TRIBUTE

OF A

MUSLIM

C. 14. – For the glory of Hellas, and her freedom and wisdom had

              departed;

Rome’s great systems of law, organization, and universal citizenship

Had sunk into the mire of ecclesiastical formalism,

And dogmatism, and exclusive arrogance;

The living fire of Persia’s prophet scarce smouldered

In her votaries of luxury;

In India, countless castes and kingdoms

Cancelled the unity of Buddha’s teaching;

The wounds of China had not yet been healed by T’ang culture;

And Japan was still a disciple of China.

C. 15. – Then, in the sacred city of pagan Arabia,

Shone a light that spread in all directions.

It was centrally placed for the bounds of the world

Of men’s habitations in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

It made the Arabs the leading nation of culture and science,

Of organized enterprise, law, and arts,

With a zeal for the conquest of Nature and her mysteries.

C. 16. – Behold! There was born into the world of sense

The unlettered Prophet, the comely child,

Noble of birth, but nobler still

In the grace and wisdom of human love

And human understanding; dowered with the key

Which opened to him the enchanted palace

Of nature; marked out to receive –

To receive and preach in burning words

The spiritual truth and message of the Most High.

C. 17. – Others before him had been born

In darkness, beyond the reach

Of history; others again it pleased Allah

To send as Messengers, preaching, working

In the dim twilight of history,

Wherein men fashion legends

After their own hearts and dimly seek

A light afar, remote from the lives

Mean and sordid, such as they knew.

C. 18. – But Muhammad came in the fullest blaze

Of history; with no learning he put to shame

The wisdom of the learned; with pasture folk

He lived and worked, and won their love; in hills

And valleys, caves and deserts, he wandered,

But never lost his way to truth and righteousness;

From his pure and spotless heart the Angels washed

Off the dust that flew around him; through the ways

Of crooked city folk, he walked upright and straight,

And won from them the ungrudging name

Of the Man of Faith¹ who never broke his word.

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1.  Al-Amin.

C. 19. – To the Praiseworthy¹ indeed be praise:

Born in the Sacred City² he destroyed

Its superstition; loyal to his people to the core,

He stood for all humanity; orphan-born

And poor, he envied not the rich,

And made his special care all those

Whom the world neglected or oppressed –

Orphans, women, slaves, and those in need

Of food or comforts, mental solace, spiritual strength,

Or virtues downtrodden in the haunts of men.

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1. Muhammad (S.A.W.A.S).

2.  Makkah.

C. 20. – His mother¹ and his foster-mother²

Loved and wondered at the child;

His grandfather, Abdul Muttalib,

Of all his twice-eight children and their offspring,

Loved him best and all his sweet and gentle ways;

His uncle Abu Talib, loth though he was

To give up the cult of his fathers,

Knew well the purity of Muhammad’s

Mind and soul, and was his stoutest champion

When the other chiefs of Makkah sought to kill

The man who challenged in his person

Their narrow Pagan selfish lives.

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1.  Aminah.

2.  Halimah.

C. 21. – To his cousin Ali, the well-beloved,¹

Born when he was thirty, he appeared

As the very pattern of a perfect man,

As gentle as he was wise and true and strong,

The one in whose defence and aid

He spent his utmost strength and skill,

Holding life cheap in support of a cause so high,

And placing without reserve his chivalry,

His prowess, his wit and learning, and his sword

At the service of this mighty Messenger of Allah.

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1. Murtada.

C. 22. – Not till the age of forty¹ did he receive

The Commission to stand forth and proclaim

The Bounty of Allah, and His gift, to lowly Man,

Of knowledge by Word and Pen; but all through

His years of preparation he did search

The Truth; he sought it in Nature’s forms and laws,

Her beauty and her stern unflinching ways;

He sought it in the inner world

Of human lives, men’s joys and sorrows;

Their kindly virtues and their sins

Of pride, injustice, cruel wrong,

And greed of gain; scarce checked by the inner voice

That spoke of duty, moral law, and higher still,

The Will Supreme of Allah, to which the will

Of man must tune itself to find its highest bliss.

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1. The Arabian year preceding 10 A.H. was roughly luni-solar.

C. 23. – But he grew steadfastly in virtue and purity;

Untaught by men, he learnt from them, and learned

To teach them; even as a boy of nine,

When he went in a trade caravan with Abu Talib

To Syria,¹ his tender soul marked inwardly

How Allah did speak in the wide expanse

Of deserts, in the stern grandeur of rocks,

In the refreshing flow of streams, in the smiling

Bloom of gardens, in the art and skill with which

Men and birds and all life sought for light

Form the Life of Lives, even as every plant

Seeks through devious ways the light of the Sun.

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1.  It was on such visits that he met and conversed with Nestorian Christian monks like Bahirah who were quick to recognize his spiritual worth. Perhaps the meeting was in Busra in the Jabal Druze district of Syria, some 70 miles south of Damascus. There was another Busra in Edom, north of Petra in Transjordania. Busra was famous for trade in costly red dyes, and is referred to as Bozrah in Isaiah, xliii:i. Neither of these towns is to be confounded with the modern Basra. [Muhammad (S.A.W.A.S) went to Syria twice, and the incident of meeting Bahirah took place in one of these visits. (Eds.)].

