The life and character of the Holy Prophet (saw) by Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad - a humble summary

Yesterday I completed the book, The Life and Character of the Seal of Prophets (saw) (the first volume) written by Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad. Even though in no way can I ever do justice to this beautifully written book, a friend asked me to write my thoughts on this book and I just couldn't say no. So here it goes. But before I start, I would firstly love to recommend this book to each and every one of you if you have not read it before. It is such a page turner that even if you don't like reading religious books, you will not be able to put this down until you've reached the end. Secondly, I apologise for any shortcomings because I'm just a mere amateur writer, and Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad's way of writing this book has left no comparison. So please forgive anything i leave out or don't justify correctly, for I am but a mere human. 

This book is about the life of the Holy Prophet(saw) up to the time of migration to Madinah. The time, relating after the migration is covered in the second volume of this book. It starts with the social, economical, climatical, geographical and topographical description of Arabia before the time of The Holy Prophet(saw)'s birth. Arabia was full of all kinds of immoralities and wrongdoings including, worshipping idols, fornication, fighting over petty matters, no respect for anyone especially women, daughters being buried alive etc. It was in this time of sin that the Holy Prophet (saw) was born to Hazrat Abdullah and Hazrat Aaminah. His father, Hazrat Abdullah, passed away before he was even born. His mother, Hazrat Aaminah, also passed away when The Holy Prophet (saw) was just a young child of 6. However this was not the only tragedy to befall The Holy Prophet (saw) for when he was 8, his paternal grandfather, Hazrat Abdul Muttalib, who the Prohet (saw) was quite fond of, and who took him under his care after his parents passed away, left him to go to Allah as well. Thereafter, the Holy Prophet (saw) was taken under the care of Hazrat Abu Talib, his paternal uncle. 

Even at such a young age, the Prophet (saw) was always very trustworthy and was frequently known by the name of 'Amin' - the trustworthy. He was always honest in bis dealings, not caring at all whether he got a profit or a loss out of it. This was the reason why when the Quraish had any kind of dispute, usually the Holy Prophet (saw) would be asked to help settle it, since he would always be fair in his decision. Take the example ofthe rebuilding of the Ka'abah. Every tribe of the Quraish wanted to be the one to place the Hajre Aswad (the black stone) on the wall of the Ka'abah. Therefore, they decided that whoever comes first to the Ka'abah in the morning will settle this dispute. It turned out that the first person to arrive the next morning was none other than the Holy Prophet (saw) himself. Therefore, he was asked to settle this quarrel. So he placed the Hajre Aswad on a piece of cloth and asked every tribe to hold the corners of the cloth while he placed the Hajre Aswad on the wall of the Ka'abah. In this way, no tribe was left out and the dispute was settled peacefully. 

Due to his honesty in his dealing, a woman by the name of Khadijah noticed him and asked him to do her dealings for her. He complied and so she sent with him(saw) a servant of her own as well. When they returned back with profits, the servant of hazrat Khadijah mentioned how honest he had been in his dealing. Hazrat Khadijah was so impressed that she immediately sent a proposal to The Holy Prophet (saw) even though he was 15 years younger than her. Nonetheless, he accepted and they were married. She bore him 4 daughters (Hazrat Zainab, Hazrat Ruqayya, Hazrat Umme Kulsoom and Hazrat Fatima) and 2 sons both of who died in their early age. 

When the Holy Prophet (saw) was around 40 years of age, he started to prefer solitude more and more. He would go into the Cave Hira and meditate there, for days at a time. It was during one of these periods of meditation that Hazrat Jibrail (as) brought The first five verses of Surah Iqra as the first revelation to the Holy Prophet (saw). He was so shaken after the incident that he came home trembling, and asked Hazrat Khadijah to cover him up with a mantle. Then he related the incident to her. She immediately took him to cousin of hers who declared that he was the Prophet that was announced to arrive in this age and that all of his tribesmen would severely persecute him. 

Hazrat Khadijah was the first person to accept Islam. Soon after, Hazrat Abu Bakr accepted Islam as well. During the early times of Islam, where the Prophet (saw) taught people to believe in the Unity of Allah and to stop worshipping idols, he preached secretly until another revelation came asking him to preach out in the open. Soon he started preaching to different tribes of the Quraish, but except for a few people, most of the Quraish just laughed him off, and told him that he should not expect them to stop worshipping the idols that they'd been worshipping for past decades. Furthermore, they started creating problems for the Holy Prophet (saw) and his small amount of followers. Most of the early followers of Islam, with the exception of Hazrat Abu Bakr (ra) , were weak or slaves. Their masters would smoulder them using coal, or put heavy stones on them in the scorching heat but not one of them renounced Islam. 

When the Quraish realised that the Holy Prophet (saw) was not going to back down under any circumstances, a delegation of the Quraish went to Hazrat Abu Talib, who was the head of the clan at that time, asking him to stop his nephew from degrading their idols. When the delegation presented itself in front of Abu Talib for the third time, he called upon the Prophet (saw) and asked to stop preaching against the faith of the Quraish. At this the Prophet (saw) that even if The Quraish placed the sun on one of his hands and the moon on the other, he would not stop preaching until Allah Himself took his life away. At that Abu Talib was very impressed and told the Prophet (saw) to preach the word of Allah. 

