The Excellent Exemplar - Muhammad — Page 60
THE EXCELLENT EXEMPLAR — MUHAMMAD 60 down the previous year in the Treaty of Hudaibiyya. Shortly after, Khalid and ‘Amr, two of the Meccan generals who had distinguished themselves in the battle of Uhud, accepted Islam and joined the Muslims. On return from Mecca, the Prophet received intelligence that Christian tribes on the Syrian border, instigated by the Jaws and pagan Arabs, were making preparations for an attack upon Medina. He dispatched a party of fifteen to make a reconnaissance. They found an army massing on the Syrian border, and hoping that an exposition of the principles of Islam might serve to reassure the Christian tribes of Syria and to preserve peace, they attempted to establish contact with these hostile forces. They were, howe ver, attacked with arrows, and were all killed. Upon receipt of this news, the Prophet planned an expedition against Syria, but receiving intimation that the forces which had been concentrating on the border had dispersed, he abandoned the project. Instead, he addressed a letter to the Byzantine Emperor through the chief of the Ghassan tribe, who exercised authority in the name of Byzantium, in which he protested against the military preparations which had been observed on the Syrian border and the unjust killing of the party of fifteen whom he had sent to report on the border situation. His envoy was arrested by the Ghassan chief and was put to death. When this came to the Prophet’s knowledge, he dispatched a force of three thousand to Syria under the command of Zaid, his freedman. The Prophet, together with some of his companions, traveled some distance out of Medina with these forces, to speed them on their way, and when parting with them he reminded them that