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Thus says Muir: "Muhammad was never covetous of wealth, or at any period of his career energetic in the pursuit of riches for their own sake. If left to himself, he would probably have preferred the quiet and repose of his present life to the bustle and cares of a mercantile journey. He would not spontaneously have contemplated such an expedition. But when the proposal was made, his generous soul at once felt the necessity of doing all that was possible to relieve his uncle and he cheerfully responded to the call" Above all, his earlier life was marked by that rare characteristic, rarest of all in Arabia at the time, love of the poor, the orphan, the widow, the weak, the helpless and the slave. Before he had affluence of means, he was one of the members who took an oath to stand by the oppressed and formed themselves into a league as champions of the injured. When at twenty-five he married a wealthy widow, Khadija, he spent freely for the help of the poor. No slave came into the household but was set free by him. He had acquired such a fame for hoping the poor that when, after the Call, the Quraish demanded him of Abu Talib to put him to death, the old chief refused and praised him in a poem as the "Protector of the orphans and the widows." Earlier than this when Muhammad received the Call, and was diffident whether he would be able to achieve the grand object of reforming his countrymen, his wife, Khadija, comforted him, saying that God would not disgrace him because he bore the burden of those who were weary and helped the poor and gave relief to those who were in distress and honoured the guest and loved his kinsmen [Bukhari, 1:1]. To these great qualities was added his anxiety for a fallen humanity. The Quran refers to it repeatedly [9:128, 18:6, 26:3, 35:8]. As years went on, the gross idolatry of the Arabs and their evil ways pressed the more heavily on his heart, and he spent hours in solitude in the neighbouring mountains. ________________________________________ Preaches at Makka Still later, he repaired for days to a cave at the foot of Mount Hira, and it was here that the Divine light shone on him in its full resplendence. At first, he was in doubt whether he would be able to perform the great task, but his anxiety soon gave place to absolute faith that truth would ultimately triumph, and he set to work with a strength of will and an inflexibility of purpose which could not be shaken by the severest opposition of the whole of Arabia. From the very first his message was for all, for the Arab as well as the non-Arab, for the idolaters as well as the Jews, the Christians and the Magi. Nor was it limited to the town of Makka, for Makka was the centre to which men and women flocked in thousands every year from all parts of Arabia, and through this assemblage the Prophet's message reached the most distant corners of Arabia. His wife, Khadija, was the first to believe in him, and she was followed by others who were either his most intimate friends or closely related to him. As Muir remarks: "It is strongly corroborative of Muhammad's sincerity that the earliest converts to Islam were not only of upright character, but his own bosom friends and people of his household, who, intimately acquainted with his Private life could not fail otherwise to have detected those discrepancies which ever more or less exist between the professions of the hypocritical deceiver abroad and his actions at home." His first revelations laid stress on the great power and majesty of the Divine Being and on the inevitability of the judgment. The Quraish mocked at first, treated him contemptuously and called him a madman. In spite of this he went on gaining adherents by twos and threes, until within four years - the number reached forty and persecutionquran institute, online quran , live quran lessons, read quran , quran for kids , holy quran , quran tutors , quran teacher , learning quran online, grew bitter. At first the slaves were tortured. Bilal, a Negro by birth, when made to lie on the burning sands under the Arabian midday sun continued to cry, "One, One," to the bewilderment of his persecutors. But the fire of persecution once kindled could not be confined. Converts of high birth were made to suffer along with the poorer followers. The Prophet himself did not escape the cruelties of the persecutors. The Muslims could not gather together or say their prayers in a public place. Still Muhammad went on gaining new adherents, and his opponents became severer in their persecution, so much so that some of the humbler converts were put to death in a most brutal manner.
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