The Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq

Chapter 9. The Death of the Prophet and the origins of the Caliphate

The Year of Deputations

When the apostle had conquered Mecca, and finished with Tabuk, and the Thafiq had submitted and pledged allegiance, deputations from the Arab tribes came to Medina from all directions to make their submission to Allah and His apostle. Thus Year 9 after the Hijra [Emigration to Medina] became known as the Year of Deputations.

Muhammad’s summons to the Christians of Najran

[Muhammad sent a letter to the Bishop of Najran demanding his submission to Islam: ‘In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, this letter is from Muhammad, the Prophet and Messenger of Allah to the Bishop of Najran. I invite you to worship Allah instead of worshipping His Servant [Jesus]. If you do not accept this invitation, you must pay jizyah [protection money] to the Islamic State, failing which, you are hereby warned of dangerous consequences.’]

A deputation from the Christians of Najran then came to the apostle. There were sixty riders, fourteen of whom were nobles including their leader, Abdul-Masih, their administrator, al-Ayham and their bishop, Abu Haritha b. Alqama. Abu Haritha occupied a position of honour among them as a great scholar with an excellent knowledge of their religion. The Christian kings of Byzantium had honoured him, paid him a stipend, given him servants and had built churches for him and lavished honours on him because of his knowledge and zeal for their religion.

They were Christians according to the Byzantine rite, though they differed among themselves on some points, saying He [Jesus] is Allah; and He is the Son of Allah; and He is the third person of the Trinity, He is He and Jesus and Mary, which is the doctrine of Christianity.

The apostle said to them, ‘Submit yourselves [to Allah]!’

‘We have already submitted,’ they replied.

‘You have not submitted, so submit!’

‘No, we submitted long before you,’ they replied.

‘You lie!’ cried the apostle. ‘Your assertion that God has a Son, your worship of the Cross, and your eating of pork hold you back from submission to Allah.’

The first eighty verses of Sura 3 came down to the apostle to refute this Christian doctrine of the Trinity and to proclaim the Oneness of Allah. The apostle was then commanded by Allah to resort to mutual invocation of a mubahala [prayer curse], and he summoned the Christians to begin. But they said, ‘O Abul-Qasim, we will consider the matter and come back to you with a decision.’

The Mubahala

[The next day, when the Christians of Najran came to the place of the mubahala, they found that Muhammad was waiting for them with just four members of his household: his daughter Fatima, his son-in-law, Ali, and his two little grandsons Hassan and Husayn.]

On seeing this, the Christians of Najran said that they had decided not to resort to mutual cursing, but to ‘leave him in his religion and return home.’

[It appears that Muhammad was relying on the fact that the noble Bishop of Najran would never agree to a cursing contest against children. The Bishop did, however, recognise the threat posed by Muhammad and his warrior companions, because he agreed to sign a treaty of protection. Afterwards, a triumphant Muhammad said, ‘If they had entered into malediction, they would have been changed into monkeys and pigs, and they would have been engulfed in flames.’

The Festival of Mubahala is still celebrated by Shia Muslims today as the supposed ‘Victory of the Truth of Islam over Christianity.’]

Muhammad speaks out against two rival prophets

Now the two arch-liars, Musaylima b. Habib, and al-Aswad b. Ka’b al-Ansi, had preached during the apostle’s lifetime, the first in al-Yamama among the Beni Hanifa and the second in San’a in the Yemen.

The apostle addressed the people from the pulpit, saying, ‘I saw the night of al-Qadr and then I was made to forget it. And I saw on my arms two gold bracelets which I disliked, so I blew on them and they flew off. I interpreted this to mean those two liars, Musaylima, the man of al-Yamama and al-Aswad, the man of al-Yaman.’

[Muhammad then ordered the assassination of Al-Aswad, known as ‘The Veiled Prophet’, and he was killed by Persian Muslim converts in the Yemen, just days before Muhammad’s own death in June 632CE.]

Maslama and his letter to Muhammad

It is said that among the many deputations that came to the apostle was one from the Beni Hanifa which included Musaylima, the false prophet.

