His first care after his arrival in Yat͟hrib, or Medina as it was called from this period—Madīnah al-Nabī, the city of the Prophet—was to build a mosque, to serve both as a place of prayer and of general assembly for his followers, who had hitherto met for that purpose in the dwelling-place of one of their number. The worshippers at first used to turn their faces in the direction of Jerusalem—an arrangement most probably adopted with the hope of gaining over the Jews. In many other ways, by constant appeals to their own sacred Scriptures, by according them perfect freedom of worship and political equality, Muḥammad [[27]]endeavoured to conciliate the Jews, but they met his advances with scorn and derision. When all hopes of amalgamation proved fruitless and it became clear that the Jews would not accept him as their Prophet, Muḥammad bade his followers turn their faces in prayer towards the Kaʻbah in Mecca. (ii. 144.)[9]
This change of direction during prayer has a deeper significance than might at first sight appear. It was really the beginning of the National Life of Islam: it established the Kaʻbah at Mecca as a religious centre for all the Muslim people, just as from time immemorial it had been a place of pilgrimage for all the tribes of Arabia. Of similar importance was the incorporation of the ancient Arab custom of pilgrimage to Mecca into the circle of the religious ordinances of Islam, a duty that was to be performed by every Muslim at least once in his lifetime.
There are many passages in the Qurʼān that appeal to this germ of national feeling and urge the people of Arabia to realise the privilege that had been granted them of a divine revelation in their own language and by the lips of one of their own countrymen.
“Verily We have made it an Arabic Qurʼān that ye may haply understand. (xliii. 2–3.)
“And thus We have revealed to thee an Arabic Qurʼān, that thou mayest warn the mother of cities and those around it. (xlii. 5.)
“And if We had made it a Qurʼān in a foreign tongue, they had surely said, ‘Unless its verses be clearly explained (we will not receive it).’ (xli. 44.)
“And verily We have set before men in this Qurʼān every kind of parable that haply they be monished:
“An Arabic Qurʼān, free from tortuous (wording), that haply they may fear (God). (xxxix. 28–29.)
“Verily from the Lord of all creatures hath this (book) come down, … in the clear Arabic tongue. (xxvi. 192, 195.)
“And We have only made it (i.e. the Qurʼān) easy, in [[28]]thine own tongue, in order that thou mayest announce glad tidings thereby to the God-fearing, and that thou mayest warn the contentious thereby.” (xix. 97.)
But the message of Islam was not for Arabia only; the whole world was to share in it.[10] As there was but one God, so there was to be but one religion into which all men were to be invited. This claim to be universal, to hold sway over all men and all nations, found a practical illustration in the letters which Muḥammad is said to have sent in the year A.D. 688 (A.H. 6) to the great potentates of that time. An invitation to embrace Islam was sent in this year to the Emperor Heraclius, the king of Persia, the governor of Yaman, the governor of Egypt and the king of Abyssinia. The letter to Heraclius is said to have been as follows:—“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, Muḥammad, who is the servant of God and His apostle, to Hiraql the Qayṣar of Rūm. Peace be on whoever has gone on the straight road. After this I say, Verily I call you to Islam. Embrace Islam, and God will reward you twofold. If you turn away from the offer of Islam, then on you be the sins of your people. O people of the Book, come towards a creed which is fit both for us and for you. It is this—to worship none but God, and not to associate anything with God, and not to call others God. Therefore, O ye people of the Book, if ye refuse, beware. We are Muslims and our religion is Islam.” However absurd this summons may have seemed to those who then received it, succeeding years showed that it was dictated by no empty enthusiasm.[11] These letters only gave a more open and widespread expression to the claim to the universal acceptance which is repeatedly made for Islam in the Qurʼān. [[29]]
“Of a truth it (i.e. the Qurʼān) is no other than an admonition to all created beings, and after a time shall ye surely know its message. (xxxviii. 87–88.)
