Mohammad: The Prophet of Revolution Vol

Without doubt the Prophet had every opportunity for worldly advance. His virtues guaranteed his success in life. He was born into a noble family of Makkah. True, he had inherited just one camel and one servant from his father, but his inborn high qualities had impressed the richest woman in Makkah. Her name was Khadija, a forty-yearold widow belonging to a family of merchants. When the Prophet was twenty-five, she offered herself to him in marriage. Not only did marriage with Khadija provide the Prophet with wealth and property; it threw open to him a vast field of business in Arabia and beyond. The Prophet had every opportunity, then, of leading a successful and comfortable life. But he forsook all these things and chose something quite different for himself. Quite intentionally, he took a road that could only lead to worldly ruin. Before his marriage, the Prophet had earned his living in different ways. Now he relinquished all that, and dedicated himself to his lifelong vocation—the pursuit of truth. He used to sit for hours and ponder over the mysteries of creation. Instead of socializing and trying to gain a position for himself among the nobles of Makkah, he would wander in the hills and vales of the desert. Often he used to retire to the loneliness of a cave in Mount Hira—three miles from Makkah—and stay there until his meagre supply of food and water was exhausted. He would return home to replenish his supplies, and then go back to the solitude of nature for prayer and meditation. He would beseech the Maker of the heavens and the earth for answers to the questions surging in his mind. What is man’s true role in life? What does Lord require of us, as His servants? When does man come and whether will he go after death? Unable to find answers to these questions in the centres of human activity, he betook himself to the stillness of the desert; perhaps, there, the answer would be forthcoming. It was no small matter that a young man should be taking up this course in the prime of his life. He was renouncing worldly happiness and choosing a way fraught with difficulties and sorrow. He had all conceivable means and opportunities for a comfortable life, but his turbulent soul did not find satisfaction in them. He attached no value to them and could not rest content until he had unraveled the mysteries of life. He sought to delve beyond external appearances, and seek out the reality of life. Worldly gain and loss, comfort and distress, did not concern him; what mattered to him was the allimportant question of truth and falsehood. This phase of the Prophet’s life has been described in these words in the Quran: