Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 216
216 “ I bear witness that there is no God but Allah , I bear witness that Muhammad sa is His Messenger. ” The Holy Prophet sa asked, “Ikr i mah ra why did you do this?” Ikr i mah ra replied, “O Holy Prophet sa , even after all the hostilit y , which both my father and I inflicted against you, you have forgiven me. T he person who can forgive such fierce opponents and then also allow them to continue practicing their own faith if they wish , he can be no other than a prophet. O Prophet of Allah , I came back to M ecca with political motives, but when you yourself declared that you would not kill me and would even allow me to stay with my faith, I was assured that you are true and a Prophet of Allah. O Prophet of Allah give me your hand so that I may do Bai ‘ at. ” Thus , Ikr i mah ra took the Holy Prophet ’s sa h and and did Bai ‘ at. Later, Ikr i mah ra progressed so much in his faith that i n the battle of Yarm u k during the caliphate of Ha z rat ‘ U mar ra , when the lives of the companions of the Holy Prophet sa were in grave danger and Muslims were being martyred in great numbers, the commander of the Muslim army , Ha z rat Abu ‘ U baidah bin Al Jarah ra said, “I would like some courageous soldiers , even if they be few , to volunteer and fiercely attack the enemy to demoralize the Roman army. ” Hazrat Ikr i mah ra came forward and requested Ha z rat Abu U baidah ra to let him choose some men from the Muslim army. Ikr i mah ra said that he would take these men to attack the middle ranks of the opposing army and kill their g eneral. At that time , the Roman g eneral was valiantly fighting, and the Roman k ing had promised him that if he defeated the Musl im army, he would be married to the k ing’s daughter and given half the kingdom. The g eneral was in full zeal due to this incentive. He had brought his personal army as well as the k ing’s arm y into the battlefield. He had promised the soldiers great wealth. With that in mind , the Romans were also fighting with full force. When the Roman army attacked the Muslims, the g eneral was leading them from the middle. Ikr i mah ra brought along nearly four hundred Muslim soldiers and attacked the middle. O ne of the soldiers attacked the g eneral and he fell to the ground. The e nemy number ed in the hundreds of thousands and the Muslims were only four hundred. The battle wa s not ea sy. They were able to kill the g eneral and so caused great turmoil within the enemy, but despite this , the Romans attacked these