Introduction to the Study of The Holy Quran — Page 110
110 Medina and were able to live and worship in comparative peace, the Holy Prophet appointed Bilal a Mu’adhdhin, the official who calls the worshippers to prayers. Being an African, Bilal missed the (h), in the Arabic Ash-hadu (I bear witness). Medinite believers laughed at his defective pronunciation, but the Prophet rebuked them and told them how dear Bilal was to God for the stout faith he showed under Meccan tortures. Abu Bakr paid ransom for Bilal and many other slaves and secured their release. Among them was Suhaib, a prosperous merchant, whom the Quraysh continued to belabour even after his release. When the Holy Prophet left Mecca to settle down in Medina, Suhaib wanted to go with him. But the Meccans stopped him. He could not take away from Mecca, they said, the wealth he had earned in Mecca. Suhaib offered to surrender all his property and earnings and asked whether they would then let him go. The Meccans accepted the arrangement. Suhaib reached Medina empty-handed and saw the Prophet, who heard him and congratulated him, saying, "This was the best bargain of your life. " Most of these slave-converts remained steadfast in outer as well as inner professions of faith. But some were weak. Once the Holy Prophet found ‘Ammar groaning with pain and drying his tears. Approached by the Prophet, ‘Ammar said he had been beaten and compelled to recant. The Prophet asked him, "But did you believe at heart?" ‘Ammar declared that he did, and the Prophet said that God would forgive his weakness. ‘Ammar’s father, Yasir, and his mother, Sumayyah, also were tormented by disbelievers. On one such occasion the Prophet happened to pass by. Filled with emotion, he said, "Family of Yasir, bear up patiently, for God has prepared for you a Paradise. " The prophetic words were soon fulfilled. Yasir succumbed to the tortures, and a little later Abu Jahl murdered his aged wife, Sumayyah, with a spear. Zinnirah, a woman slave, lost her eyes under the cruel treatment of disbelievers. Abu Fukayh, Safwan bin Umayyah’s slave, was laid on hot sand while over his chest were placed heavy and hot stones, under pain of which his tongue dropped out. Other slaves were mishandled in similar ways. These cruelties were beyond endurance. But early believers bore them because their hearts were made stout by assurances received daily from God. The Quran descended on the Prophet, but the reassuring voice of God descended on all believers. Were not this so, the Faithful could not have withstood the cruelties to which they were subjected. Abandoned by fellow-men, friends and relations, they had none but God with them, and they cared not whether they had anyone else. Because of Him, the cruelties seemed nothing, abuse sounded like prayers and stones seemed like velvet. The free citizens who believed were not less cruelly treated. Their elders and chiefs tormented them in different ways. ‘Uthman was a man of forty, and prosperous. Yet when the Quraysh resolved upon general persecution of Muslims, his uncle, Hakam, tied him up and beat him. Zubayr bin al-‘Awwam, a brave young lad who