An Election in Medina
The masjid of the Prophet experiences a hectic day and hosts guests who have come from distant lands. Nobody wants to leave the town without hearing the result. All the Muslims have awoken in Medina to a critical day; the new caliph will be elected to conduct the works of the ummah (Islamic community). The morning sleepiness had been left behind; the sun shines on the people who are carrying out ...

Uthman: Rule of Benignity
One day the Prophet of Allah (pbuh) was resting at home with his dear wife Aisha. Prophet Muhammad was trying to cool himself from Mecca's unbearable heat by slightly lifting his long gown leaving his legs bare. This holy home was a place that was frequently visited by many people; Abu Bakr and Umar were among such visitors to the Prophet, and they had the most fulfilling conversations with him. ...

Medina Surrenders to Sedition
Crowds. Rebellious crowds numbering between 600-1000 men from Egypt, Kufa and Basra. Supposedly they had set out for the pilgrimage, but these caravans were in league with one another. Leaving from three different cities and meeting at the entrance to Medina, these caravans had another common purpose: To intimidate the caliph and challenge the government in power. Even though from the early perio...

The Jamal Event: A Battle without an Enemy
She was still a young woman when the Prophet (pbuh) turned his enlightened face to the Almighty, departing from this world. She, his beloved wife, and her father, his closest friend, had a share in many of his memories. Aisha was one who had embraced the heady scent of the Prophet in every moment of her life. Sometimes the Prophet's revelation came while he was in her home; she was fortunate in t...

Ali: A Caliph beset by Crises
Hassan's pain was obvious in his eyes which had not seen sleep for days, and like all the people of Medina, he was breathing sadness. If the prayers of "if only" which were falling from the mouth of Medina during those days had been accepted on the plane of Truth, history would have been rolled back and written differently during those ill-omened days. But none stands out in historical sources as...

Politics is Moving From Medina to Kufah
Medina is tired. Medina is sad. Its good fortune began with hosting the master of mankind. Consequently, having presented comprehensive and universal messages to humanity, this lofty city does not want to go down in history as a city that "dressed its caliph in a gown of martyrdom." Medina is right. For it wants to be remembered with beautiful memories appropriate to the Prophet's spirit. Its onl...

Rule of Those Who Were Promised Heaven
The Righteous Caliphs period. Rule of those who were promised heaven. Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali were personally designated by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as "caliphs who were on the straight path, held tightly to truth and justice, and attained perfection." It was a period of rule founded with the compelling power of a religion that first conquered Arabia and then, opening the doors of three con...

Greeting Him on Eternal Mornings
In the Ka’ba... In the Ka’ba which his forefather Abraham built for his Lord, for whom he searched on the earth and in the skies, but found in a place closer to him than his own jugular vein... An old man absorbed in prayer... Those living under the sun take refuge in an anxious night; those hunting at night become downcast under the weight of the impending news. Minutes that seem like an hour......

Conquest: An Invitation to Hearts
The date is still the first year of Umar's caliphate. Arabia, a place that had known no ruler, has become unified by Islam; the hearts and minds are open to the reality of Islam. Arabia now turns to the world geography to present the blessings of the revelation to humanity. The only door that opens to the world from Arabia is to the north, and it is defended by the two superpowers of the period. ...

From A Bedouin Tent to the Byzantine Throne
At a time when Arabia was sitting content with an obscure fate, before the advent of Islam, at a time when the isolated and barren deserts were buried in centuries of isolation, immediately above this region a struggle was taking place that was to shape history. Two great powers, Byzantine and Iran, two emperors who shared the cradle of civilization between them, had begun to fight. Byzantium fed...

The Earth Is My Masjid
Salim. Abu Huzayfa's former freed slave. Three kilometers from Medina in a field used for drying dates, he is leading the prayer with the congregation praying in rows behind him in a haphazardly enclosed structure nailed to the floor. Captured in silence, the crowd beseeches its Lord via the moving lips of this man whose face is turned towards Jerusalem. The pleas transcend the boundaries of this...

Pledge of Allegiance: Holding onto the Prophet
That year Afra of the Hazrec tribe was traveling to Mecca with 12 members of her own tribe. In the quarrelsome city of Yathrib which they left behind, it was thought that they had set out for a pilgrimage. However, there was another power attracting Afra to Mecca. It was a power embodied in a name that was spreading from house to house and ear to ear: Muhammad (pbuh). Her steps speeded up as she ...