Life of Muhammad — Page 55
sa 55 should injure the feelings of their Meccan brethren. But when the Prophet sa insisted on more and more counsel, one of the Medinite Muslims stood up and said, "Prophet sa of God, you are having all the counsel you want, but you continue to ask for more. Perhaps you refer to us, the Muslims of Medina. Is that true?" "Yes," said the Prophet sa. "You ask for our counsel," he said, "because you think that when you came to us, we agreed to fight on your side only in case you and your fellow emigrants from Mecca were attacked in Medina. But now we seem to have come out of Medina, and you feel that our agreement does not cover the conditions under which we find ourselves today. But O Prophet sa of God, when we entered into that agreement we did not know you as well as we do now. We know now what high spiritual station you hold. We care not for what we agreed to. We now stand by you, whatever you ask us to do. We will not behave like the followers of Moses as who said, ‘ Go you and your God and fight the enemy, we remain here behind. ' If we must fight, we will and we will fight to the right of you, to the left of you, in front of you and behind you. True, the enemy wants to get at you. But we assure you that he will not do so, without stepping over our dead bodies. Prophet sa of God, you invite us to fight. We are prepared to do more. Not far from here is the sea. If you command us to jump into it, we will hesitate not. " ( Bukh a r i , Kit a b al-Magh a z i , and Hish a m ). This was the spirit of devotion and sacrifice which early Muslims displayed, and the like of which is not to be found in the history of the world. The example of the followers of Moses as has been cited above. As for the disciples of Jesus, we know they abandoned Jesus at a critical time. One of them gave him away for a paltry sum. Another cursed him, and the remaining ten ran away. The Muslims who joined the Prophet sa from Medina had been in his companionship only for a year and a half. But they had attained to such strength of faith that, had the Prophet sa but ordered, they would