Life-of-Muhammad

182Life of Muhammad sathey reached the spot they saw men in hiding with theobvious intent to attack. These men, however, fled assoon as they saw this reconnoitring party. The Prophet sadecided not to pursue them.When the Prophet sa reached Medina, the hypocriteswho had kept out of this battle began to make lameexcuses. But the Prophet sa accepted them. At the sametime he felt that the time had come when their hypocrisyshould be exposed. He had a command from God thatthe mosque at Quba, which the hypocrites had built inorder to be able to hold their meetings in secret, shouldbe demolished. The hypocrites were compelled to saytheir prayers with other Muslims. No other penalty wasproposed.Returning from Tabuk, the Prophet sa found that thepeople of Ta’if also had submitted. After this the othertribes of Arabia applied for admission to Islam. In ashort time the whole of Arabia was under the flag ofIslam.THE LAST PILGRIMAGEIn the ninth year of the Hijra the Prophet sa went on apilgrimage to Mecca. On the day of the Pilgrimage, hereceived the revelation containing the famed verse of theQur’an which says:This day have I perfected your religion for you andcompleted My favour upon you and have chosen for youIslam as religion (5:4).This verse said in effect that the Message which theHoly Prophet sa had brought from God and which byword and deed he had been expounding all these years,had been completed. Every part of this Message was ablessing. The Message now completed embodied thehighest blessings which man could receive from God.The Message is epitomized in the name 'al-Islam', whichmeans submission. Submission was to be the religion ofMuslims, the religion of mankind. The Holy Prophet sa