The life of the Prophet Muhammad (7/11): the settling at Medina
Contents
By Michel Abdallah Grimbert, disciple of the tariqa Qadiriya Boutchichiya.
Medina was traditionally a welcoming and tolerant town, composed essentially of craftsmen, merchants and warriors who watched over the townspeople’s property. Many Jewish and Christian communities had been living there for a long time. The integration of Muhammad’s emigrant partisans, called muhajirun, took place on the model of an unblemished brotherhood with the Medinan converts, called ansar, both devoted to the service of God’s Messenger.
The Prophet of God’s triumphant arrival was accomplished amid the jubilation of popular songs and in an attentive fervour where the Prophet’s every gesture was borne by divine grace. Muhammad was accompanied by his she-camel Qaswa’, which he allowed to choose the site of his first dwelling; it thus became the first mosque, at Quba, an oasis on the outskirts of Medina. The Prophet then settled at Medina for good, and he taught the Muslims his new conception of existence, of ritual and of the spiritual life. He created the institutions apt to establish a fraternal society, freed of any ethnic principle or any non-monotheistic conception. Thus the Prophet of God affirmed, with God’s help, the distinctive and unprecedented character of his religion, as is made explicit by the circumstances of the change of qibla, remembered in the name of the mosque where the Prophet prayed, surnamed ‘the mosque of the two qiblas’: masjid al-qiblatayn. For the Prophet of God’s constant practice was to turn towards Jerusalem in prayer, until the day, in the second year of his sojourn at Medina, when God, after his insistent entreaties, bade him, during the zuhr prayer and without interrupting it, turn towards Mecca. Now Medina lies north of Mecca and south of Jerusalem, so that during prayers the Muslims were henceforth turning their backs on the Ka’ba; which had become unbearable to them.
This change of qibla also proves that wherever you turn, there is the Face of God (wajh Allah); and that in the order of the shari’a, everything is a matter of idhn: (II, 142-144) ‘Who then has turned them away from the qibla towards which they used to pray? Say: the East and the West belong to God; He guides whom He wills onto the straight path… We often see thee turning thy face towards the sky. We shall turn thee towards a qibla that will please thee. Turn thy face then towards the Sacred Mosque’. Indeed, were it not so, the name adopted for this mosque would not have recalled that particular circumstance.
The institution of the Ramadan fast
The second great collective institution that definitively structured the Muslim community was the institution of the fast of the month of Ramadan, which encompasses the whole range of human qualifications, both individual and extra-individual, whose ‘excellent model’ (uswatun hasanatun) is the Prophet of God1, upon whose heart the Qur’an, the undivided Word of God, came down. Now this Reminder (dhikr)2 was revealed during the month of Ramadan, which is thereby directly attached to God.
A hadith qudsi reported by Abu Hurayra says in this regard: ‘Allah said: every act of the son of Adam belongs to him, except the fast, for the fast is Mine and it is I who grant its reward. The fast is a protection. When it is a day of fasting for one of you, let him utter no obscenity and let him not shout. If someone insults him or attacks him, let him say: I am fasting, I am fasting! By Him in Whose hand lies Muhammad’s soul, the bad breath of the faster is surely more fragrant to Allah than the scent of musk. The faster has two joys: when he breaks the fast, he rejoices at breaking it, and when he meets his Lord, he rejoices at his fast’.
Yet in all circumstances the Prophet of God’s concern was the rooting of the Revelation in a solid and fraternal community. And the first pillar of that concern was the constitution of his noble family, both earthly and spiritual.
Further reading
- The life of the Prophet Muhammad (6/11): the emigration (Hegira)
- The life of the Prophet Muhammad (8/11): the Prophet’s House
- Foundations and meaning of the ritual fast of the month of Ramadan
