Factors Working in Favour of Dawah

Seerah as a Movement does not mean that the truth of Islam finally dawned on them all of a sudden. The Prophet lived a life of the highest moral calibre. Moreover, he spent his whole life preaching the word of God. Even the opposition to the Prophet proved to be a factor in his favour: it meant that his personality and his message were topics of conversation. All these things had contributed to planting the seed of Islam in the minds of many Arabs. Adherence to tribal tradition, and ancestor worship were still extant, which sometimes made it appear that there was stiff opposition to Islam, but, in fact, in people’s hearts the seed of Islam was silently growing. It is generally thought that Umar’s acceptance of Islam, for instance, came all of a sudden, under the influence of a certain event. It would be more accurate, however, to say that it was this event which put the final seal on his faith, which had been developing for some time within his soul. Well before Umar accepted Islam, when he appeared to be in the forefront of the opposition to the Prophet’s mission, some Muslims emigrated to Abyssinia. Umm Abdullah bint Abu Hathma was one of them. She tells her story in these words: “We were setting off for Abyssinia. My husband, ‘Amir, had gone to collect some of his belongings. All of a sudden ‘Umar ibn Khattab, a man who had subjected us to untold suffering, came and stood next to me. He had not up to that point accepted Islam. ‘Umm Abdullah,’ he said to me, ‘are you going away somewhere?’ ‘We are,’ I replied, ‘for you people inflict such suffering upon us, that we must go and seek a place for ourselves in God’s land. We will keep going until God releases us from our affliction.’ ‘May God go with you,’ Umar said, as he was talking. I had never seen him act like this before. Then he went on his way, and he was certainly very sad to see us leave Makkah.” (Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah, Vol. III, p. 79) In every day and age some ideas take root in the popular psyche. Unless these ideas are banished no new message, however rational it may be, can become acceptable. The opposition which the Arabs first presented to the message of Islam was not just the