Men Around The Prophet

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In The Name Of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

Introduction It was neither invented discourse nor false rumor that was recorded in history about the great company of men who came into the world of belief and faith. That is because the entirety of human history has never witnessed such accurate documentation, honesty, and investigation of facts as did that epoch of Islamic history and its men. An extraordinary human effort has been exerted to study and pursue its tidings. Successive generations of able and brilliant scholars have not left unexamined even the smallest details nor minutest explanations concerning that early epoch without putting them under microscopic investigation, scrutiny, and criticism. The spectacular magnitude we encounter on the pages of this book of those colossal men of the Companions of the Messenger (PBUH) is not something legendary, even though they may seem like legends due to their miraculous nature! These are facts characteristic of the personality and life of the Prophet's Companions. They soar high and are exalted and ennobled, not because of the author or,depicter, but because of what the Companions themselves desired and the extraordinary and righteous effort they exerted for the sake of excelling and attaining perfection. This book does not claim the power to present this immaculate and extraordinary magnitude to the reader. Suffice it to refer to its characteristics and to approach its horizon. Surely history has not witnessed men who set their intentions and will to achieve a totally lofty and just goal and then devoted their entire lives to it in such an extremely fearless manner, with personal sacrifice and exertion, as it has witnessed in these men around the Messenger (PBUH). They came to life at their appointed time and their promised day. When life was craving for someone to rejuvenate its spiritual values, those Companions came with their noble Messenger (PBUH)as heralds and sincere believers. When life was craving for someone to remove the shackles of troubled humanity and to liberate its existence and destiny, they came and stood by their great Messenger a srevolutionaries and liberators. When life was craving for someone to present human civilization with new and sound inclination, they came as pioneers and luminaries. How could those righteous men achieve what they did in a few years. How did they triumph over the ancient world, with all its empires and sovereignties, and turn it into a ruinous mount. How could they build with Allah's Qur'aan and His Words a new world reverberating with freshness, glittering with glory and surpassing in capability. Above all, how were they able, with the speed of light, to illuminate human conscience with the truth of monotheism and sweep away forever the paganism of ancient centuries. This was their real miracle! Moreover, their real miracle resides in that remarkable psychological power with which they shaped their virtues and adhered to their faith in a manner that defies comparison. However, all their achieved miracles were nothing but a modest reflection of the greater miracle that enlightened the world on the day Allah willed His noble Qur'aan to be sent down, His honorable Messenger to deliver the message, and the procession of Islam to start its paces on the road of enlightenment. In this book, which was previously published in five separate parts and is issued now in a complete new edition, we present sixty personalities of the Prophet's Companions (May Allah have peace upon them all). As mentioned at the conclusion of this book, these sixty men represent several thousand others of their brethren who were contemporaneous with the Messenger (PBUH) and who believed in him and supported him. In their reflection we see the images of all the Companions. We see their faith, their constancy, their heroism and their loyalty to Allah and His Messenger (PBUH). We see the effort they exerted, the calamities they endured, and the victory they achieved. We also see the eminent role they played in liberating all humanity from the paganism of conscience and the loss of destiny. However, the reader will not encounter among these sixty the four Companions who were to become the Messenger's successors Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Uthmaan, and `Aliy. Allah has enabled us to devote a separate book for each one of them. The four books appeared as: Then Came Abu Bakr Between the Hands of Umar In the Presence of `Aliy and Farewell `Uthmaan. Now let us approach in awe and delight those righteous men, to welcome the best human examples,the most graceful and most virtuous. Let us see under their humble garments the most sublime and lofty in greatness and wisdom known to the whole world. Let us witness the legion of truth treading the ancient world in piety, filling the sky with standards of new truth in which they announced the religion of monotheism and the liberation of mankind.

Khaalid Muhammad Khaalid