EVENTS OF THE THIRTY-FIFTH YEAR AFTER THE BIRTH OF HIS SACRED AND PROPHETIC LORDSHIP—U. W. B.—WITH AN EPITOME OF THE EVENTS WHICH TOOK PLACE AFTER IT TILL THE MISSION.

During the thirty-fifth year after the august birth of his sacred and prophetic lordship—u. w. b.—the Qoraish demolished the house of the Ka’bah, and after again rais­ing its walls, they covered them with a roof. There are two reasons on account of which it is said to have been destroyed and renovated. The first is that the walls of the Ka’bah were not higher than a man’s stature, and that it had no roof. Once a torrent of water had made a breach in the walls, the people feared that the house of Allah might suddenly fall, wherefore they demolished the old walls and rebuilt them. The second is that the Ka’bah contained a treasury in the shape of a well, into which the property belonging to the Ka’bah was placed and offerings were thrown; one night, however, a company of thieves had stolen the whole contents of the well. At that time a ship, arriving from Rûm, had been wrecked at Jiddhah;* the captain of the vessel happened to be an able architect, and was called Yâqûm. When the Qoraish heard of the wreck they despatched Walid Bin Moghairah, with several Qoraish princes, to Jiddhah, where they purchased the timbers of the ship, and at their request Yâqûm came with his crew to Mekkah to build the house of Allah. He ordered stones to be collected, whereon the Qoraish began the work, undressed themselves, and dragged the stones, his lordship the refuge of prophecy—u. w. b.—likewise assisting them. On this occasion A’bbâs kindly said to the latter: ‘Muhammad, do thou likewise throw thy Izâr* on thy neck, and drag stones therewith.’ His lordship obeyed this injunction, but as soon as he exposed his parts [which modesty requires to be covered] he fainted, and when he again regained his senses he said: ‘My Izâr is my Azâr!’* and the narrator states that after this occasion no one had ever seen him in a state of nudity.

There is a tradition that in building the four sides of the Ka’bah the work was divided, and lots were thrown, according to which the space from the buttress [i.e., corner] of the black stone to that of E’râq was assigned to the [descendants of] A’bd Munâf and to the Bani Zohrah; from the buttress of E’râq to that of Syria to the Bani Asad Bin A’bd-ul-U’zza and to the Bani A’bdullah; from the buttress of Syria to that of Yaman to the Bani Tamim; and from the buttress of Yaman to the black stone to the Bani Baham and Bani A’zâi. When the walls had been raised to the height of the black stone* the Qoraish began to dis­pute with each other, and each clan asserted that one of their own number should fix that blessed stone in its place. This affair ended well-nigh in bloodshed; whereon they agreed that the individual first arriving by the gate of the Bani Shaibah, which was one of the portals of the sanctuary, should be constituted arbiter, whose decision was not to be infringed. Just at that moment his sacred and prophetic lordship came in by the said gate, which event the Qoraish took for a propitious sign, and exclaimed: ‘Muhammad, the faithful one, has arrived, and whatever he may say in this matter is to be obeyed.’ As soon as this affair had been explained to his world-adoring mind, he spread his blessed Redâ* out on the ground, placed the black stone into the middle of it, and called for a man from each tribe. O’tbah Bin Shaibah, Abu Rafa’ah, Abu Kho­zaiqah Bin Moghairah, and A’da Bin Qais quickly responded to the invitation, and at a signal from his lord­ship each of them laid hold of one corner of the Redâ, thus taking up and raising the black stone; but his sacred and prophetic lordship fixed it in its place.

When the walls had attained the height of twenty cubits they made a roof and fixed it on six pillars, but in such a manner that a portion of the corner with the black stone, which would have required a circular wall [it is not said why], remained uncovered. This building of the Ka’bah was evidently against the laws of Ebrâhim; wherefore his holy and prophetic lordship said on a certain occasion to A’aishah: ‘Had not the people recently allied themselves with infidels I would have demolished the Ka’bah, and would have rebuilt it according to the laws of Ebrâhim, with an eastern and a western door.’ When A’bdullah Bin Zobeir heard this tradition he destroyed the building of the Qoraish whilst he held sway, and rebuilt the Ka’bah according to the intentions of his lordship the last of the prophets. When, however, Hajjâj Bin Yusuf undertook, by order of A’bd-ul-Malik Merwân,* a campaign against A’bdullah Bin Zobeir and vanquished him, he destroyed the edifice built by the latter, at the command of the same Khalifah, and re-erected it as the Qoraish had built it during the lifetime of his holy and prophetic lordship— u. w. b. When Harûn-ur-Rashid became Khalifah he desired to annihilate the edifice of Merwân, and to rebuild the Ka’bah according to the model of A’bdullah Bin Zobeir. On this subject he consulted the Emâm Mâlek, but the latter replied: ‘O commander of the faithful, let the Ka’bah alone, lest thou [it?] become the sport of kings.’ Accordingly, Harûn renounced his intention.

Some chroniclers relate that during this year Fattimah Zohrâ—may Allah reward her—was born. In his thirty-eighth year his sacred and prophetic lordship heard voices and saw lights. There is a tradition of A’aishah that she said the first revelation the apostle of Allah received was a true vision, and he had not had one before like the ‘Day­break.’*

It is related that near the time of the mission and of the revelations his lordship had left Mekkah on some business, and that from every stone and tree near which he passed he heard the words: ‘Greeting to thee, O apostle of Allah!’ In the same manner, also before he had received revelations, he was once walking alone on the road, and heard a man calling out to him: ‘O Muhammad!’ Though his lord­ship glanced right and left he could perceive nothing, and was so overpowered by terror that he fled. At that time the Divine rays likewise prevailed in such a manner in the casket of his heart as to blot out from his mind everything except Allah, whose love took such possession of his august nature that no traces of anything else remained on the pages of his lucid mind.

Distich:

Whoever speaks not of Thee, is silent better; Whatever does not record Thee, is forgotten better.

He abstained from commingling or having any inter­course with the people, to such a degree that intelligent Arabs said: ‘Verily, Muhammad loves his Lord most.’ Muhammad having thus thrown the fire of abstinence into the granary of association with mankind, and wiped out the forms of all created beings from the tablet of his heart with the water of disparagement, turned the reins of his intention towards the Ka’bah of Divine contemplation, made Mount Hira the castle of his intentions and adora­tions. At that time he was, in the furtherance of his design, occasionally seen to enter the apartment of Kho­daijah, to take some food, and again to return to his place of worship on Mount Hira. In this manner he kept the garden of adorations for a long time blooming with the water of sincerity, and the lamp of his meditations ceased not to burn during the long periods of bright days or the darkness of nights, a small portion only of the latter excepted. His illuminated mind having thus become the receptacle of the Divine verses* and the depository of royal secrets, the Faithful Spirit* filled his whole essence and adorned it with the pearl-like words of the Qurân, so that he became in Divine knowledge and in celestial secrets the doctor of doctors, and his breast was imbued with the contents of the Preserved Table.* Thus the sun of prophecy rose in the east of Battha, the luminary of apostle­ship radiated from the grove of Mount Hira, the blessed finger of Muhammad was adorned with the seal, and his stature with the robe of prophecy.