Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 73
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 73 prostrated along with them and thus an accord was established between the two sides. But that soon thereafter the Holy Prophet was made aware of his lapse and the offending verses were abrogated, and Quraish were disgruntled. As news of the accord had, how ever, been widely published, it reached Abyssinia also, and, learning of it, some of the migrants returned to Mecca. This preposterous story is utterly, without any foundation. According to the historians, the first migration to Abyssinia took place in the month of Rajjab of the fifth year of the prophet hood, and the incident of the prostration took place in Ramadhan of that year and the return of some of the emigrants happened in Shawal of that year. Thus, there was only an interval of two or three months between the beginning of the migration and the return of some of the migrants, and the interval between the incident of the prostration and the return of the migrants was only a month. In the conditions that prevailed at that time, it was utterly impossible that the three journeys involved, that of the migrants from Mecca to Axum, that of someone who carried the news of the incident from Mecca to Axum and that of the migrants who, on learning of the alleged accord between Quraish and the Muslims returned to Mecca, could have been accomplished within the brief period that elapsed between the start of the migration and the return of some of the migrants. Further, the six authoritative compilations of hadith , namely, those of Bokhari, Muslim, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, Nasai, and Abu Daud, though they mention the recitation of Sura Najm and the prostration of Quraish, make no mention of the offending verses, nor do they make any reference to them in any other conte xt. The