The Call of the Quran

2. The Call to God and Unity ~ 43 ~ even though birds might snatch them up, beasts might devour them and dogs might drag the feet of the pious wives of the Prophet. In order to underline the importance of this act, Abu Bakr accompanied Osama as far as Juruf. Osama went on horseback, while Abu Bakr marched beside him to give the necessary instructions. Despite Osama’s repeated requests, Abu Bakr refused to ride, preferring to go on foot. Both the Prophet of Islam and his first caliph resorted to such actions as matters of pressing need. The exigency in the present case was that of providing the Muslims with a field of action outside the land of Arabia to demonstrate their spirit of struggle in the cause of Islam. Whenever Muslim energies were not directed to this external target, they were soon enticed into internal factional conflicts, wrongly labelling such action as jihad in a bid to justify their misdeeds. THE EXTERNAL TARGET When the Arabs entered the fold of Islam under the influence of the movement launched by the