Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 453
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 453 which she won. A year or two later he challenged her again and this time he won. He laughed, saying, ‘Aisha, we have come out even. ’ Aisha once confessed to him that she had suspected him of an unfairness, but had soon found out that she was mistaken. He remarked, ‘Aisha, there is a Satan in everyone of us, of whose promptings we should beware. ’ ‘Is there a Satan inside you also?’ she i nquired. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but he has accepted submission. ’) (One day he happened to pass near a date - palm garden in which some people were engaged in carrying out grafting. He enquired what they were doing, and when they explained the process he asked them why they did not do it another way. The following year they complained that they had adopted his suggestion but the trees had yielded less fruit than normal. He observed, ‘I had merely made an enquiry from you. You know more about these things than I do. You should have followed the method which experience had tau ght you was best. ’ He was often called upon to decide disputes and give judgment. He warned, however, that he had no means of discovering the truth except through what was stated before him. It was quite possible that one party to a dispute might, by plausible arguments, suc ceed in persuading him that it was in the right, when in fact the other party was in the right, and he might give judgment in favour of the first. Even so, the party in whose favour judgment was given must remember that it was answerable to God. The mere f act that it had obtained judgment from him would not serve to absolve it if it were not in fact in the right. The Holy Prophet’s clemency and compassion were well