A Difference of Substance

A Difference of Substance

1986 7 July 11 A Difference of Substance (367) There is an interesting background to this verse of the Quran:

“Whenever Our revelations are recited to them, they say: ‘We have heard them. If we wished, we could speak the like. They are but fables of the ancients’” (8:31).

This verse was revealed about an inhabitant of ancient Mecca by the name of Nadhr ibn Harith, who used to go on trading expeditions to Iran. There he would hear tales of Persian kings, and of the famous warriors Rustam and Asfandyar. On his return to Mecca, he would then relate them to the people. Then the Prophet started reciting the Quran to the people of Mecca. Nadhr ibn Harith used to ridicule the Quran publicly. Presenting the tales of Persian kings and warriors in an even more exaggerated form, he would then rhetorically ask the people whether his stories were better, or those of Mohammad. Eventually, Nadhr ibn Harith was taken captive and slain in the Battle of Badr.

In present-day Mecca, no one would be able to summon up the courage to ask whether his stories were better, or those of Mohammad. How then did Nadhr ibn Harith summon up the courage to utter these words in the Mecca of fourteen hundred years ago? The reason is that, in those days, the status of the Quran and Mohammad was a matter of controversy; now, with the long passage of time, the divine origin of the Quran, and the prophethood of Mohammad, have become established facts.

It is here that we can see the high moral and spiritual courage of the Companions of the Prophet. They believed in the Prophet when his name had not become a golden legacy of history. At that time, he was just Mohammad – a man with a message which he said came from God. They believed in him solely on the basis of the substance of his message, not because of any glorious tradition associated with his name. Those who believe in him today are just continuing a tradition which goes back fourteen hundred years; those who believed in him in those days were treading a previously untrodden path, one along which only the strength of true conviction could carry them.