Life of Muhammad — Page 182
sa 182 they reached the spot they saw men in hiding with the obvious intent to attack. These men, however, fled as soon as they saw this reconnoitring party. The Prophet sa decided not to pursue them. When the Prophet sa reached Medina, the hypocrites who had kept out of this battle began to make lame excuses. But the Prophet sa accepted them. At the same time he felt that the time had come when their hypocrisy should be exposed. He had a command from God that the mosque at Qub a , which the hypocrites had built in order to be able to hold their meetings in secret, should be demolished. The hypocrites were compelled to say their prayers with other Muslims. No other penalty was proposed. Returning from Tab u k, the Prophet sa found that the people of Ta ’if also had submitted. After this the other tribes of Arabia applied for admission to Islam. In a short time the whole of Arabia was under the flag of Islam. THE LAST PILGRIMAGE In the ninth year of the Hijra the Prophet sa went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. On the day of the Pilgrimage, he received the revelation containing the famed verse of the Qur’an which says: This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favour upon you and have chosen for you Islam as religion (5:4). This verse said in effect that the Message which the Holy Prophet sa had brought from God and which by word and deed he had been expounding all these years, had been completed. Every part of this Message was a blessing. The Message now completed embodied the highest blessings which man could receive from God. The Message is epitomized in the name ' al-Islam', which means submission. Submission was to be the religion of Muslims, the religion of mankind. The Holy Prophet sa