Muhammad: His Character and Conduct - Adil Salahi

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you were never known to be treacherous, neither when you were young nor in your old age. Are you intending to get into the holy city where your own people live carrying arms, when you had promised that your party will carry only the ordinary arms of travellers: swords in sheaths?”

      The Prophet answered: “I am not bringing arms into the city.”

      Mikraz said: “This is a man who is a model of honesty and sincerity.”4

      It was enough for the Quraysh delegation that Muhammad said he would not be bringing in the arms. They immediately returned to their people to reassure them that he would honour the agreement. Those people had been fighting him for nearly two decades, accusing him of every evil. Yet, they had no hesitation to accept his word as describing his true intention.

      The pursuit of right requires the seeker to ensure that any trust afforded to them is well-placed. Muhammad was trusted throughout his life, and no one ever accused him of being unworthy of trust. On the contrary, long before Islam, the people of Makkah gave him the nickname al-Amīn (which means “trustworthy”). We see, for instance, that he was only in his early twenties when Khadījah, a wealthy widow, entrusted him to manage her own trade with a caravan travelling to Syria. She would not have given him such an important task unless she was certain that her trust would not be misplaced. She had an informed opinion of him, as she had tried him in the local bazaars. It was Muhammad’s integrity and honesty in all situations that made Khadījah propose to him that they should get married. She had refused many earlier suitors, feeling that they were after her wealth. In Muhammad’s case, she was the suitor because she recognized that he was a man of trust.

      We have already mentioned that the Quraysh plotted to assassinate him in order to prevent his immigration. They moved with speed to carry out their plan. However, Muhammad had been given deposits for safekeeping. These deposits did not belong to Muslims in Makkah, as almost all Makkan Muslims had already immigrated to Madinah. Rather, the deposits belonged to unbelievers who were in the enemy camp. Despite the hostility of the people of Makkah to Muhammad and his message, they had no doubt whatsoever of his integrity and honesty. Anyone who had something precious would entrust it to Muhammad for safekeeping, certain that they would find it safe whenever they wanted it. As an aside, I find it amazing in this situation that they did not realise that a person of such honesty and integrity would not lie to God.

      It stands to reason that this practice of keeping valuables with Muhammad did not begin after he became a Prophet and a Messenger of God, but would have started much earlier. People continued to recognize his honesty after he started to receive and advocate God’s message: if anything, they felt that he was even more reliable and trustworthy. Muhammad gave ʿAlī, his cousin, the task of returning people’s deposits. By returning people’s valuables after escaping an assassination attempt and after being chased out of the city, he confirmed that their trust in him was well placed. To him, it was inconceivable that he would change his practice, despite all the problems his people heaped on him. He always looked for what was right and did it; it was right that people who trusted him with their valuables should get their valuables back when he was leaving the city and could no longer keep them safe. The fact that they were hostile to him and his message altered nothing.

      The pursuit of right requires fairness in any situation where people are at odds. The Prophet was always keen to establish justice, no matter who the quarrelling parties were. This was his aim before he was chosen for his great role as the Prophet, and it continued to be his aim whenever two parties put their dispute to him for judgement. For example, in Chapter 1 we noted the situation when he was asked to arbitrate in the case of the dispute between the Quraysh clans over the honourable act of putting the black stone back in place. There were several options open to him. He could have argued a case for his own clan (the Hāshim clan) to do that honourable job, as the Hāshimites were the most honourable clan. He could have ruled in favour of the clan, or clans, that had little to do with the Kaʿbah and the pilgrimage. Such a ruling would have given them something to enhance their position. He could have chosen a neutral person, or argued for his own neutrality. He did nothing of that. Rather, he recognized that the situation required a measure of total fairness and opted for a verdict in which all clans shared on equal footing. That was a verdict of complete justice: achieving what is right.

      After prophethood, Muhammad was the judge in all disputes within the Muslim community, or between Muslims and non-Muslims. He declared to all concerned that he could only judge on the basis of the evidence presented to him:

      “Any of you,” he warned, “may come up with apparently stronger evidence, and I would rule in his favour. Let him consider: if I give him something that by right belongs to his brother, I am only giving him a brand of hellfire. He may choose to take it or leave it.”5

      To a believer, this is a very strong warning, as it gives responsibility to the people concerned. They should know whether they have a rightful claim or not; or if they are in doubt, they should seek clarification. With this, the Prophet set a high standard of responsibility and made all people share in it, so that right and justice can be established.

      In pre-Islamic days, Muhammad was very keen to be fair to all. When he was called upon to arbitrate, he ruled in fairness to all, because right requires fairness. When he became a Messenger of God, he elevated that to an even higher standard. An example pertains to the Jewish communities in Madinah. As stated in the previous chapter, the Jews were very unhappy about Islam and tried every method to undermine the Muslim community. They violated their treaty with the Prophet and sided with his enemies. However, when it came to judging cases involving the Jews, the Prophet set a clear example of ensuring justice. In one case, someone stole a shield of armour from another. Both belonged to the Anṣār, but apparently the thief was suspected of hypocrisy. When the evidence pointed to the real thief, he secretly hid the stolen shield in the home of a Jewish neighbour. He then asked his relatives to tell the Prophet that they had spotted the stolen shield in the Jew’s home. They did, and the Prophet rebuked the accuser. However, the Prophet received Qur’ānic revelations telling him the facts. These were recorded in verses 105-113 of Sūrah 4 (“Women”). What would any ruler do in such a situation, where the accused enemy is innocent and the unsuspected friend is guilty? Let us look at the argument for keeping matters as they appeared with the material evidence pointing to the Jew as the thief, since the stolen shield was found in his home. Sayyid Qutb writes:

      Had human or worldly standards or considerations been the deciding factor in the Islamic code and its method of implementation, there would have been several reasons to overlook the whole event. A cover-up would have been concocted and the reality of the matter would not have been exposed in such a way as to approach a scandal. The first and clearest reason was that the accused himself was a Jew belonging to a Jewish community which was engaged in a tooth and nail fight against Islam, using every piece of armament at its disposal. The Muslims of that period were suffering much from the Jews’ wicked designs. [God has willed that the Muslims should suffer much from the Jews at all times!] Those Jews in Madinah were not restrained by considerations of right or justice. They applied no moral standard in their dealings with the Muslim community.

      Another reason stems from the fact that the issue directly concerned a group of the Anṣār, the Muslims of Madinah who provided the Prophet and his Makkan Companions with refuge, support and protection. Such an incident could have easily caused much disunity and hatred among their different groups. To direct accusations at a Jew would have averted any likelihood of division among them.

      A third reason for approving a cover-up was that it would have avoided giving the Jews in Madinah more armament with which to attack the Anṣār. Exposure would allow the Jews to denounce the Anṣār as stealing from one another and then falsely and knowingly accusing the Jews of committing their own crimes. The Jews were certain not to allow such an opportunity to pass them by.6

      Without hesitation, the Prophet declared the Jew innocent. He was unconcerned with any of the considerations that would have swayed people in favour of a cover up. He was concerned with the establishment of rightness and fairness. He impressed on all his Companions that unfairness would lead to ruin, of both individual

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