Life of Muhammad — Page 181
sa 181 the courtyard and went forward to embrace and kiss her. But the wife raised her hands and pushed him back. The astonished husband looked at his wife and said, "Is this the treatment for one who comes home after a long time?" "Are you not ashamed?" said the wife. "The Prophet sa of God should go on dangerous expeditions, and you should be making love to your wife? Your first duty is to go to the battle-field. We shall see about the rest. " It is said the Companion went out of the house at once, tightened the girths of his mount and galloped after the Prophet sa. At a distance of about three days' journey he overtook the Muslim army. The disbelievers and the hypocrites had probably thought that the Prophet sa acting upon rumours, invented and spread by them, would spring upon the Syrian armies without a thought. They forgot that the Prophet sa was concerned to set an example to generations of followers for all time to come. When the Prophet sa neared Syria, he stopped and sent his men in different directions to report on the state of affairs. The men returned and reported there were no Syrian concentrations anywhere. The Prophet sa decided to return, but stayed for a few days during which he signed agreements with some of the tribes on the border. There was no war and no fighting. The journey took the Prophet sa about two months and a half. When the hypocrites at Medina found that their scheme for inciting war between Muslims and Syrians had failed and that the Prophet sa was returning safe and sound, they began to fear that their intrigue had been exposed. They were afraid of the punishment which was now their due. But they did not halt their sinister plans. They equipped a party and posted it on the two sides of a narrow pass some distance from Medina. The pass was so narrow that only a single file could go through it. When the Prophet sa and the Muslim army approached the spot, he had a warning by revelation that the enemy was in ambush on both sides of the narrow pass. The Prophet sa ordered his Companions to reconnoitre. When