Last week while I was in Texas, we friends embark on exploring caves and caverns. It was an amazing experience walking in huge basketball field size caves 200 feet beneath earth. As we went from one cave to another, I was thinking more and more of Prophet Muhammad and Cave Hira.
As I came back, I tried to find info on this topic from net but to my surprise most history of Muhammad's 15-20 years trips to cave hira is not available. I found few facts very interesting rather intriguing.
1. Cave Hira is on Jable-Nur. Its not easy to climb. What triggered Muhammad to take this risky adventure? I didn't find any reference of having any tradition in Arabs to go in cave and meditate (most went to Kaaba in Mecca).
2. How he survived in cave for days without food (or so little food), in darkness, little space and against snakes/bats/animals.
3. What made me sad - I found that Cave Hira and area around is now littered with garbage and graffiti. We kill people and burn buildings if someone disrespects Muhammad but see how much we respect heritage of our own religion and prophet?
Anybody out there with any reliable reference on Muhammad's life in Hira?
8 comments:
Your questions of Cave Hira.
Firstly Muhammad (S) started going to the cave in his adult life when he was trying to find the truth like many others (Zaid, an uncle of Umer, and Waraqah bin Naufil who became Christian (that was Islam of pre-Muhammad days) as he studied the scriptures. So it was not a tradition (they were called "haneef")but frustration and dis-satisfaction from various idols and idol-worship which led these persons to go "search".
In addition I have read somewhere that AbdulMuttalib was in the habit of spending some time in Hira during Ramadan. This may be also true for Abu Taalib (or only of the grandfather).I cannot find reference for you, just my memory
He went with food and water and would either come back for more or his wife Khadija would take some food and water for him.
The prophet has been described as a strongly built young man, firm and fast in his steps when walking, so it was not unusual for him to take the Hira climbing easy (I had to wait because of Tachycardia, on my way up about half way and could not go all the way up but my kids did)
It is possible he may have thought going to Hira was a good thing having seen his grandfather doing that.
That was however not a very comfortable cave as you know. he was oblivious to the harsh surroundings and found "peaceful" moments there for concentration and meditation (that was his Ibadat) Like Qurán says (S. Duha 93, aya 7) "Did He not find thee wandering and he gave thee guidance" (A very powerful sura, short and full of significant teaching).
Lastly your lamentation of how these places are neglected--- That is intentional, some queer thinking of 'Saudi' philosophy, no doubt the influence of teachings of Mohammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab. I may be wrong but there are the rest of the places of "Ziarat" which met the same fate or even worse. I cant go into detail
Thank you very much for detailed comment. Do you know any book which provides detail of Prophet's meditation (ibadat) at Hira?
I have several books of seerat and will spend some time to go through this particular aspect before answering your question IA.
I do not forget this
To tell you the truth I fell in love with the prophet (I know it sounds strange but lets say I was emotionally affected by his life history in 1976-7)
So i go to all details with love.
please...
So far I have two Seera books to suggest
1. Urdu "seeratun-Nabi" originally written by S. Shibli Numani and completed by his student S. Sulaiman Nadvi Vol. 1 Page 200/201
His "worship" or ibadat is described as "Tahannuth" or muraqibah quiet thoughtfulness and contemplation "In search of Truth" It was similar to Ibraheem AS when he considered first the star, then Moon and the Sun then the creator of all these things (described in Qurán)
2. Arabic = English translation by Al-Faruqi Shaheed of Haykal's book "Life of Muhammad" in which very similar statements are given.
After seeing these it appears to me that because no detail is given it has been mostly the writers most appropriate guess of what he must have been contemplating for days and nights on end.
One more thing Haykal mentions that it was a "custom" in Arabia then that pious and good people or those who were not given to idol worship would find a lonely place for contemplation and meditation (Kába would be unsuitable for such an exercise) such was the find of the prophet in the cave of Hira for his meditation and he would forget to eat and drink for hours and probably day/night in such "muraqibah" or his servant would bring food and water for him..
Actually how his Nabuwwat started is by itself a fascinating subject and all these things are just a part of it.
3. Other smaller books also mention the same things about cave until he was approached by the angel with "Iqra....."
Thankyou very much for info. It helps...
Hi, for a quick understanding, you should check this video on You Tube :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYAwIm2DNNA
Saima. I watched the video. Thanks for the link.
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