Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 23
A Rebuttal of Maududian Philosophy. Prophets who defended Islam in the valley of Badr. One wonders what role the sword played in converting these 300-odd Muslims. Among them were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, who succeeded the. Prophet as his caliphs. Was it the sword which removed the 'dross' from their hearts? Then there were Awf b. Harith, Umar b. Salimah, Muawwidh and many others who fell that day. The exact details of their conversion are not unknown. Can anyone say that the filth of their souls and the evil of their hearts were cleansed by the blade of a sword?. The three great Companions who later fought so valiantly to defend the faith were Sad b. Abi Waqqas, Abu Ubaydah b. al-Jarrah and Khalid b. Walid. None was converted to Islam by force. Hundreds of Emigrants (Muhajirun) and thousands of Helpers (Ansar) were converted and gave the persecuted Prophetsa sanctuary. No sword was involved in their conversion. These converts were the fruits of Islam, the pride of mankind, the signposts on the path to ultimate truth. What greater insult to them than to say their hearts were purified by the sword, or to suggest that it was 'fallacious to say that the sword did not play any role in [their] conversion'?. What were these people before the advent of Islam? Before Muhammada, Arabia existed as a political unit only, as Will Durant pointed out. . He said: 'In the careless nomenclature of the Greeks, who called all the population of the peninsula Sarakenoi ("Saracens), apparently from the. Arabic sharqiun, "easterners". " Previously they were called 'Scenite. Arabs' - Arabs who lived in tents (from the Greek word skene, a tent. . They lived in an arid land and communication problems meant there was tribal self-sufficiency. During the second millenium before the Christian era, the Arabs domesticated the camel, an animal perfectly suited to the desert. It provided milk for sustenance and urine for medicinal use. Its meat was tender and its hide and hair made tents and clothing. Even its dung could be used for fuel. It could go for twenty-five days in winter without water and five in summer. Small groups of nomads followed the camels, the camels being their most important resource. Aloy Sprenger summed up the whole pre-Islamic Saracen history by describing the. Arabs as the 'camel's parasites'. . The Arab felt no duty of loyalty to any group larger than his own tribe, but the intensity of his devotion varied inversely to its extent; for his tribe, he would do with conscience what civilised people do only for their country, religion or race - i. e. , lie, steal, kill and die. ³. He was bound by no written laws and no state existed to enforce the law. 7 23