C. 24. – Nor less was he grieved at Man’s ingratitude

When he rebelled and held as naught the Signs

Of Allah, and turned His gifts to baser uses,

Driving rarer souls to hermit life,

Clouding the heavenly mirror of pure affections

With selfish passions, mad unseemly wrangles,

And hard unhallowed loathsome tortures of themselves.

C. 25. – He worked, and joyed in honest labor;

He traded with integrity to himself and to others;

He joined the throngs of cities and their busy life,

But saw its good and evil as types

Of an inner and more lasting life hereafter;

People gladly sought his help as umpire

And peacemaker because they knew his soul

Was just and righteous: he loved the society

Of old and young, but oft withdrew to solitude

For Prayer and inward spiritual strength;

He despised not wealth but used it for others;

He was happy in poverty and used it as his badge

And his pride¹ when wealth was within his reach

But not within his grasp, as a man among men.

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1.  Al-Faqru Fakhri: “Poverty is my pride”.

C. 26. – At twenty-five he was united in the holy bonds

Of wedlock with Khadijah the Great, the noble lady

Who befriended him when he had no worldly resources,

Trusted him when his worth was little known,

Encouraged and understood him in his spiritual struggles,

Believed in him when with trembling steps

He took up the Call and withstood obloquy,

Persecution, insults, threats, and tortures,

And was a life-long helpmate till she was gathered

To the saints in his fifty-first year –

A perfect woman, the mother of those that believe.

C. 27. – There is a cave in the side of Mount Hira

Some three miles north of the city of Makkah,

In a valley which turns left from the road to Arafat.

To which Muhammad used to retire for peaceful contemplation:

Often alone, but sometimes with Khadijah.¹

Days and nights he spent there with his Lord.

Hard were the problems he revolved in his mind –

Harder and more cross-grained than the red granite

Of the rock around him – problems not his own,

But his people’s yea, and of human destiny,

Of the Mercy of Allah, and the age-long conflict

Of evil and righteousness, sin and abounding Grace.

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1.  This statement is not supported by any authentic evidence on record. (Eds.)

C. 28. – Not till forty years of earthly life had passed

That the veil was lifted from the Preserved Tablet

And it contents began to be transferred to the tablet of his mind,

To be proclaimed to the world, and read and studied

For all time – a fountain of mercy and wisdom,

A warning to the heedless, a guide to the erring,

An assurance to those in doubt, a solace to the suffering,

A hope to those in despair – to complete the chain

Of Revelation through the mouths

Of divinely inspired Prophets.

C. 29. – The Chosen One¹ was in the Cave of Hira.

For two years and more he had prayed there and adored

His Creator and wondered at the mystery

Of man with his corruptible flesh, just growing

Out of a clot,² and the soul in him

Reaching out to knowledge sublime, new

And ever new, taught by the bounty

Of Allah, and leading to that which man himself

Knoweth not. And now, behold! a dazzling

Vision of beauty and light overpowered his senses,

And he heard the word “Iqra”.

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1.Al-Mustafa.

2.See Surah Al-‘Alaq, 96/2.

C. 30. – “Iqra” which being interpreted many mean

“Read” or “Proclaim” or “Recite”

The unlettered Prophet was puzzled;

He could not read. The Angel seemed

To press him to his breast in a close embrace,

And the cry rang clear “Iqra”

And so it happened three times; until

The first overpowering sensation yielded

To a collected grasp of the words which made clear

His Mission; its Author, Allah, the Creator,

Its subject, Man, Allah’s wondrous handiwork,

Capable, by Grace, of rising to heights sublime;

And the instrument of that mission, the sanctified Pen,

And the sanctified Book, the Gift of Allah,

Which men might read, or write, or study, or treasure in their souls.

C. 31. – The veil was lifted from the Chosen One’s eyes,

And his soul for a moment was filled with divine

Ecstasy…When this passed,

And he returned to the world of Time

And Circumstance and this world of Sense,

He felt like one whose eyes had seen

A light dazzling beauty, and felt dazed

On his return to common sights.

The darkness now seemed tenfold dark;

The solitude seemed tenfold empty;

The mount of Hira, henceforth known

As the Mountain of Light,¹ the mere shell

Of an intense memory. Was it a dream?

Terror seized his limbs and he straightway sought

Her who shared his inmost life,

And told her of his sense of exaltation,

And the awful void when the curtain closed.

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1.  Jabal Al-Nur (The place where Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.A.S) received the first revelation).

C. 32. – She understood, rejoiced, and comforted him;

Gave strength to his shaken senses;

Wrapped up in warmth his shivering body,

Unused as yet to bear the strain and stress

Of an experience rare to mortal men.

She knew it was no dream or delusion.

