Life-of-Muhammad

180Life of Muhammad sacapacity. The poor Muslims were also provided withriding animals, swords and lances. Enthusiasmprevailed. There was at Medina at the time a party ofMuslims who had migrated from Yemen. They were verypoor. Some of them went to the Prophet sa and offeredtheir services for this expedition. They said, "O Prophet saof God, take us with you. We want nothing beyond themeans of going." The Qur’an makes a reference to theseMuslims and their offers in the following words:Nor against those to whom, when they came to thee thatthou shouldst mount them, thou didst say, 'I cannot findwhereon I can mount you'; they turned back, their eyesoverflowing with tears, out of grief that they could not findwhat they might spend (9: 92).That is to say, they are not to blame who did not takepart in the war because they were without means andwho applied to the Prophet sa to provide them with themeans of transport to the battlefield. The Prophet sa wasunable to provide the transport, so they leftdisappointed feeling they were poor, and were unable tocontribute to the war between Muslims and Syrians.Abu Musa ra was the leader of this group. When askedwhat they had asked for, he said, "We did not ask forcamels or horses. We only said we did not have shoesand could not cover the long journey bare-footed. If weonly had shoes, we would have gone on foot and takenpart in the war alongside of our Muslim brethren." Asthis army was going to Syria and Muslims had not yetforgotten what they had suffered at Mauta, everyMuslim was full of anxiety with regard to the personalsafety of the Prophet sa . The women of Medina playedtheir part. They were busy inducing their husbands andsons to join the war. One Companion who had gone outof Medina returned when the Prophet sa had already setout with the army. This Companion entered his houseand was expecting his wife to greet him with theaffection and emotion of a woman who meets herhusband after a long time. He found his wife sitting in