IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

1] When Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was nearly forty, he had
been wont to pass long hours in retirement meditating and speculating
over all aspects of creation around him. This meditative temperament
helped to widen the mental gap between him andhis compatriots. He used
to provide himself with Sawiq (barley porridge) and water and then
directly head for the hills and ravines in the neighbourhood of
Makkah. One of these in particular was his favourite resort — a cave
named Hira', in the Mount An-Nour. It was only two miles from Makkah,a
small cave 4 yards long and 1.75 yard wide. He would always go there
and invite wayfarers to share him his modest provision. He used to
devote most of his time, and Ramadan in particular, to worship and
meditation on the universe around him. His heart was restless about
the moral evils and idolatry that wererampant among his people; he was
as yet helpless because no definite course, or specific approach had
been available for him to follow and rectify the ill practices around
him. This solitude attended with this sort of contemplative approach
must be understood in its Divine perspective. It was a preliminary
stage to the period of grave responsibilities that he was to shoulder
very soon.
Privacy and detachment from theimpurities of life were two
indispensable prerequisites for the Prophet's soul to come into close
communion with the Unseen Power that lies behind allaspects of
existence in this infinite universe. It was a rich period of privacy
which lasted for three years and ushered in a new era, of indissoluble
contact with that Power.
GAGRIEL BRINGS DOWN THE REVELATION:
When he was forty, the age of complete perfection at which Prophets
were always ordered todisclose their Message, signs of his Prophethood
started to appear and twinkle on the horizons of life; they were the
true visions he used to experience for six months. The period of
Prophethood was 23 years; so the period of these six months of true
visions constituted an integral part of the forty-six parts of
Prophethood. In Ramadan, in his third year of solitude in the cave of
Hira', Allâh's Will desired His mercy to flow on earth and Muhammad
(Peace be upon him) was honoured with Prophethood, and the light of
Revelation burst upon him with some verses of the Noble Qur'ân.
As for the exact date, careful investigation into circumstantial
evidence and relevant clues pointdirectly to Monday, 21st. Ramadan at
night, i.e. Au, 10, 610A.D. with Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
exactly 40 years, 6 months and 12 days of age, i.e. 39 Gregorian
years, 3 months and 22 days.
'Aishah, the veracious, gave the following narration of that most
significant event that brought the Divine light which would dispel the
darkness of disbelief and ignorance. It led life down a new course and
brought about the most serious amendment to the line of the history of
mankind:
Forerunners of the Revelation assumed the form of true visionsthat
would strikingly come true all the time. After that, solitude became
dear to him and he would go to the cave, Hira', to engage in Tahannuth
(devotion) there for a certain number of nights before returning to
his family, and then he would return for provisions for a similar
stay. At length, unexpectedly, the Truth(the angel) came to him and
said,"Recite." "I cannot recite," he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him)]
said. The Prophet (Peace beupon him) described: "Then he took me and
squeezed me vehemently and then let me go and repeated the order
'Recite.' 'Icannot recite' said I, and once again he squeezed me and
let metill I was exhausted. Then he said: 'Recite.' I said 'I cannot
recite.' He squeezed me for a third time and then let me go and said:
*.
*. "Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created (all that exists),
has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulatedblood). Read!
and your Lord is the Most Generous.'" [96:1-3]
The Prophet (Peace be upon him)repeated these verses. He was trembling
with fear. At this stage,he came back to his wife Khadijah, and said,
"Cover me, ... cover me." They covered him until he restored security.
He apprised Khadijah of the incidentof the cave and added that he was
horrified. His wife tried to soothe him and reassured him saying,
"Allâh will never disgrace you. You unite uterine relations; you bear
the burden of the weak; you help the poor and the needy, you entertain
the guests and endure hardships in the path of truthfulness."
She set out with the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to her cousin Waraqa
bin Nawfal bin Asad bin 'Abd Al-'Uzza, who had embraced Christianity
in the pre-Islamic period, and

