Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 301
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 301 that they should remain alert all the time, throughout the day and night. The situation was one of great peril. The city was invested by thousands of well armed enemies watching for an opportunity to engage the Muslims in a decisive action and destroy them utterly. Inside the city, the Muslim women and children would be an easy prey for Banu Quraidha, hundreds of whose armed young men posed as formidable a threat as any well armed and disciplined army. Some of the weak Muslims were much perturbed and could not imagine what might transpire. The disaffected, and those whose minds were diseased, openly exclaimed: ‘Allah and His Messenger have merely deluded us. A section of them asked leave of the Holy Prophet: Our houses are exposed. Their houses were not expo sed, they merely sought an excuse to defect’ (33:12 - 14). But this time of peril also brought out the best on the part of the sincere believers. As the Holy Quran says: ‘When the true believers saw the confederates, they said: Here is what Allah and His Messenger had promised us; Allah and His Messenger have been proved right. The perilous situation only added to their faith and spirit of submission’ (33:23). But the delicacy of the situation and the grave threat that it posed were recognized by all and caused much perturbation. As the Holy Quran has put it (33:11 - 12): Call to mind when the enemy came upon you from above you and from below you, and your eyes became distracted, and your hearts rose up to your throats, and some of you began to think unworthy thoughts about Allah. Then were the believers sorely tried, and w ere