Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 54
! ! 54 assoc iated them with God. Most women may know that the guardians of shrines depend on people’s donations in the form of votives for their own livelihood. Before Ahmadiyyat, some of you probably did visi t these shrines and i t is probable that those of you who are still weak in faith and are unaware of the teachings of Ahmadiyyat still do so. You must have noticed that their main income is from visitor’s votives. Thus, M ecc ans were guardians of idols and they kept their idols in the Ka ‘ aba. People would visit from far off lands to present their offerings, which the guardians would then distribute amongst themselves. Moreover , people would come to worship idols and the M ecc ans would benefit by trading with them. Out of fear of starvation , they did not give up their idols. All the Holy Prophet’s sa relatives were immersed in this. T heir livelih ood depended up on these idols. However, w hen the Holy Prophet sa rose to declar e that God alone is worthy of worship and all other deities are false, he was not concerned for any one of his relatives. In turn, h is relatives did not like his claim one bit , and they began to harass him. One day , the Holy Prophet sa climbed a mountain and summoned the townspeople. When they came , he addressed them, saying, “You know that I do not lie. ” The people agreed. He said, “If I tell you that behind this mountain awaits a large army, ready to destroy M ecc a , would you believe me ? ” They replied , “Yes , we will believe you. ” The Holy Prophet sa replied , “Then I say to you that Allah ’s wrath will befall you. Save yourselves and do no t make yourself deserving of Divine punishment by associating any partner with Him. ” When they heard this, they called out profanities and left, calling him insane. The Holy Prophet sa did not fret over these abuses but continued to discourage them from s hirk. Consequently , t he people gathered together and met with his uncle. They asked his uncle to counsel his nephew to desist from speaking against their idols. The Holy Prophet ’s sa uncle responded by asking them, how he [Holy Prophet sa ] could give up that which he preached with such firm conviction ? Following this , several of the elders assembled together