Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 107
107 recovery of a sum of money owed to him by Abu Jahl. Those whom the man approached directed him cynically to the Prophet. The Prophet immediately accompanied him to Abu Jahl’s house, and knocked at his door. Abu Jahl, amazed to see Muhammad there, admitted the debt. The Prophet then asked him to discharge his obligation, which he promptly did. When Abu Jahl later appeared among his fellows, they jeered at him and taunted him with having submitted meekly to Muhammad’s demand. He said he had been so awed that he could not do otherwise. Even during the Meccan period, the widow, the orphan, the needy, the wayfarer, the slave, and the distressed were the objects of the persecuted Prophet’s special care and concern. At Medina he continued his simple ways and austere habits. For days together his hearth remained unlit. He and his family subsisted on a meagre diet of dates, or parched and ground barley. Sometimes water alone sufficed. He had but one change of clothes. His dwelling was of the simplest and barest. He slept on a leather sack filled with twigs and branches of trees. He never slept in a bed; never ate bread made out of ground flour; never ate his fill. Indeed, his personal requirements were always kept at the barest minimum, and that minimum he accepted and appreciated as a generous Divine bounty. This was strikingly illustrated on the day