whole
0:04:48 with loud and vehement eloquence to see
0:04:51 that justice was done
0:04:54 an immediate response came from most of
0:04:56 those clans which had no traditional
0:04:58 alliance with sham
0:05:00 quresh were bent above all on being
0:05:03 united regardless of clan
0:05:07 but within that union there was still an
0:05:09 acute consciousness of the rift which
0:05:12 had divided them over the legacy of
0:05:15 crusade into two groups the scented ones
0:05:18 and the confederates
0:05:20 and sham were of the confederates
0:05:24 one of the leaders of the other group
0:05:26 and one of the wealthiest men of mecca
0:05:29 at that time
0:05:30 was the chief of tame abd allah ibn
0:05:34 juden
0:05:35 and he now offered his large house as a
0:05:38 meeting place for all lovers of justice
0:05:42 from among the centered ones only the
0:05:44 clans of abu shams and nowfall were
0:05:48 absent
0:05:49 hashem muttalib zura assad tame were all
0:05:53 well represented and they were joined by
0:05:56 adi
0:05:57 which had been one of the confederates
0:06:00 having decided after an earnest
0:06:02 discussion that it was imperative to
0:06:05 found an order of chivalry for the
0:06:07 furtherance of justice and the
0:06:09 protection of the weak
0:06:11 they went in a body to the kaaba where
0:06:13 they poured water over the black stone
0:06:17 letting it flow into a receptacle
0:06:21 then each man drank of the thus hallowed
0:06:24 water and with their right hands raised
0:06:27 above their heads they vowed that
0:06:29 henceforth at every act of oppression in
0:06:32 mecca they would stand together as one
0:06:35 man on the side of the oppressed against
0:06:39 the oppressor until justice was done
0:06:42 whether the oppressed were a man or
0:06:44 quraish or one who had come from abroad
0:06:48 the sarmite was thereupon compelled to
0:06:52 pay his debt nor did any of those clans
0:06:55 which had abstained from the pack offer
0:06:58 him any of their assistance
0:07:01 together with the chief of tame zubair
0:07:04 of hashem was one of the founders of
0:07:07 this order and he brought with him his
0:07:09 nephew mohammed
0:07:11 who took part in the oath and who said
0:07:14 in after years
0:07:16 i was present in the house of abdullah
0:07:19 ibn judah at so excellent a pact that i
0:07:23 would not exchange my part in it for a
0:07:26 herd of red camels
0:07:29 and if now in islam i was summoned unto
0:07:33 it i would gladly respond
0:07:38 another of those present was their
0:07:40 host's first cousin abu kahafer of tame
0:07:44 together with his cousin abu bakr
0:07:47 abu bakr
0:07:49 who was a year or two younger than
0:07:51 muhammad and who was to become his
0:07:55 closest
0:07:56 friend it's a lovely story so that
0:08:00 chapter 11 a pact of chivalry for
0:08:03 muhammad his life based on the earliest
0:08:06 sources by martin lings till next time