“This (book) is no other than an admonition and a clear Qurʼān, to warn whoever liveth; and that against the unbelievers sentence may be justly given. (xxxvi. 69–70.)
“We have not sent thee save as a mercy to all created beings. (xxi. 107.)
“Blessed is He who hath sent down al-Furqān upon His servant, that he may be a warner unto all created beings. (xxv. 1.)
“And We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large, to announce and to warn. (xxxiv. 27.)
“He it is who hath sent His apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion, though the polytheists are averse to it.” (lxi. 9.)
In the hour of his deepest despair, when the people of Mecca persistently turned a deaf ear to the words of their prophet (xvi. 23, 114, etc.), when the converts he had made were tortured until they recanted (xvi. 108), and others were forced to flee from the country to escape the rage of their persecutors (xvi. 43, 111)—then was delivered the promise, “One day we will raise up a witness out of every nation.” (xvi. 86.)[12]
This claim upon the acceptance of all mankind which the Prophet makes in these passages is further prophetically indicated in the words “first-fruits of Abyssinia,” used by Muḥammad in reference to Bilāl, and “first-fruits of Greece,” to Ṣuhayb; Salmān, the first Persian convert, was a Christian slave in Medina, who embraced the new faith in the first [[30]]year of the Hijrah. Thus long before any career of conquest was so much as dreamed of, the Prophet had clearly shown that Islam was not to be confined to the Arab race. The following account of the sending out of missionaries to preach Islam to all nations, points to the same claim to be a universal religion: “The Apostle of God said to his companions, ‘Come to me all of you early in the morning.’ After the morning prayer he spent some time in praising and supplicating God, as was his wont; then he turned to them and sent forth some in one direction and others in another, and said: ‘Be faithful to God in your dealings with His servants (i.e. with men), for whosoever is entrusted with any matter that concerns mankind and is not faithful in his service of them, to him God shuts the gate of Paradise: go forth and be not like the messengers of Jesus, the son of Mary, for they went only to those that lived near and neglected those that dwelt in far countries.’ Then each of these messengers came to speak the language of the people to whom he was sent. When this was told to the Prophet he said, ‘This is the greatest of the duties that they owe to God with respect to His servants.’ ”[13]
The proof of the universality of Islam, of its claim on the acceptance of all men, lay in the fact that it was the religion divinely appointed for the whole human race and was now revealed to them anew through Muḥammad, “the seal of the prophets” (xxxiii. 40), as it had been to former generations by other prophets.
“Men were of one religion only: then they disagreed one with another and had not a decree (of respite) previously gone forth from thy Lord, judgment would surely have been given between them in the matter wherein they disagree. (x. 20.)
“I am no apostle of new doctrines. (xlvi. 8.)
“Mankind was but one people: then God raised up prophets to announce glad tidings and to warn: and He sent down with them the Book with the Truth, that it might decide the disputes of men: and none disagreed save those to whom the book had been [[31]]given, after the clear tokens had reached them, through mutual jealousy. And God guided those who believed into the truth concerning which they had disagreed, by His will; and God guideth whom He pleaseth into the straight path. (ii. 209.)
“And We revealed to thee, ‘follow the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith, for he was not of those who join gods with God.’ (xvi. 124.)
“Say: As for me, my Lord hath guided me into a straight path: a true faith, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith; for he was not of those who join gods with God. (vi. 162.)
“Say: Nay, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith and not one of those who join gods with God (is our religion). (ii. 129.)
“Say: God speaketh truth. Follow therefore the religion of Abraham, he being a Ḥanīf and not one of those who join other gods with God.
“Verily the first temple that was set up for men was that which is in Bakka, blessed and a guidance for all created beings. (iii. 89, 90.)
“And who hath a better religion than he who resigneth himself to God, who doth what is good and followeth the faith of Abraham, the sound in faith? (iv. 124.)
“He hath elected you, and hath not laid on you any hardship in religion, the faith of your father Abraham. He hath named you the Muslims.” (xx. 77.)