MUHAMMAD'S BIRTH AND FORTY YEARS PRIOR TO PROPHETHOOD

2] you must understand that you have been able to get a blessed
child." And I replied: "By the grace of Allâh, I hope so."
The tradition is explicit on the point that Haleemah's return journey
and her subsequent life, as long as the Prophet (Peace be upon
him)stayed with her, was encircled with a halo of good fortune. The
donkey that she rode when she came to Makkah was lean and almost
foundered; it recovered speed much to the amazement of Haleemah's
fellow travellers. By the time they reached the encampments in the
country of the clan of Sa'd, they found the scales of fortune turned
in their favour. The barren land sprouted forth luxuriant grass and
beasts came back to them satisfied and full of milk. Muhammad (Peace
be upon him) stayed with Haleemah for two years until he was weaned as
Haleemah said:
We then took him back to his mother requesting her earnestly to have
him stay with us and benefit by the good fortune and blessings he had
brought us. We persisted in our request which we substantiated by our
anxiety over the child catching a certain infection peculiar to
Makkah. At last, we were granted our wish and the Prophet (Peace be
upon him) stayed with us until he was four or five years of age.
When, as related by Anas in SahihMuslim , Gabriel came down and ripped
his chest open and took out the heart. He then extracted ablood-clot
out of it and said: "That was the part of Satan in thee." And then he
washed it with the water of Zamzam in a gold basin. After that the
heart was joined together and restored to its place. The boys and
playmates came running to his mother, i.e. his nurse, and said:
"Verily, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has been murdered." They all
rushed towards him and found him all right only his face was white.
BACK TO HIS COMPASSIONATE MOTHER:
After this event, Haleemah was worried about the boy and returned him
to his mother with whom he stayed until he was six.
In respect of the memory of her late husband, Amina decided to visit
his grave in Yathrib (Madinah). She set out to cover a journey of 500
kilometers with her orphan boy, woman servant Umm Ayman and her
father-in-law 'Abdul-Muttalib. She spent a month there and then took
her way back to Makkah. On the way,she had a severe illness and died
in Abwa on the road between Makkah and Madinah.
BACK TO HIS COMPASSIONATE GRANDFATHER:
'Abdul-Muttalib brought the boy to Makkah. He had warm passions
towards the boy, his orphan grandson, whose recent disaster (his
mother's death) added more to the pains of the past. 'Abdul-Muttalib
was more passionate with his grandson than with his own children. He
never left the boy a prey to loneliness, but always preferred him to
his own kids. Ibn Hisham reported: A mattress was put in the shade of
Al-Ka'bah for 'Abdul-Muttalib. His children used to sit around that
mattress in honour to their father, but Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
used to sit on it. His uncles would take him back, but if
'Abdul-Muttalib was present, he would say: "Leave mygrandson. I swear
by Allâh that this boy will hold a significant position." He used to
seat the boy on his mattress, pat his back and was always pleased with
what the boy did.
When Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was eight years, two months and ten
days old, his grandfather 'Abdul-Muttalib passed away in Makkah. The
charge of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) was now passed on to his
uncle Abu Talib, who was the brother of the Prophet's father.
Abu Talib tookthe charge of his nephew in the best way. He put him
with his children and preferred him to them. He singled the boy out
with great respect and high esteem. Abu Talib remained for forty years
cherishing his nephew and extending all possible protection and
support to him. His relations with the others were determinedin the
light of the treatment they showed to the Prophet (Peace beupon him).
Ibn 'Asakir reported on the authority of Jalhamah bin 'Arfuta who
said: "I came to Makkah when it was a rainless year, so Quraish said
'O Abu Talib, the valley has become leafless and the children hungry,
let us go and pray for rain-fall.' Abu Talib went to Al-Ka'bah with a
young boy who was as beautiful as the sun, and a black cloud was over
his head. Abu Talib and the boy stood by the wall of Al-Ka'bah and
prayed for rain. Immediately clouds from all directions gathered and
rain fell heavily andcaused the flow of springs and growth of plants
in the town andthe country.

