The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 183
182 Ā'ĪNA-E-KAMĀLĀT-E-ISLĀM―DĀFI‘UL-WASĀWIS and the blessings of Allah be upon him, the people of Ță’if were extremely frightened and started saying that there was a disturbance among the dwellers of the heavens. Then, one of them proposed exam- ining the stars to see if they had shifted from their places. If the stars, so he said, had changed their places, the dwellers of the heavens would be visited with some ruinous calamity; if not, then the falling of stars was because of Ibn Abi Kabsha (They mischievously applied the name Ibn Abī Kabsha to the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). AUTHOR'S MARGIN NOTE It was firmly believed by the soothsayers of Arabia that some Prophet is born when the stars fall in abundance. It was their personal experi- ence that they received fewer satanic intimations after the abundant falling of the stars. Thus, it was rooted in the hearts of the Arabs that when any Prophet comes into the world, or another great man is born, there is an abundant falling of stars. This is the reason why, in keeping with the notions of the Arabs, God swore by the falling of stars. The purpose of the oath is to make them realize that they and the soothsayers themselves admitted that the phenomenon of falling stars heralded the appearance of a Prophet or of someone gifted with Divine revelation; hence, there was no rea- son for the denial [of the Holy Prophet sas]. Since the soothsayers regarded the falling of the stars in great numbers as a clear proof of the impending appearance of a Prophet or of a godly person gifted with revelation and since the Arabs obeyed the soothsayers as a follower obeys his spiritual preceptor, God cited this apparent phenomenon in the form of an oath, so that people might pay heed that the whole enterprise emanates from God Almighty and is not the product of man's imagination. AUTHOR'S MARGIN NOTE The question that stars fall all the time, but the Prophets do not always appear at their falling If someone raises the question that if the falling of stars is a proof of the appearance of a Prophet, or a Mulham or Muḥaddath