The Revolution of the Prophet

THE REVOLUTION OF THE PROPHET daughter-in-law the same questions as he had put to the previous one. This time, however, Ishmael’s wife was all praise for her husband and said that everything was fine with them; they had much to be thankful for. Abraham set off and told her to convey his greetings to Ishmael and to ask him to “keep his threshold.” This wife was ideally suited to the task at hand; Ishmael should keep her in wedlock.58 So it was that, in the solitude of the Arabian Desert, the seeds of the progeny that was to be known as the Children of Ishmael were sown. These were the initial stages of preparation of a people who, 2500 years later, were to provide the Final Prophet with the support he needed in performing history’s most mammoth task. The qualities of the nation that grew up in the barren expanses of the desert around Makkah can be summed up in one word—al-muru’ah (manliness). This was the word of the highest esteem that Arabs used to describe essential human qualities in a person. As an ancient Arab poet has written: If a person fails to achieve manliness when young, he will find it hard to do so when he grows old. This is how the eminent Arab historian, Professor Philip K. Hitti, sums up the qualities of the people that developed over hundreds of years in the Arabian Desert: Courage, endurance in times of trouble (sabr), observance of the rights and obligations of neighbourliness (jiwar), manliness (muru’ah),