Fruits for the Week

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Alhamdulillah! The New Year of 1443 Hijri has ushered in. It means that the Hijrah (migration of the Prophet) from Makkah to Madinah has been passing over 1443 years ago. The Hijrah is a physical journey undertaken by the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his companions from Mecca to Madinah. The Hijrah is a milestone event in Islamic history, an event that inaugurated significant changes in the historical direction of the world, an event that has become the focal point of the destiny of the Muslim world. It is a story planning, patience, endurance and striving.

It is an event for every Muslim to remember always for its tremendous significance on the success of Islam and its powerful impact on the attitude of Muslims. That is why it has rightly become the starting point of the Islamic calendar.

Hijrah is a prelude for honour, liberty, peace and prosperity. It ensures multiplicity of resources and means of subsistence; leads from slavery to the highest altitudes of independence and self-reliance. Hijrah is the light of the path from destitution to wealth; a moving force from feebleness to strength; and voyage from fear to peace.

Hijrah has played most effective and important role not only in causing growth and perfection of freedom movements but also in the protection of faith and ideals. Since protection of faith and freedom has been an issue of fundamental importance for all nations at all times, Hijrah is treated as an act of devotion and sacrifice. Hijrah was a great sacrifice on the part of the first believers who relinquished their property and took to exile for the protection of their faith and holding high and up their Din and preservation of freedom.

The Prophet, an Arab born on the soil of Mecca, lived at a time when the people were in a state of marked corruption and decay and in the grips of the worst form of idolatry. No society was considered more degrading and more debased than that society before it accepted Islam. Hence the period before Islam became known as the Jahiliyyah period or the period of ignorance.

When the Prophet began delivering the Da’wah to his people, they ridiculed his teaching and refused to accept changes for the better. They drank alcohol but Islam says alcohol consumption is forbidden. They practiced infanticide but Islam says this practice is cruel and should be stopped. They treated women as mere chattels but Islam gave women honour and right. All these made the pagans feel that their culture and traditions were being destroyed by the teaching of Islam. The Prophet began to meet with intense interference and hostility from the pagans.

For 13 years the Prophet carried on with his mission patiently, bearing all the agony and hardship of the persecution. On the appointed night when the assassins burst into the Prophet’s room to pounce on the Prophet and drive their swords into his heart while he was asleep, they received a rude shock. Only Ali (RA) was in the room. The Prophet was nowhere to be found. He and Abu Bakar (RA) had left the place unnoticed by the assassins waiting outside.

On 2 July 622, the Prophet stepped onto the soil of Madinah. Here the Prophet gave form and continuity to the Muslim community and the state with all the various elements of social, political and economic life he had been commanded by Allah to establish. Here also, the parts of the Qur’an constituting legislation on various matters were put into practice.

From here, Islam flourished and rapidly spread throughout Arabia. He passed away in Madinah where he left for Muslims two permanent and unchangeable sources of guidance for all time-the Qur’an and his Sunnah. Whoever holds fast to these sources of guidance shall be successful; an assurance the Prophet gave the Muslims in his Farewell Pilgrimage.

The month of Muharram, in which the Prophet (saw) migrated from Makkah to Madinah, is the first month of a lunar year. A year is over from our personal lives and we are one year closer to our graves. We are closer to live in the graves and stay till the Day of Judgement. Muslims are to prepare themselves for the hereafter to come.

Prepared by Abdul Muhaemin Karim

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