The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume I — Page 179
VI - Commencement of Prophethood 179 Initial Concealment and the Conduct of the Quraish In the beginning, the Holy Prophet sa primarily kept his preaching secret for approximately three years. As such, in this era, there was no specific centre where the Muslims could gather. Rather, the Holy Prophet sa would meet seekers of truth who would come as a result of his own preaching endeavours and other Muslims in his own home or in the outskirts of town. This secrecy was maintained to the extent that, at times, even Muslims themselves remained unaware of the Islām of one another. The reason being that in this era, Muslims generally concealed their religion and news would rarely reach the chieftains of the Quraish. However, if news did in fact reach them, in those days, generally Muslims were not vehemently opposed and their opposition was in fact limited to mockery alone. This is because, they thought of this entire endeavour as child’s play. If on the other hand, someone did oppose severely, this opposition was his own personal action and there was no unified resistance waged against the Muslims by the Quraish. Pillars of Islām in the Early Era The fundamentals of Islām have been mentioned above, in other words, during this early era, when the revelation of Islāmic law was in its preliminary stages, among the pillars of Islām, real emphasis was put on the existence and unity of Allāh. After this was belief in the messengers of God, life after death, and the doctrine of recompense after death. Although these principles are so basic that if one contemplates, everything is encompassed within them, yet the manner in which these and other principle elements were later collectively declared the pillars of Islām; this was not the case in the beginning. Same was the case with physical worship. Rather, among the pillars of physical worship, none had been formally established amongst the currently existent pillars of Ṣalāt , fasting, Ḥajj , and Zakāt 1 , etc. Albeit, it is evident from Aḥādīth in as much that in early stages Gabriel as taught the Holy Prophet sa the method in which to pray and perform Wuḍū 2. The formal observance, however, of the five daily prayers came into practice much later, and fasting, etc. , were declared obligatory even later. In the beginning, there was only Ṣalāt , and even that was of supererogatory nature. Muslims would gather in groups of two to four and offer their prayers either in their homes, or in the valleys near Makkah, as they 1 Almsgiving (Publishers) 2 Ablution (Publishers)