Life-of-Muhammad

130Life of Muhammad saA—S: Yes.H: With what result?A—S: Like buckets on a wheel, victory and defeatalternate between us and him. In the Battle of Badr, forinstance, in which I was not present, he was able tooverpower our side. In the Battle of Uhud, in which Icommanded our side, we took his side to task. We toretheir stomachs, their ears and their noses,H: But what does he teach?A—S: That we should worship the One God and not set upequals with Him. He preaches against the idols ourforefathers worshipped. He wants us, instead, to worshipthe Only God, to speak the truth only and always to abjureall vicious and corrupt practices. He exhorts us to be goodto one another and to keep our covenants and dischargeour trusts.This interesting conversation came to an end andthen the Kaiser said:I first asked you about his family and you said he belongedto a noble family. In truth, Prophets always come of noblefamilies. I then asked you if anyone before him had made asimilar claim and you said, No. I asked you this questionbecause I thought that if in the recent past some one hadmade such a claim, then one could say that this Prophet sawas imitating that claim. I then asked you whether he hadever been charged with lying before his claim had beenannounced and you said, No. I inferred from this that aperson who does not lie about men will not lie about God. Inext asked you if there had been a king among hisforefathers and you said, No. From this I understood thathis claim could not be a subtle plan for the recovery of thekingdom. I then asked you whether the entrants into hisfold were mostly big, prosperous and powerful individualsor poor and weak. And you said in reply, that they weregenerally poor and weak, not proud and big, and so are theearly followers of a Prophet. I then asked you whether hisnumbers were increasing or decreasing and you said they