[Musaylima’s real name was Maslama b. Habib of the Beni Hanifa tribe. He had established himself as a hanif [monotheist] and a Judeo-Christian prophet well before Muhammad. The Quraysh had accused Muhammad of being ‘taught by that man in al-Yamama’ because they recognised that Muhammad’s earliest Quranic revelations were taken almost verbatim from the Beni Hanifa’s heretical Judeo-Christian prayers and teachings. The name Musaylima [Little Maslama] was an insulting nickname invented by Muhammad after he set up himself up as a rival prophet to Maslama.]

When the men of the Beni Hanifa came before the apostle, they left Musaylima behind to guard their camels and goods. After they had submitted to Islam, they told the apostle that they had left a companion of theirs behind to look after their possessions. The apostle said that he should receive the same tokens as the rest of them, saying, ‘His status is not inferior to yours simply because he was guarding your property.’

When the men left the apostle, they gave Musaylima the same tokens that they had all received. However, when they arrived back in al-Yamama, Musaylima revoked his pledge of allegiance to the apostle, and announced that he too was a prophet of Allah.

[Contrary to this allegation by Ibn Ishaq, it is clear that Maslama did not in fact pledge personal allegiance to either Muhammad or Islam. The delegation of the Beni Hanifa had most likely been a ploy to spy upon Muhammad, and assess the strength of his following in Arabia before making him an offer.]

Afterwards, Musaylima wrote to Muhammad: ‘From Maslama, the apostle of God, to Muhammad, the apostle of God. Peace be upon you. I have been made a partner with you in authority. Although half the land belongs to us, and the other half belongs to the Quraysh, they are an unworthy people.’

The letter was brought by two messengers. When Muhammad read the letter, he was so angry that he said that if it were not forbidden to kill messengers, he would have had both of them beheaded.

Then he sent this reply to Musaylima: ‘From Muhammad, the apostle of Allah, to Musaylima, the liar. Peace be upon he who follows true guidance (Sura 20.47). Lo, the earth belongs to Allah. He gives it as an inheritance to those of his servants whom he chooses, and blessed are those that fear Him.’ (Sura 7.128)

This was at the end of Year 10 of the Hijrah. [Muslim forces attacked Maslama and his followers and massacred them in the so-called Garden of Death at the Battle of Yamama six months after Muhammad’s own death in June 632CE.]

Muhammad’s farewell pilgrimage and the Last Sermon

In March 632CE, Muhammad made his farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. He taught his followers the rites and customs of the hajj [pilgrimage] and gave a lengthy sermon in which he made all things clear.

[The prehistoric pagan rituals of the hajj were adopted wholesale and given fresh Islamic interpretations and significance by Muhammad himself. By ordering all Muslims to complete the hajj at least once in their lifetime, he ensured that the Quraysh and their descendants would not lose their livelihood, but continue to benefit from this lucrative pilgrim trade for evermore.]

After praising and glorifying Allah, the apostle said, ‘Men, listen well to my words, because I do not know whether after this year I shall ever see you again in this holy place.’

‘Remember,’ he continued, ‘that you will surely meet your Lord and He will question you about your actions. Allah has decreed that there is to be no usury, so henceforth, all money-lending is forbidden. Whoever has a pledge should return it to the person who deposited it with him and any interest owing to al-Abbas b. Abdul-Muttalib is abolished, completely. Do no wrong to others, and you shall not be wronged. All blood that was shed [among you] in the pagan era is to be left unavenged.’

Muhammad’s orders as to the disciplining of women

With regard to women, Muhammad said, ‘You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have the right that they should not defile your bed nor behave with fahishah [open indecency]. If they do, Allah gives you permission to put them in rooms apart and to beat them, but not harshly.

[By ‘not harshly’, the apostle explained, ‘no-one should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have intercourse with her at the end of the day. (Sahih Bukhari 7. 62. 132)]

‘If they behave properly,’ he continued, ‘they have the right to be fed and clothed and treated kindly. Lay strictures on women kindly, because they are bound to you like captives, and have no say over what happens to them. Remember that Allah has entrusted them to you and you have the enjoyment of their bodies made lawful to you by the grace of Allah, so pay heed to my words, men.’

Allah confirmed this in the Quran: ‘Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because men spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their private parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those women from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, and forsake them in beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely Allah is high, supreme!’ (Sura 4.34)

The Quran and the Sunna of the prophet, the basis of Sharia Law

Muhammad continued, ‘My people, I have left you clear instructions, which if you follow, you will never go astray - the Quran and the sunna [practice] of His prophet.’

