MUHAMMAD�S LAST WILL

On a certain Thursday when his illness took a serious turn, Muhammad said: �I make a will about three things: Turn out the polytheists from the territory of Arabia; show hospitality to the foreign delegations as I used to do.� The third the narrator forgot (4014).

Muhammad also wanted to write a will in his last moments.  �Come, I may write for you a document; you would not go astray after that,� he said, asking for writing materials.  But �Umar, who was present, said that the people already had the QurAn.  �The Book of Allah is sufficient for us,� he asserted, and thus it was unnecessary to tax Muhammad in his critical state.  When those who were gathered around his bed then began to argue among themselves, Muhammad told them to �get up and go away� (4016).

�Umar might have been moved by genuine concern for the dying man, but the supporters of �AlI later claimed that Muhammad in his last will had wanted to appoint �AlI as his successor, and that �Umar, in league with AbU Bakr, had prevented him from doing so by a dirty trick.

author : ram swarup