Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 361
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 361 we must conform to the terms of the treaty and you must go back to Mecca. ’ Abu Baseer, with great reluctance, started for Mecca with the emissaries of Quraish, terrified that he would be severely tormented by Quraish in order to force him to renounce Islam. When the party arrived at Dhul Haleefah, a few miles from Medina, he found an opportunity of doing away with the principal emissary of Quraish, and would have disposed of the other one also, but he escaped and arrived back at Medina ahead of Abu Baseer. He went straight to the mosque, where the Holy Prophet then was, and, in a terrified voice, blurted out, ‘My companion has been killed and I too am in danger of my life. ’ The Holy Prophet sought to comfort him, and in the meantime Abu Baseer also arrived a nd submitted, ‘Messenger of Allah, you returned me to Quraish and thus fulfilled your obligation, but God has delivered me from them and you are no longer responsible for me. ’ Upon this the Holy Prophet exclaimed, ‘Woe unto his mother, he is likely to set ablaze the flames of war. Would that there were someone to restrain him. ’ From these words Abu Baseer realized that the Holy Prophet would, in any event, send him back to Mecca. So he slipped away quietly, and instead of returning to Mecca took up his posi tion at Siefal Bahr, by the sea - shore on the caravan route to Syria. When this became known in Mecca, Abu Jandal and other young men who were convinced of the truth of Islam but dared not profess it openly in Mecca, gradually managed to slip out of Mecca a nd joined Abu Baseer, who was soon surrounded by more than seventy followers, all desperate as himself. They were now on their own and were not subject to the authority either of Quraish or of the Holy Prophet.