The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cxlvi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION them was Șuhaib, a prosperous merchant, whom the Quraish continued to belabour even after his release. When the Holy Prophet left Mecca to settle down in Medina, Șuhaib wanted to go with him. But the Meccans stopped him. He could not take away from Mecca, they said, the wealth he had earned in Mecca. Șuhaib offered to surrender all his property and earnings and asked whether they would then let him go. The Meccans accepted the arrangement. Șuhaib reached Medina empty-handed and saw the Prophet, who heard him and congratulated him, saying, "This was the best bargain of your life. " Most of these slave-converts remained steadfast in outer as well as inner professions of faith. But some were weak. Once the Holy Prophet found ‘Ammār groaning with pain and drying his tears. Approached by the Prophet, 'Ammar said he had been beaten and compelled to recant. The Prophet asked him, "But did you believe at heart?" 'Ammār declared that he did, and the Prophet said that God would forgive his weakness. 'Ammār's father, Yāsir, and his mother, Samiyyah, also were tormented by disbelievers. On one such occasion the Prophet happened to pass by. Filled with emotion, he said, "Family of Yāsir, bear up patiently, for God has prepared for you a Paradise. " The prophetic words were soon fulfilled. Yasir succumbed to the tortures, and a little later Abū Jahl murdered his aged wife, Samiyyah, with a spear. Zinbirah, a woman slave, lost her eyes under the cruel treatment of disbelievers. Abū Fukaih, Ṣafwān bin Umayyah's slave, was laid on hot sand while over his chest were placed heavy and hot stones, under pain of which his tongue would drop out. Other slaves were mishandled in similar ways. These cruelties were beyond endurance. But early believers bore them because their hearts were made stout by assurances received daily from God. The Quran descended on the Prophet, but the reassuring voice of God descended on all believers. Were not this so, the faithful could not have withstood the cruelties to which they were subjected. Abandoned by fellow- men, friends and relations, they had none but God with them, and they cared not whether they had anyone else. Because of Him, the cruelties seemed nothing, abuse sounded like [well-wishing] prayers and stones seemed like velvet. The free citizens who believed were not less cruelly treated. Their elders and chiefs tormented them in different ways. 'Uthman was a man of forty, and prosperous. Yet when the Quraish resolved upon general persecution of Muslims, his uncle, Ḥakam, tied him up and beat him. Zubair bin al-'Awwām, a brave young lad who later became a great Muslim general, was CXX