Seerat-i-Tayyiba — Page 19
19 I do not care in the least Who else is there that dies; For the only one Of whose demise I was afraid of, Was thine own self!” ( Diwaan Hassan bin Thabit ) The narrator of this incident says that when he saw the Promised Messiah shedding silent tears like this, he was walking up and down the mosque entirely alone; and taken aback by this state of mind of the Promised Messiah, the friend in great anxiety asked what was the matter which had caused him such profound grief. The Promised Messiah replied that he had been reciting to himself this couplet of Hassan bin Thabit, and that in his heart he had been thinking how great a thing it would have been for him if this fine couplet had come from himself. The whole world knows that the Promised Messiah on occasions passed through very hard times indeed. He saw every kind of hardship in his life; bore all kinds of troubles; went through a storm of difficulties; experienced the bitterest and most unrelenting opposition at the hands of his opponents; even had to stand at the bar accused of as serious a crime as attempt to murder; and he also witnessed the death of many near and dear relations and friends, including some of his own children. But his eyes never betrayed the depth of his emotions, as they did on this occasion, when he was all by himself, secretly grieving over a death which took place more than thirteen hundred years back- grieving so deeply that while reciting this loving couplet his eyes bore the look of a flooded stream, and his sensitive heart was wishing that the beautiful couplet were his. Here we should not think that this couplet stands in the highest position as expressive of grief at the death of the Holy Prophet Muhammad- better than all other expressions of feeling and emotion on the point. What is here intended to feeling and emotion on the point. What is here intended to be implied is only this that the Promised Messiah’s love for the Holy Prop het was so great that every unusually touching expression of love for the Holy Prophet, by whomsoever made, brought forth a strong desire in the heart of the Promised Messiah that even that should have come from him. 4