Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 84
84 make sacrifices for the faith. ” I do not w ish to w ipe out your greatness either , but th en follow the condition s and make sa crifices for your faith. But i f you set such an ugly example that you would readily sacrifice your lives to take a mere fifty or a hundred rupees from disbelievers, but you do no t offer any sacrifice for the sake of God and the country which He has given to Muslims, then you will be dishonored, you will be disgraced. Your name and any remnants ther eof will be obliterated. The daughters of those who used to pick up your cow dung, will now ride in carriages, carried up on the shoulders of your big chieftains, for Ahmadiyyat will now reign. And who so ever raises the status of Ahmadiyyat will b e raised in status. No one else will remain. Excellent Sacrifices of the C ompanions ra and their R eward At the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa the chiefs of M ecca were intensely opposed to him and gave him great anguish , but the slaves obeyed him, and they believed in him from the depth of their hearts. After accepting Islam , they made great sacrifices. Ha z rat Bilal ra was a slave when he accepted Islam. H is owner would bind him with a rope and hand him over to boys, who would drag him all day through the streets of M ecca in the hot sun , the streets littered with large pieces of debris. Then they would beat him over and over again and o rder him to say, ‘God is not one. ’ H e would reply from the ground : ا 5 ْﺳ َﻬ ُﺪ ا 5 ْن ﻵ ﱠ ِا ﻟ s َﻪ ِا ﻻ ﱠ gُ “I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah. ” As Ha z rat Bilal ra was from Abyssinia , he could not pronounce the lette r [ letter in the Arabic alphabet ]. People would hear As - hado and laugh, but the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa used to say, “You hear Bilal ra say As - hado instead of Ash - hado and you start to laugh, but Allah who sits in the Heavens, enjoys his As - hado so much that even a thousand of your Ash - hados remain insignificant compared to his one [ As - hado ]. ” These were the sufferings inflicted upon Hazrat Bilal ra , but upon the conquest of Mecca, do you know what honor the Holy Prophet sa gave this African slave Bilal ra , up on whose chest the great chiefs of Mecca once danced, and how he avenged [Bilal ’ s ra treatment] from the disbelievers? At the c onquest of M ecca , the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa put a flag in