She went and consulted her cousin Waraqah,

A devout worshipper of Allah in the Faith of Christ,

Learned in spiritual lore. He listened

And whith her rejoiced that he, Muhammad,

Was Allah’s Chosen One to renew the Faith.

C. 33. – She said: ‘Blessed be thou, Chosen One!

Do we not see thy inner life – true and pure?

Do not all see thy outer life – kind and gentle?–

Loyal to kin, hospitable to strangers?

No thought of harm or mischief ever stained thy mind

Nor word ever passed thy lips that was not true

Or stilled not the passions of narrower men.

Ever ready in the service of Allah, thou art he

Of whom I bear witness: there’s no god but He,

And thou art His Chosen Prophet.’

C. 34. – Khadijah believed, exalted in faith

Above all women; Ali, the well-beloved,

Then a child of ten, but lion-hearted,

Plighted his faith, and became from that moment

The right hand of Islam; Abu Bakar, the Sincere,¹

The True-hearted, the man of wealth and influence,

Who used both without stint for the Cause,

The sober counselor, the inseparable friend,

Never hesitated to declare his faith;

And Zaid, the freedman of Muhammad,

Counted his freedom as naught compared

With the service of Muhammad and Islam.

These were the first fruits of the mission:

A woman, a child, a man of affairs, and a freedman,

All banded together in the equality of Islam.

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1.  Sadiq or Siddiq, the title of Abu Bakar.

C. 35. – The revelation had come, the mission

And the inspiration. But what was it leading to?

It was a miracle, but not in the sense

Of a reversing of Nature: Al-Mustafa’s vision

Was linked with Eternity, but he was no soothsayer

Foretelling passing events; the mysteries

Of knowledge were being opened out, but his message

Was no mere esoteric doctrine, to be grasped

By a few in contemplation, fleeing from action;

Nor was it the practice of single or social monasticism,

Undisturbed by the whims or passions of life.

He was asked to stand forth, to preach, to declare

The One Universal God, the Gracious, the Merciful,

And to lead men to the Right and forbid the Wrong.

C. 36. – The wrong?–The selfish pride of birth,

The massing of power and wealth in the hands

Of a few, the slaughter of female infants,

The orgies of gambling and drunkenness,

The frauds of temples and idols and priests,

The feuds and arrogance of tribes and races,

The separation of Sacred and Profane,

As if the unity of All Life and All Truth

Did not flow from the unity of Allah, Most High.

C. 37. – He was loyal to his family, but could he support

Their monopoly of power?–To his tribe,

But were the Quraish the only creatures

Of Allah? To the temple of Makkah, but

Could he wink at Lat and Uzza, and the other monsters,

Whose worship killed the spiritual growth of Man?–

To the earlier Revelations, but could he hold

With superstitions and falsehoods, the dogmas and creeds

Which went against reason and nature, and the inner light

Which was now fanned into flame by the Will of Allah?

C. 38. – And so his very virtues and loyalties pointed

To offence and conflict, mockery and misrepresentation,

Hatred and persecution, threats, tortures, and exile

For him and his, and martyrdoms, wars, revolutions,

And the shaking of the foundations of history

And the social order. But Islam meant

The willing submission of his will to Allah,

The active attainment of Peace through Conflict.

C. 39. – And he gave that submission, not without effort,

Even as Musa¹ did before him,

And Isa² in the agony of the garden of Gethsemane.

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1.  See Surah Ta-Ha, 20/25-32.

2.  Matt. xxvi.

C. 40. – For three and twenty years, in patience,

Conflict, hope, and final triumph,

Did this Prophet of Allah receive

And teach the Message of the Most High.

It came, like the fruit of the soul’s own yearning,

To teach profound spiritual truths,

Answer questions, appeal to men

In their doubts and fears, help and put heart

In them in moments of trial, and ordain

For them laws by which they could live

In society lives of purity, goodness and peace.

C. 41. – These messages came as inspiration

To Muhammad as the need arose,

On different occasions and in different places:

He recited them, and they were recorded

By the Pen: they were imprinted on his heart

And mind, and on the memory

Of his loving disciples: as the body

Of sacred Scripture grew, it was arranged

For purposes of public prayer and reading:

This is the Book, or the Reading, or the Qur’an.

“C” denotes running commentaries in rhymtic prose.

      

 Taken from: -

                           Abdullah Yousuf Ali—“The Holy Qur’an, Text, Transaction and Commentary”,  
                           published by Sh. Muhammad   Ashraf, 7-Aibak Road (New Anarkali), Lahore.

                    READ SOME PORTION OF QUR'AN EVERYDAY. YOU WILL FIND 
                    THERE IS SOMETHING IN IT FOR YOU ALSO.

                                                                                                                                                               
 

Aziz-uz-Zaman

2^nd Jamadi-us-Sani 1436 Hijri,

(23^rd March, 2015 A.D)

1244, Abdul Khalique A.W. Town,

Sector 31-B, Korangi, Karachi.

E-Mail: azamanquran@gmail.com