ISLAM GIVES COURAGE

Mudar), lost her two brothers in a war fought prior to the advent of Islam. Their deaths were a great shock to her. Before this tragedy it had been her wont to compose just two or three couplets at a time, but now, after her bereavement, the verses simply flowed from her heart as the tears flowed from her eyes. The elegies she wrote in memory of her brothers, particularly Sakhr, were heart-rending: she continued to write and lament until she became blind in both eyes. After the fall of Mecca, she came to the Prophet with her tribe and accepted Islam. It is related that when she read out some of her verses to the Prophet, he was very moved, and asked her to continue reading. In her youth, she had been unable to bear the tragedy of her brothers’ deaths, but she derived such strength from Islam that, in her old age, she sacrificed her own sons in the path of God. She had four sons, all of whom she persuaded to fight in the battle of Qadsiya. They all fought bravely and were finally martyred. When she received the news of the deaths of all of her sons, she neither wrote elegies, nor did she bewail their passing. Instead, she heard the news with great calm and fortitude, and said: “Thank: God who has awarded me the honor of their martyrdom. I hope God will bring us together in the life Hereafter.”79 PATIENCE FOR PARADISE It is related that in the early days of Islam, the Prophet was once passing in the vicinity of Yasir and his family in Mecca when they were being subjected to the violence of the Quraysh. When Yasir set eyes on the Prophet, the only question he asked him was, “O Prophet of God, is this all there is to the world?” The Prophet replied, “O family of Yasir, be patient, for you have been promised heaven.”80 Yasir and his wife Summaiyah were the first to succumb to persecution by the Quraysh. Yet, even after seeing the painful fate which his parents had suffered, ‘Ammar, their son, being strong of will, did not flinch from his faith. It is said that ‘Ammar ibn Yasir was the first Meccan Muslim to have built a mosque in his home. It is believed that it is he who is referred to in this verse of the Qur’an: 81 Can he who passes his night in adoration, standing up or on his knees, who dreads the terrors of the life to come and hopes to earn the mercy of his Lord, be compared to the unbeliever? ... Truly, none will take heed but men of understanding.82 IN THE FIELD OF ACTION The general lot of women in the early days of Islam was frequently a hard one, but they bore themselves with remarkable fortitude and adapted themselves to whatever conditions they found themselves in. One shining example is that of Abu Bakr’s daughter Asma’, who was born 27 years before the Emigration. When she accepted Islam in Mecca, the Muslims