HISTORY - ~ MUHAMMAD'S BIRTH AND FORTY YEARS PRIOR TO PROPHETHOOD

1] Muhammad (Peace be upon him),the Master of Prophets, was bornin
Bani Hashim lane in Makkah onMonday morning, the ninth of Rabi'
Al-Awwal, the same year of the Elephant Event, and forty years of the
reign of Kisra (Khosru Nushirwan), i.e. the twentieth or twenty-second
of April, 571 A.D., according to the scholar Muhammad Sulaimân
Al-Mansourpuri, and the astrologer Mahmûd Pasha.
Ibn Sa'd reported that Muhammad's mother said: "When he was born,
there was a light that issued out of my pudendum and lit the palaces
of Syria." Ahmad reported on the authority of 'Arbadh bin Sariya
something similar to this.
It was but controversially reported that significant precursors
accompanied his birth: fourteen galleries of Kisra'spalace cracked and
rolled down, the Magians' sacred fire died down and some churches on
Lake Sawa sank down and collapsed.
His mother immediately sent someone to inform his grandfather
'Abdul-Muttalib of the happy event. Happily he cameto her, carried him
to Al-Ka'bah, prayed to Allâh and thanked Him. 'Abdul-Muttalib called
the baby Muhammad, a name not then common among the Arabs. He
circumcised him on his seventh day as was the custom of the Arabs.
The first woman who suckled him after his mother was Thuyebah, the
concubine of Abu Lahab, with her son, Masrouh. She had suckled Hamzah
bin 'Abdul-Muttalib before and later Abu Salamah bin 'Abd Al-Asad
Al-Makhzumi.
BABYHOOD:
It was the general custom of the Arabs living in towns to send their
children away to bedouin wet nurses so that they might grow up in the
free and healthy surroundings of the desert whereby they would develop
a robust frame and acquire the pure speech and manners of the
bedouins, who were noted both for chastity of their language andfor
being free from those vices which usually develop in sedentary
societies.
The Prophet (Peace be upon him)was later entrusted to Haleemah bint
Abi Dhuaib from Bani Sa'd bin Bakr. Her husband was Al-Harith bin
'Abdul 'Uzza called Abi Kabshah, from the same tribe.
Muhammad(Peace be upon him) had several foster brothers and sisters,
'Abdullah bin Al-Harith, Aneesah bint Al-Harith, Hudhafah or Judhamah
bint Al-Harith (known as Ash-Shayma'), and sheused to nurse the
Prophet (Peacebe upon him) and Abu Sufyan binAl-Harith bin
'Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet's cousin. Hamzah bin 'Abdul-Muttalib, the
Prophet's uncle, was suckled by the same two wet nurses, Thuyeba and
Haleemah As-Sa'diyah, who suckled the Prophet (Peace be upon him).
Traditions delightfully relate how Haleemah and the whole of her
household were favoured by successive strokes of good fortune while
the baby Muhammad (Peace be upon him) lived under her care. Ibn Ishaq
states that Haleemah narrated that she along with her husband and a
suckling babe, set out fromher village in the company of some women of
her clan in questof children to suckle. She said:
It was a year of drought and famine and we had nothing to eat. I rode
on a brown she-ass. We also had with us an old she-camel. By Allâh we
could not get even a drop of milk. We couldnot have a wink of sleep
during the night for the child kept cryingon account of hunger. There
wasnot enough milk in my breast and even the she-camel had nothing to
feed him. We used to constantly pray for rain and immediate relief. At
length we reached Makkah looking for children to suckle. Not even a
single woman amongst us accepted the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon
him) offered to her. As soon as they were told that he was an orphan,
they refused him. We had fixed our eyes on the reward that we would
get from the child's father.An orphan! What are his grandfather and
mother likely to do? So we spurned him because of that. Every woman
who came with me got a suckling and whenwe were about to depart, I
said to my husband: "By Allâh, I do not like to go back along with the
other women without any baby. I should go to that orphan and I must
take him." He said, "There is no harm in doing so and perhaps Allâh
might bless us through him." So I went and took him because there was
simply no other alternative left for me but to take him. When I lifted
him in my arms and returned to my place I put him on my breast and to
my great surprise, I found enough milk in it. He drank to his heart's
content,and so did his foster brother andthen both of them went to
sleep although my baby had not been able to sleep the previous night.
My husband then went to the she-camel to milk it and, to his
astonishment, he found plenty ofmilk in it. He milked it and we drank
to our fill, and enjoyed a sound sleep during the night. The next
morning, my husband said: "By Allâh Haleemah,

* Istikhara: The Guidance Prayer Question Answer : - ~ Question Two: Should I rely on someone else's Istikhara for me?

