THE KHWARIJ

�AlI sent some gold alloyed with dust from Yemen to Muhammad.  In its distribution, Muhammad showed favoritism.  When some people complained, Muhammad demanded: �Will you not trust me, whereas I am a trustee of Him Who is in the heaven?  The news comes to me from the heaven morning and evening.� This silenced the men, but one of them, a man with deep-sunken eyes, prominent cheekbones, thick beard, and shaven head, stood up, and said: �Messenger of Allah, fear Allah and do justice.� This angered Muhammad, and he replied: �Woe be upon thee, who would do justice if I do not do justice?� �Umar, who was present, said to Muhammad: �Messenger of Allah, permit me to kill this hypocrite.� Though the man was spared, he and his posterity were denounced.  Muhammad said: �From this very person�s posterity there would arise people who would recite the QurAn, but it would not go beyond their throat; they would kill the followers of Islam but would spare the idol-worshippers. . . . If I were to find them I would kill them like �Ad [a people who were exterminated root and branch]� (2316-2327).

These men, who later on were called the khwArij, took some of the slogans of Islam seriously.  It was about them, according to �AlI, that Muhammad said: �When you meet them, kill them, for in their killing you would get a reward with Allah on the Day of Judgment� (2328).  These were the anarchists and purists of the early days of Islam.  The injunction about them was: �Pursue them as they are routed and kill their prisoners and destroy their property.�

author : ram swarup

MUHAMMAD RUFFLED

According to another tradition, Muhammad gave a hundred camels each to AbU SufyAn, SafwAn, �Uyaina, and Aqra, but less than his share to �AbbAs b. MirdAs.  �AbbAs told Muhammad: �I am in no way inferior to anyone of these persons.  And he who is let down today would not be elevated.� Then Muhammad �completed one hundred camels for him� (2310).

In other cases when similar complaints were made, Muhammad could not always keep his temper.  One man complained that �this is a distribution in which the pleasure of Allah has not been sought.� On hearing this, Muhammad �was deeply angry . . . and his face became red�; he found comfort in the fact that �Moses was tormented more than this, but he showed patience� (2315).

author : ram swarup

PACIFICATION

But this course was not without its problems.  It created quite a lot of dissatisfaction among some of his old supporters, and Muhammad had to use all his powers of diplomacy and flattery to pacify them.  �Don�t you feel delighted that [other] people should go with riches, and you should go back with the Apostle of Allah,� he told the ansArs with great success when, after the conquest of Mecca, they complained about the unjust distribution of the spoils.  They had grumbled: �It is strange that our swords are dripping with their blood, whereas our spoils have been given to them [the Quraish]� (2307).

Muhammad added other words of flattery and told the ansArs that they were his �inner garments� (i.e., were closer to him), while the Quraish, who had received the spoils, were merely his �outer garments.� To cajolery, he added theology, telling them that they �should show patience till they meet him at Hauz Kausar, � a canal in heaven (2313).  The ansArs were happy.

author : ram swarup

GAINING HEARTS� BY GIVING GIFTS

The principle of distribution was not always based on need, justice, or merit.  Muhammad had other considerations as well.  �I give [at times material gifts] to persons who were quite recently in the state of unbelief, so that I may incline them to truth,� says Muhammad (2303).

To gain hearts (mullafa qulUbhum) for Islam with the help of gifts is considered impeccable behavior, in perfect accord with QurAnic teaching (9:60).  Muhammad made effective use of gifts as a means of winning people over to Islam.  He would reward new converts generously but overlook the claims of Muslims of long standing.  Sa�d reports that �the Messenger of Allah bestowed gifts upon a group of people. . . . He however left a person and did not give him anything and he seemed to me the most excellent among them.� Sa�d drew the Prophet�s attention to this believing Muslim, but Muhammad replied: �He may be a Muslim.  I often bestow something on a person, whereas someone else is dearer to me than he, because of the fear that he [the former] may fall headlong into the fire� (2300), that is, he may give up Islam and go back to his old religion.  The translator and commentator makes the point very clear by saying that it was �with a view to bringing him nearer and making him feel at home in the Muslim society that material gifts were conferred upon him by the Holy Prophet� (note 1421).

There are other instances of the same type.  �Abdullah b. Zaid reports that �when the Messenger of Allah conquered Hunain he distributed the booty, and he bestowed upon those whose hearts it was intended to win� (2313).  He bestowed costly gifts on the Quraish and Bedouin chiefs, many of them his enemies only a few weeks before.  Traditions have preserved the names of some of these elite beneficiaries, like AbU SufyAn b. Harb, SafwAn b. Umayya, �Uyaina b. Hisn, Aqra� b. HAbis, and �Alqama b. Ulasa (2303-2314).  They received a hundred camels each from the booty.

Muhammad did the same with the booty of some gold sent by �AlI b. AbU TAlib from Yemen.  He distributed it among four men: �Uyaina, Aqra, Zaid al-Khail, �and the fourth one was either �Alqama b. �UlAsa or Amir b. Tufail� (2319).

author : ram swarup

DISSATISFACTION

Most of the properties abandoned by the BanU NazIr were appropriated by Muhammad for himself and his family.  Other funds at his disposal for distribution were also increasing.  This new money was hardly zakAt money but war booty.  Its distribution created a lot of heart-rending among his followers.  Many of them thought they deserved more-or at any rate that others deserved less-than they got.  Muhammad had to exercise considerable diplomacy, combined with threats, both mundane and celestial.

author : ram swarup