[Devout Muslims are expected to follow the actions and sayings of the apostle so profoundly that even the most primitive and barbaric practices ordered or condoned by him, such as animal sacrifice, death by stoning, amputation of hands and feet, crucifixion, polygamy, wife-beating, concubinage, child-marriage, and female genital mutilation, are enshrined as sunna in Sharia law to this day.]

‘Remember that every Muslim is a Muslim’s brother, and that all Muslims are brethren [to the exclusion of all other men]. It is only lawful to take from a brother what he gives you willingly, so do not wrong each other. By Allah, how many times have I told you this?’

The men responded, ‘Yes, by Allah,’ and Muhammad said, ‘O Allah, bear witness.’

It was the pilgrimage of completion and farewell, because the apostle did not go on pilgrimage ever again after this.

Muhammad’s last illness

On his return to Medina, Muhammd ordered the army to march on Syria and he put Osama, son of Zayd, in command, to lead the cavalry into the territory of the Balqa and al-Darum in the land of Palestine to avenge his father’s death at Muta.

Then the apostle began to suffer from the illness that was to be his last. He was overwhelmed with pain as he was going the round of his wives, until he was overcome in Maymuna’s house. [It was the apostle’s custom to spend the night with each wife in turn, on a strict rota.]

So he summoned his wives and asked their permission to be cared for in Aisha’s house and they agreed. Then with his head bound, he was helped to Aisha’s house, supported by two members of his family, Ali and al-Fadl, son of al-Abbas.

As his condition worsened, he suffered great agony, and said ‘Pour seven skins of water from different sources over me so that I might go out to the men and give them my instructions.’ So they made him sit in a tub belonging to Hafsa d. Omar, and poured water over him until he cried, ‘Enough! Enough!’

He went with bandaged head to the pulpit to address the Muslims saying, ‘You must despatch Osama’s army! He is just as worthy of command as his father Zayd was!’

[Al-Waqidi says that Muhammad was ‘deeply angered’ by those who questioned the appointment of Osama b. Zayd as the leader of the expedition. He became ‘extremely agitated’ and talked incessantly of the death of his beloved adopted son Zayd, his cousin Jafar and his other companions killed at Muta. His dying wish, and call to Osama, son of Zayd, was to: ‘Go in the name of Allah to the place where your father was killed. Attack the people of Ubna at dawn and be aggressive! Hasten the march so as to take them by surprise.’]

The apostle’s last prayers

On the Monday, the twelfth of Rabi al-Awwal, the day on which Allah took His apostle, he went out to the people while they were reciting the morning prayers. The curtain was raised, the door was opened and out came the apostle and stood at Aisha’s door while Abu Bakr was leading the prayers. The people were distracted from their prayers, so overjoyed were they to see the apostle. He motioned to them to continue with their devotions, and smiled with pleasure as he watched them pray.

Then Abu Bakr said, ‘O prophet of God, I see that today you are well and enjoy the favour and grace of Allah just as we would wish. Today is the turn of my wife, Bint Kharija. May I go to her?’

The apostle agreed and went inside, and Abu Bakr returned to his wife in al-Sunh.

That morning, when Ali left the apostle, the men asked him how the apostle was, and he replied that, by the grace of Allah, he had recovered. But al-Abbas took Ali by the hand, saying, ‘Ali, in three days’ time, you will be nothing but a slave. I swear by Allah that I recognised death in the apostle’s face as I recognised it before in the faces of the sons of Abdul-Muttalib. So let us go to the apostle. If authority is to lie with us, we shall know it, and if it is to be with others, we will request him to enjoin the people to treat us well.’

‘By Allah, I will not’, Ali answered. ‘If authority is withheld from us, no one after him will give it to us.’

The death of the apostle

The apostle died with the heat of noon that day, in the arms of Aisha. To the mother of Bishr, he had said, ‘It is now that I feel a deadly pain from what I ate with Bishr at Khaybar.’ Thus Muslims consider that Muhammad died as a martyr in addition to the prophetic office with which Allah had honoured him.