Soon, when the persecution of the Quraish went to extreme ends, some of the Muslims decided to migrate to Abyssinia. This was done very secretively because if the Quraish found out, they would torture the immigrants to no end. Therefore, they successfully migrated to Abyssinia, whose king, Negus, was very kind to them and they were allowed to settle there in peace. After some time, the Quraish presented themselves in front of the king of Negus, asking them to give the immigrants back because they were preaching the wrong faith. He then called upon one of the immigrants, who told Negus about the preachings of Islam. Negus was very impressed and told them that they could stay for as long as they liked. The Quraish, thoroughly displeased, decided to instigate Nuges against the Muslims and said that they had no love for Jesus (as) and that they do not consider him a prophet of high ranking. When asked, the immigrants tod Negus that they just did ot consider him the son of God, but they had complete faith in him being one of God's chosen prophets. Upon that, Negus asked the Quraish to return and also returned all the presents that they had given to him.  

Soon after, both Hazrat Hamza (an uncle of the Holy Phophet (saw)) amd Hazrat Umar (ra) accepted Islam. Hazrat Umar was actually on his way to kill the Holy Prophet (saw) when he found out that his sister and his brother in law had already embraced Islam. Furious, he went to there home and heard his sister reciting Surah Taha from the Holy Quran. When he heard these words, his heart melted and he immediately went to the Prophet (saw) accepted Islam. When the Quraish came to know of this, they were even more furious because now more influential people were entering the folds of Islam. Thereafter, they decided to completely boycott the Muslims. The document relating to the boycott was hung outside the Ka'abah for everyone to see. The Muslims were forced to live in a valley outside Makkah for 2.5-3 years with nothing to survive on. Sometimes people secretly sent them food but even that was stopped after a while. At the end of three years, the Holy Prophet (saw) received a revelation from Allah that all that is left of that document is the word Allah on top. When the Quraish went and checked, it turned out that ants had completely eaten all of the document except for the word Allah, thereby rendering the boycott void and the Muslims came out of their boycott, free to go wherever they pleased. 

Because of the extreme conditions and because of their old age, soon after the boycott was lifted, Hazrat Abu Talib and Hzrat Khadijah both passed away in the 10th year of Prophethood. The Holy Prophet (saw) was so grieved by the deaths of both his closest family members that he named this year - Aam-ul-Huzn (the year of grievances).  After this, The Holy Prophet (saw) received a revelation in relation to marrying again and as it turns out, Allah wanted him to marry non other than Hazrat Aisha, who was the daughter of Hazrat Abu Bakr. Since she was seven years old at the time, therefore, the decision was made to wait a while longer. Meanwhile, The Holy Prophet (saw) also married Hazrat Saudah in order to prevent persecution and for showing love and harmony. 

After the boycott was lifted, the Holy Prophet (saw) decided to visit Taif in order to spread the message of Islam outside the vicinity of Makkah. When he went there, the chief of Taif not only mocked his message, but also set miscreants of Taif after him who pelted him with stones until he was completely covered in blood. Regardless, the Holy Prophet (saw) still prayed for the people that they may find their way back to the straight path. 

During the period of Hajj, when people from Yasrib (now known as Madinah) came to fulfill their duties, The Holy Prophet (saw) preached to one man the message of Islam. He returned next year with 12 people who were willing to take the Ba'ait on his hand. In e year after that, around 70 people came from Yasrib to pledge allegiance to the Holy Prophet (saw). In this way, Islam was introduced in Yasrib as well. 

When the persecution of the Quraish got completely out of hand, The Holy Prophet (saw) advised his followers to migrate to Yasrib. Thereafter the Muhajireen (immigrants) migrated secretly in groups of threes and fours to Yasrib and since they had left all their belongings behind, the Ansar (helpers, who were the residents of Yasrib), took them under their roofs and gave them food and shelter. After a while, the Holy Prophet (saw) was also advised to migrate to Yasrib because the Quraish had planned to kill him and had even besieged his house. So the Holy Prophet (saw) laid Hazrat Ali (ra) on his bed, and along with Hazrat Abu Bakr (ra) escaped from within the reach of the Quraish. They took a different, alternative route to Yasrib so that they would not get caught. During their travelling, they decided to stay in Cave Thaur for three days during which the Quraish came close to almost catching the Holy Prophet (saw) but Allah shows His miracles in beautiful ways. The Quraish were standing right in front of the cave in which the Holy Prophet (saw) and Hazrat Abu Bakr (ra) were residing but they never discovered them and went back hopeless. The next morning, the Holy Prophet (saw) completed his journey and arrived in Yasrib from where the calendar of After Hijri starts. 

(I have left out the incidents of Isra and Miraj, and there are so many more incidents that I have missed but if I included everything written in the book, then I could write a book myself and I'm not qualified for that. So it's just a basic idea of how the life of the Holy Prophet(saw) was before Hijrat to Madinah)