Page:The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930).pdf/28

 The number of the campaigns which he led in person during the last ten years of his life is twenty-seven, in nine of which there was hard fighting. The number of the expeditions which he planned and sent out under other leaders is thirty-eight. He personally controlled every detail of organisation, judged every case and was accessible to every suppliant. In those ten years he destroyed idolatry in Arabia; raised woman from the status of a chattel to complete legal equality with man; effectually stopped the drunkenness and immorality which had till then disgraced the Arabs; made men in love with faith, sincerity and honest dealing; transformed tribes who had been for centuries content with ignorance into a people with the greatest thirst for knowledge; and for the first time in history made universal human brotherhood a fact and principle of common law. And his support and guide in all that work was the Koran.

In the tenth year of the Hijrah he went to Mecca as a pilgrim for the last time&mdash;his "pilgrimage of farewell," it is called&mdash;when from Mt. 'Arafât he preached to an enormous throng of pilgrims. He reminded them of all the duties Al-Islâm enjoined upon them, and that they would one day have to meet their Lord, who would judge each one of them according to his work. At the end of the discourse, he asked: "Have I not conveyed the Message?" And from that great multitude of men who a few months or years before had all been conscienceless idolaters the shout went up: "O Allah! Yes!" The Prophet said: "O Allah! Be Thou witness!"

It was during that last pilgrimage that the sûrah entitled "Succour" was revealed, which he received as an announcement of approaching death. Soon after his return to Al-Madînah he fell ill. The tidings of his illness caused dismay throughout Arabia and anguish to the folk of Al-Madînah, Mecca and Ṭâ'îf, the hometowns. At early dawn on the last day of his earthly life he came out from his room beside the mosque at Al-Madînah and joined the public prayer, which Abû Bakr had been leading since his illness. And there was great relief among the people, who supposed him well again. When, later in the day, the rumour grew that he was dead, Omar threatened those who spread the rumour with dire punishment, declaring it a crime to think that the Messenger of God could die. He was storming at the people in that strain when Abû Bakr came