Bilal

[NaSra]

<b>Bilal meets Muhammad </b>


His forehead was noble, prominent, and he bespoke a generous mind. His smile put joy into you. His eyes, black with a touch of brown, were well opened. His hand, on greeting, was strong. His step was as light as if he were treading on water. When he turned to look at you, he turned with his whole body.


He was Muhammad, the Messenger of God.


When I first came to him, he was sitting on a simple straw mat with Ali, his nephew. He looked at me and his eyes filled with tears.


Ali, who was only a boy then, took his hand.


‘Why are you crying Uncle?’ he asked. ‘Is he a bad man?’


‘No, no,’ replied Muhammad, <b>‘this man has pleased Heaven.’</b>


Then he got up quickly and embraced me.


‘It will always be told of you Bilal, that you were the first to suffer persecution for Islam.’


Not since my father and mother died, had I felt the tears of another’s love on my face.


I felt like one who had been lifted up safely from the bottom of a pit. Yet I cannot recall the moment the way you might expect, as one of happiness. How could it have been? Muhammad had wept for me, and I had brought sorrow to the purest of hearts.


Nor do I understand how my Christian friends can find solace in the tears of Christ, when Christ wept for them. I have my experiences and can tell them. It is no honour to be the cause of grief in a prophet. All men say because of these tears I am a richer man. It is not true.


Muhammad took my arm and brought me to sit beside him for the first time. I must have hesitated. You will understand that I had never before sat in the presence of a member of the tribe of Quraish. My station was to stand. I know I hesitated, because Muhammad made a small joke to help me: Ali, he said, would not show us his tricks while we were standing.


So I sat by him for the first time and began there my companionship. For twenty-two years, until the night he died, I sat with him, stood with him, walked and rode by his side with him. In Medina it was always I who woke him in the morning on my way to make the first call to prayer.


I would knock lightly on his door and say: <b>‘To prayer O Apostle of God.’</b>


Yes, I was one of the Companions of the Prophet, which is a title above princes. That day, I, Bilal, sat down to rise up.


Forgive my smiling, for my little joke is apt.


When Ali did his ‘tricks’ happiness filled the house. He bounced and bounded, juggled and somersaulted backwards into Muhammad’s arms. It was indeed a sight to see a prophet catch a flying child. Muhammad always attracted children as if he had some music within himself that only they could hear. He spoke the language of every age and would joke with children using jokes the same size as their own.


One day he came to prayer in the mosque with a little girl on his shoulders, perched like an angel high over everyone, irreverently pulling at his hair. He set her down only when he prayed and then picked her up again. Her name was Umamah.


But again I digress. I must keep to the banks of my story. My mind overflows when I think of the prophet of God. I am living out my old age in beauty, remembering what he said and what he did. And you must permit an old man some disorder in his story.


Soon the whole household was in. Khadija, the Prophet’s wife, and their four daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Fatima and Umm Kulthum, sat in a small group of their own. They all looked very kindly at me and Fatima began to ask me about the mountains and trees of Abysinnia, of which, of course, I had no knowledge.


Umm Kulthum brought round a basket of dates and the Prophet chose the softest and sweetest dates for me, trying them with his fingertips as if it would be a great disgrace should I get less than the best. For himself, he took the first that his hand found. Then Khadija poured us goat’s milk, still warm from the udder.


Though fifteen years older than her husband, Khadija was still a tall, handsome woman who walked with a fine carriage. They were married twenty-five years and, until she died in his fiftieth yeah, he took no other wife, nor did he cast an eye. Yet every heart as some sorrow that cannot easily be put off. The sorrow between Khadija and Muhammad was the death of their two male children in infancy.


Evening was settling and long shadows fell across the floor. The air stirred and Mecca, which had held its breath since noon, began again to breathe. On such days you can almost hear the air as everyone gasps for it at the same time. Muhammad rose.


‘Let us go out into the cool of the courtyard.’


I tried to follow him, when suddenly the shock and crippling of the torture overtook me again and I fell back in a spasm. Abu Bakr who was nearest, held me in his arms, while Khadija called to her daughters to bring blankets and warm oils. But Muhammad had other treatment.


‘Try to stand. Let the blood run,’ he said and reached down his hands. I didn’t think I could straighten my legs, much less put weight on them. But I took his hands, he lifted me, and I rose lightly. I left all my pain behind me on the ground.


You must not suppose that this was a miracle. Because it was not. Muhammad performed no miracles. He did not cure the sick or miraculously ease the hurt of the beaten slave or raise any dead; he did not walk on water or cause iron to swim, as Elisha did. When the pagans mocked him he passed them by and never once called up she-bears out of the ground, as Elijah did to tear apart the forty-two mocking children at Bethel. That evening, when he lifted me up and my pain went from me and the touch of his hand, he performed no miracle. I laugh at the word because I knew the man. He gave me strength to overcome my pain. No more. For Muhammad could find the strength in every man and show it to him, as he found pity in every man and showed it to him.


Muhammad lived within the human capacity and died the human death. Yet God gave him a gift greater than he gave to any of His Prophets, He revealed to him the Word. The Qur’an is a miracle for all.


As he walked out he said in a low voice, ‘Bilal, in what ways do you know God?’


‘I know Him in my heart,’ I said. But the answer did not satisfy me. We went a few more steps and I tried again.


‘I know Him but do not know Him,’ I said. ‘Can you by searching find out God?’


Muhammad continued a moment in silence. He seemed not to have heard my question. He stopped and then, in that wonderful motion of intimacy and concern, he turned his whole body to me.


‘Yes Bilal, by searching. By praying to Him, by praising Him and by doing good to your fellow man. But remember always it is not you who find God; it is God who finds you.’


A great serenity filled his face and his voice strengthened with assurance.


<b>‘I am the Messenger of God,’ he said. ‘and I know that the way to God is Islam.’</b>


This was the second time that memorable day I had heard the word Islam without knowing the meaning of it, although each time the word meant more. He saw my ignorance and put his hands on my shoulder:


‘Islam is the surrender to the will of God, who is one God without partners. Islam is doing right to all men, of every race, degree and colour. All men are equal in Islam, Islam is the religion chosen by God for man.’


Muhammad dropped his hand and turned away shyly, as if he had said too much to me too soon. ‘It is all from God,’ he murmured, more to himself than to me. ‘Now I must go pray.’


So ended my first meeting with Muhammad, the Messenger of God and so began my Islam.