There is a pious lady in ourcommunity who has offered to pray
istikhara for me to help me make a decision for marriage. My question
to you is if you know if this idea of relyingon someone else's
istikhara is a good idea and compatible with the teachings of Islam on
howto make dua and decisions? Should I follow her advice (according to
her dreams and feelings) to me on this issue or not?
Answer:
This is one means you can take: to seek the istikhara of a pious
person. The permissibility of this was mentioned explicitly by the
Malikis and Shafi`is. The Hanafis do not appear to have discussed this
issue [al-Mawsu`a al-Fiqhhiyya, Kuwait], but there is nothing in it
that would indicate its impermissibility. Rather, it is merely the
taking of a means, which is permittedas long as one knows that the one
who gives and takes, benefits and harms is Allah alone.
In such cases, though, one should not leave doing theistikhara oneself!
Salat al-Istikhara Information
CONCERNING THE RITUAL PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE IN CHOOSING THE BEST OPTION
[SALAT AL-ISTIKHARA], AND THE PRAYER OF SUPPLICATION [DU'A']
APPROPRIATE TO IT.
According to a traditional report transmitted on the authority of
Muhammad ibn al-Munkadir, it was Jabir ibn 'Abdillah (may Allah be
well pleased with him and with his father) who said:
"Allah's Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to teach
us how to seek guidance in choosing the best option available in a
practical enterprise [al-istikhara fi 'l-amr], just as he would
sometimes teach us a Chapter [Sura] from the Quran.:
"If one of you is concernedabout some practical undertaking, or about
making plans for a journey, he should perform two cycles of ritual
prayer [rak'atain], not as an obligatory observance [farida], but
voluntarily. Then he should say:
"O Allah, I ask You to showme what is best, through Your knowledge,
and I askYou to empower me, through Your power, and Ibeg You to grant
me Your tremendous favor, for You have power, while I am without
power, and You have knowledge, while I am without knowledge, and You
are the One who knows all things invisible.
(Allahumma inni astakhiru-ka bi-'ilmi-ka waastaqdiru-ka
bi-qudrati-kawa as'alu-ka min fadli-ka al-'azim fa-inna-ka taqdiruwa
la aqdiru wa ta'lamu wa la a'lamu wa Anta aAllamu al-ghuyub):
O Allah, if You know that this undertaking is in the best interests of
my religion, my life in this world, and my life in the Hereafter, and
can yield successful results in both the short term and the long term,
then make it possible for me and make it easy for me, and then bless
me in it.
(Allahumma in kunta ta'lamu anna hadha al-amra khairun li fi dini wa
dunyaya wa akhirati wa aaqibati amri wa aajili-hi wa ajili-h
:fa-'qdir-hu li wa yassir-hu li thumma barik li fi-h):
If not, then turn it away from me, and make it easyfor me to do well,
wherever I may happen tobe, and make me content with Your verdict, O
Most Merciful of the merciful.'"
(wa illa fa-'srif-hu aan-ni wa yassir liya al-khaira haithu kana ma
kuntu wa raddi-ni bi-qada'i-ka ya Arhama ar-rahimin).
The South African JamiatulUlama Transvaal collected this:
The Etiquette of Duaa
These etiquettes are narrated in the Hadith. Forreasons of brevity,
only the following summary and reference of each Hadith is mentioned
instead of the entire Hadith.
*. To abstain from haraam food, clothing and earnings. (Muslim : Tirmidhi)
*. To make Duaa with sincerity. In other words,one should firmly
believe that nobody but Allah Ta'aala will fulfill his objectives.
(Haakim)
*. One should perform a good deed prior to making the Duaa & he should
mention this during the course of the Duaa. For e.g. He should say, O
Allah! I had performed so & so deed solely for Your pleasure. O Allah!
accept my Duaa due to the barkat of thatdeed. (Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu
Dawud).
*. To make Duaa whilst one is paak & clean. (Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Ibn
Majah, Nasai, Ibn Hibbaan, Mustadrak).
*. To make wudhu before the Duaa (All six major hadith collections)
*. To face the Qiblah (All sixmajor hadith collections)
*. To sit as in the Tashahhud position (AbuAwanah)
*. To praise Allah Ta'aala atthe beginning as well as at the end of
Duaa (All six major hadith collections)
*. To convey Durood upon Rasulullah (pbuh) at the beginning as well as
the end. (Abu Dawud, Musnade-Ahmad)
*. To spread out both the hands. (Tirmidhi, Mustadrak)
*. To raise both the hands up to the shoulders (Abu Dawud,
Musnade-Ahmad)*. To sit with humility and respect. (Muslim, Abu Dawud,
Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud)
*. To mention ones helplessness and dependence.