“They are naught but names which ye and your fathers have invented.”
In the sixth year of his mission, the cause of Muḥammad was strengthened by the accession of two powerful citizens, Ḥamzah and ʿUmar. Ḥamzah was the uncle and also the foster-brother of the Prophet, a man of distinguished bravery, whose heroism earned for him the title of the “Lion of God.” ʿUmar was a bold impulsive spirit, the very man needed to give strength to a cause, one who in a remarkable manner left the impress of his character upon the religious system he embraced. He succeeded Abū Bakr in the K͟halīfate, and left the stamp of his fierce warlike spirit upon Islām. [[UMAR].]
Alarmed at the bold part which Muḥammad and his followers were now able to assume, the Quraish formed a hostile confederacy, by which all intercourse with the Muslims and their supporters was suspended. The severity of the ban at last overreached its object, for the sympathies of the people were enlisted by their privation in favour of Muḥammad and his followers. The interdict was cancelled and the Hāshimites restored to freedom.
In the beginning of the tenth year of his mission, and in the fiftieth of his life, Muḥammad lost his faithful and devoted wife K͟hadījah. For twenty-five years she had been his counsellor and support, and his grief at her death at first was inconsolable. She was sixty-five years old when she died. Abū T̤ālib, the Prophet’s uncle and guardian, died a few weeks afterwards. His conversion to Islām is a matter of uncertainty. Within two months of the death of K͟hadījah (who was his only wife during her lifetime), the Prophet married Saudah, the widow of one of the Abyssinian emigrants, and also betrothed himself to ʿĀyishah, the daughter of his friend Abū Bakr, then but a girl of seven years.
Abū T̤ālib had hardly been buried a fortnight when Muḥammad, followed only by his faithful attendants, set out on an adventurous mission to at̤-T̤āʾif, a place sixty miles to the east of Makkah, and the nearest city of importance. He went first to the three principal men of the city, and explained the object of his mission, and invited them to the honour of supporting him in sustaining the new faith. But he failed in producing conviction. Muḥammad remained at at̤-T̤āʾif ten days, but with no success. The mob, stirred up to hasten the departure of the unwelcome visitor, hooted at him in the streets, and pelted him with stones, and at last compelled him to flee out of the city. They chased him fully two miles across the sandy plain, until wearied and mortified, he took refuge for the night in a neighbouring garden, where he spent some time in earnest prayer. (Muir, 2nd ed., p. 114.)
Reinvigorated by the rest, he set forth on the return journey to Makkah.
Repulsed from at̤-T̤āʾif, and utterly hopeless at home, the fortunes of Muḥammad seemed dark, but hope dawned at last from an unexpected quarter. At the yearly pilgrimage, a little group of worshippers from al-Madīnah was attracted and won over at Minā by the preaching of Islām, joined his mission, and the following year they met Muḥammad and took the oath of allegiance which is known as the first Pledge of ʿAqabah. This little party consisted of twelve men, ten were of the K͟hazraj and two of the Aus tribe. They plighted their faith to Muḥammad as follows:—“We will not worship any but one God, we will not steal, neither will we commit adultery, nor will we kill our children; we will not slander in anywise; and we will obey the Prophet in everything that is just.”
At al-Madīnah the claims of the new Prophet found a ready response. A teacher was deputed from Makkah to al-Madīnah, and the new faith spread with marvellous rapidity.
The hopes of Muḥammad were now fixed on al-Madīnah, visions of his journey northwards doubtless flitted before his imagination and the musing of the day, reappeared in his midnight slumbers.
He dreamed that he was swiftly carried by Gabriel on a winged steed past al-Madīnah to the Temple of Jerusalem, where he was welcomed by the former Prophets all assembled in solemn conclave. From Jerusalem he seemed to mount upwards, and to ascend from one heaven to another, until he found himself in the awful presence of his Maker, who dismissed him with the order that he should command his followers to pray five times a day. [[MIʿRAJ], [BURAQ].]