In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad

52

is a reward that will never fail." Say: " D o you deny He \'{'ho crcated the

carth in two days [rytltiJ, and do you join equals with Him?1 He is the Lord

of [all] the worlds. He set on the earth mountains standing firm, high

above it, and bestowed blessings o n me earth. and measured thcrcin its sus-

tenance in four days [cycles] alike for those who seek.,,2

The Prophet went on reciting up to verse 38, which mentions those
who prostrate themselves; when he reached it, he prostrated himself in
reverence to the One God. Utbah had come to him to offer him the rich-
es and power of this \torld , and he was now faced with a man prostrated
in the name of his faith in the Eternal and thereby expressing his dear re-
jection of the proposal that had just been made to him. Utbah was very
strongly impressed by the form and content of the Quran.ic message, and
he went back to his kin and suggested that they should not oppose this mes-
sage. But they, persuaded that he had been bewitched by the maglc of those
words, paid no heed to this advice and carried on with their persecutions.

Jiliad

As for the Prophet, he also persevered: whenever his opponents attacked

him, he used the Quran to answer, protect himself, and resist. T his is what

Revelation clearly taught him with this verse, which marks the first occur~

renee of the word jihad in the Quean:

Therefore do not obey the negato ts, but strive against them liahidhJlm] with

the Quran with the UtmOSt resistance Iiihadan kabiraJ.3

Confronted with pressures of all sons, from the mildest to the most
\·iolem, Muhammad received a verse that poimed to the way and means
of the resistance---of theJlhad--he was to undertake. What we find h ere
is the initial and essential meaning of the concept of jihftd, the roOt of
which, ja-ha-do, means "making an effort" but also, in this instance,
" resisting" (that is, resisting o ppression and persecution). God orders His
Messenger to resist the Quraysh's ill-treatment of him by relying on the
Quean. The text is actually his spiritual and intellectual weapon against
their aggression. To th ose who sneer, insult, and humiliate, to those who