4. LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

4. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ~ 154 ~ This declaration made by the Prophet was not just a sermon, unenforced by authority. It had the force of an official decree issued by the government of that time. It was not just a verbal injunction about ‘what should be done’ but was actual information about an already existing state of affairs. Its promulgation was meant not only to alert the ignorant but to reinforce a social condition. All the artificial walls dividing humanity had crumbled. A new age had been ushered in in which there was no high or low status, and no discrimination. It was an age in which one’s status in society would be determined by character and achievement, and not by accidents of birth, or membership of a particular race. A HAPPENING In former times, when a man was discriminated against in society, he could not raise his voice, as he believed it was the result of his fate. That is, he believed himself fated from birth to have that type of treatment meted out to him. But during the rule of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (the second Caliph of Islam) an incident took place which showed how the times had changed. Egypt had been conquered