[Muhammad’s symptoms of headaches and burning fever are consistent with the long-term effects of chronic cyanide poisoning. ‘The Prophet in his ailment in which he died, used to say, ‘O 'Aisha! I still feel the pain caused by the food I ate at Khaybar, and now I feel as if my aorta is being cut from that poison!’ (Al-Bukhari Vol 5, Bk 59)]

The reaction of Omar

After the apostle had died, Omar stood up and said, ‘Some of the hypocrites are claiming that the apostle is dead, but by Allah, he is not dead! He will return just as Moses did, and he will cut off the hands and feet of the men who claimed that he had died!’

When Abu Bakr saw that Omar would not be silent, he went forth to the people who, when they heard his words, came to him and left Omar. Giving praise and thanks to Allah, Abu Bakr announced that the apostle had died, saying, ‘For those who worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad is dead, but for those who worship Allah, Allah is alive and immortal!’

Then he recited this verse of the Quran: ‘Muhammad is but an apostle, and will pass away as other apostles passed away before him. Can it be that if he were to die or be killed, you would abandon your faith? Those who recant will do no harm to Allah. And Allah will reward the thankful (Sura 3.144)’.

And Omar said, ‘By Allah, when I heard Abu Bakr recite this verse, my legs gave way and I fell to the ground, completely overcome by the realisation that the apostle was indeed dead!’

Abu Bakr becomes the first Caliph

As the Ansar gathered round Sa’d in the hall of the Beni Saida, Omar said to Abu Bakr, ‘Let us go and see what they are doing’. And one of the Ansar said, ‘Let us have one emir [ruler] and you another, O Quraysh.’

Voices were raised, and when a complete breach was to be feared, Omar said, ‘Stretch out your hand, Abu Bakr!’

He did so, and Omar paid him homage. The emigrants followed, and then the Ansar. Omar then said to the people, ‘Allah has placed your affairs in the hands of the best among you, the companion of the apostle, so arise and swear fealty to him!’

Thereupon the people swore allegiance to Abu Bakr as a body after the pledge in the hall.

Burial of the apostle

On Tuesday, when allegiance had been sworn to Abu Bakr, men came to prepare the apostle for burial. After the washing was completed, they wrapped the apostle’s body in three garments, and laid it upon the bed in the house. The Muslims argued over the place of burial. Some were in favour of burying him in the mosque, while others wanted to bury him with his companions in the graveyard.

Abu Bakr said, ‘I once heard the apostle himself say, ‘Every prophet should be buried in the place where he died,’ so the bed on which the apostle died was taken up and they dug the grave beneath it. Then the people came to pay their respects, praying over him in groups, first the men, then the women, and then the children.

The apostle was buried in the middle of the night on the Wednesday. Aisha said afterwards, ‘The first we knew about the burial of the apostle was the sound of pickaxes in the middle of the night.’

According to Aisha, the last instruction the apostle gave was in his words, ‘Let not two religions be left in the Arabian peninsula.’

When the apostle died, the Muslims were left in great straits. Aisha used to say, ‘When the apostle died, the Arabs rejected Islam. Christianity and Judaism raised their heads and disaffection appeared. With the loss of their prophet, the Muslims were like sheep exposed to rain on a winter’s night, until Allah united them under Abu Bakr.’

Hassan said, mourning the apostle: ‘He was the light and the brilliance we followed. He was sight and hearing, second only to God.’

Here ends ‘The Life of the Apostle of God’ as told by Ibn Ishaq.

The rift between Abu Bakr and Fatima

The story is taken up by al-Tabari who quotes several sources that say that the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr was made on the very day that the apostle died and that this action was taken by Omar and Abu Bakr without the knowledge or agreement of Ali b. Abu Talib, beloved cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. By his marriage to Muhammad’s youngest daughter, Fatima, Ali was also the father of Muhammad’s only two grandchildren, Hassan and Husayn.

After the apostle’s death, Fatima and al-Abbas came to Abu Bakr asking for her to inherit the land of Fadak as it was her father’s own personal property. Abu Bakr refused this request, and Fatima shunned him and did not speak to him for the remainder of her life. It is said that when Fatima died just six months later, Ali buried her at night and did not permit Abu Bakr to attend her burial.

While Fatima lived, Ali was still held respect among the people, but after her death their attention turned away from him, and he was forced to make accommodation with Abu Bakr and pledge allegiance to him then.

The expedition of Osama

The first action of Abu Bakr, on becoming Caliph [successor to the apostle], was to despatch the Muslim to Christian Syria to fulfil Muhammad’s dying wish for vengeance. Within twenty days of his departure, Osama’s army had overrun the province of the Balqa. In fire and blood, he avenged his father Zayd’s death and the disastrous field of Muta.

As a precursor to the Islamic terrorism and conquest that was to come, ‘Osama burnt their houses, destroyed their palm trees, killed many, and made slaves of the rest. That day, he killed his father’s killer, and not one Muslim life was lost.’

The Religion of the Sword:

The Prophet’s Legacy of Eternal Strife

The first four Caliphs and the Great War on Christianity

Under the first four Caliphs, who had all been steadfast warrior companions of the Prophet himself, the Great War on Christianity continued, with its sights set first on Jerusalem. The ultimate goal of every caliph to come was, of course, the conquest of Constantinople, the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire, in order to bring about the prophecy of the Last Day, the death of all Jews and the coming of Dajjal.

However, the Muslim capture of Constantinople under Mehmed II was not achieved until 1453, after 800 years of bloody conflict across and around the Mediterranean, by which time Islam had deservedly earned its reputation as the Religion of the Sword.

The first Caliph, Abu Bakr 632 - 634CE

Abu Bakr spent the first year of his caliphate at war in Arabia: crushing the rebellions of the tribes, who had been forced against their will by threat of death to convert to Islam, in a series of bloody battles and massacres known as the Ridda Wars. He then sent Muslim forces to attack Christian Palestine and Syria. Shortly before his death of a fever in August 634, his general Khalid b. al-Walid, the so-called ‘Sword of Islam’, made a celebrated desert march from Iraq to Damascus to defeat a large Byzantine army at Ajnadain in Palestine, thereby giving the Arabs a foothold in that country.

The second Caliph, Omar 634 - 644CE

During Omar’s caliphate, fanatical Muslim forces under the command of Khalid b. al-Walid took Damascus, annihilated the Christian Byzantine army at Yarmuk, defeated the Imperial Persian army, and in 637 conquered Jerusalem. By 641, Muslim forces had also conquered Alexandria, capital of Coptic Christian Egypt. Those who resisted Islam were killed and their families enslaved, whilst the conquered nations who wished to keep their religion were forced to pay the jizyah, the tax of submission, as protection money to the Caliphate. In 644CE Omar met a violent end, stabbed to death in Medina by a Christian slave of Persian origin, maddened by the sight of wretched slaves from his home town.

The third Caliph, Uthman 644 – 655CE

Uthman’s Caliphate was marked by continual wars to crush rebellion of the conquered nations. Egypt was re-conquered and Alexandria sacked. Tripoli was captured whilst a Muslim fleet conquered Cyprus and Rhodes. Wealth poured in from the spoils of war. Uthman too met a violent end, assassinated by a faction of Muslims led by Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr, jealous of the power and wealth of Uthman’s family, the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh.

The fourth Caliph, Ali 655 – 661CE

Ali’s Caliphate was marked by bitter warfare, this time Muslim against Muslim, as he fought those who sought revenge for Uthman’s death: first Aisha, and then Muawiya, a son of Abu Sufyan, and governor of Syria, who declared himself Caliph and met Ali’s forces in battle. When Ali was killed with a poisoned sword in 661CE, his elder son Hassan, grandson of the apostle, was acclaimed Caliph but peacefully surrendered his title to Muawiya, son of Abu Sufyan b. Harb.

Muawiya I and Yazid I, the Umayyad Caliphs

Under Muawiya I, the Muslim empire expanded still further with war on Sicily in 663, and the siege of Constantinople in 669CE. On Muawiya’s death in 680CE, his debauched son Yazid succeeded as Caliph. Ali’s younger son, Husayn, was also hailed as Caliph, but he and his small band of seventy followers were massacred at Kerbala by Yazid’s army. Thus the apostle’s grandson met his death at the hand of a grandson of Abu Sufyan and Hind d. Utba, beginning the great Schism and eternal conflict between Sunni Muslims and Shi’ites that blights the Muslim world to this very day.