 The mysteries of Islam fascinate us time and time again. This is no different from the life story of the Prophet. Who was Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wasallam? An illiterate dozen merchant who one day stumbled upon amazing Arabic rhetoric. Or was he the creation of Allah's greatest light, sent down to earth to pull man out of ignorance and bring them to the purest of truths? I, Ali Burji, am on a journey to discover the real story behind the Prophet, the real story behind our religion, the roots, the beginning, the cradle of civilization. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Let's continue like this. Of course, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi, in that locality he was working on people, gradually trying to convey his message and ask them to keep quiet during these three years. Until he received the orders, and entered Aqrabeen, won your close relatives. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi invited some 40 of his tribesmen of Bani Hashim. And among them were Abu Lahab, one of his uncles, and Abu Talib of course, and various others, all from Bani Hashim. And he asked Imam Ali alaihi salam to prepare food for them. Remember that Imam Ali was, if you like, 10 years old. He did that, it brings into question that what's going on. And they served food for the people. When they ate and finished, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said, I want to talk to you about something important. And in summary he said to them that I am, as you can see that I have religion of Islam, and I'm a messenger of Allah s.a.w. And I want you to believe in me. And Allah has instructed me to go public. Therefore I have called upon you to begin with. And I invite you to believe in Allah, in one Allah s.a.w. And I am his messenger. And whoever supports me in this matter, he will be my brother, my wasi, my executioner, the executioner of my will, and also my successor, my Khalifa. And the people just looked, looked on. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi was waiting for him to answer. When there was no response from the mass, from the people sitting in that meeting, Imam Ali alaihi wa sallam at that time barely a teenager, 13 years old, he got up and says, I will support you. And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said to him, Okay, sit down. And he gave them time to reflect, and then he asked them again. He said, whoever supports me in this, in this matter, he will be my brother, my wasi, and my Khalifa, my successor for this nation. And no one responded. He gave them time, and then Imam Ali alaihi sallam said, I will support you. And for the third time, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi said the same thing. And nobody responded and Imam Ali alaihi sallam stood up and said, I will support you. And the Prophet took his hand and he said, he is my brother, he is my executioner, and he is my successor amongst you after me, as far as this religion is concerned. And he asked, so you should, now that he is my successor, he will be my successor, you should listen to him and obey him. And of course they found it funny. Some of those who were, if you like, opposing the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi, they turned to, amongst them was Abu Lahab, the uncle of the Prophet. They turned to Abu Talib, ridiculing him and saying that from now on, you should obey, you should listen to and obey your 13-year-old son. Yeah, try to be smart, Abu Lahab. And so this was how it went public. In the beginning. In the beginning. So he waited for three years to see the instruction from Allah swt and he did that to begin with. He started with his tribe, Bani Hashem. What you mentioned and is quite astonishing is how early in the beginning of Islam, actually even Islam was known to the people, was declared from the get-go. You see, Amirul Mu'minin, a.s., proving firstly to his family that he is going to be the successor of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, where you mentioned that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, whoever will support me will be my successor. And Subhanallah, even though my mom, a.s., young in age, as you said 12-13 years old, he stood up not once, not twice, but thrice to emphasize it. And it's beautiful how we know that, I don't know if it was Arabian culture, but we see that if they wanted to emphasize or stress the importance of something, they would either repeat it three times or redo it three times. And we see it here with Amirul Mu'minin a.s., standing up three times and the Holy Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, meaning that, okay, me and you, we know, they know now, they'll get it. And we see Abu Lahab's response to Abu Talib. Of course, what else can you expect from a man like Abu Lahab? And now, once the meeting was done, the family knew. Obviously, they would have started to spread the word amongst the Quraish, correct? For example, Abu Lahab, for example, he probably ran to his friends while Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said this last night. For example, what occurred next? What was the Holy Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's strategy? What was the game plan? So he's now informed the family, not very good, strong response from the family. What was the next step? Before going to the next step, I would like to, if you like, emphasize on this. You might want to see, people might say, why was it so important to mention right at the outset who my successors are going to be? Yes. Okay? Basically, it goes to show the significance, the two things, it goes to show the significance of the successorship, if you like, the Khilafa of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So we have the Prophet, and the importance, okay, as long as he stays alive, then he will steer this religion and the people. Okay, what happens after him? Right from the word go, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, an instruction from Allah swt is also talking about thinking and talking about that stage, what happens next. And he also talks, and therefore he talks about the fact that after me, from now, after me is going to be X, Y, Z. And of course the X, Y, Z, at that stage he mentioned alaihi alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Because succession or Khilafa is as important as the Prophet itself. It's nothing less because, yes, Prophethood receives revelation from Allah swt, but you need the rightful Khilafa, as appointed by Allah swt, so that they could continue this message. They will be of the same caliber, if you like, asma and so on, which you mentioned earlier. They will be of the same caliber as the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. They are not prophets, the Khilafa or the successors are not prophets, which the Prophet appointed 12 of them, mentioned them on numerous occasions throughout his life. They're not prophets, they don't receive revelation from Allah, new revelation from Allah swt, but they are the only people who can continue this message. They share the status of prophethood, but they don't have what comes with prophethood, if that's correct to say. For example, they attribute the etiquette of prophethood. Yes, they have the, if you like, attributes of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, but they are not prophetless. In fact, going back slightly, when Imam Ali sallam is saying this khutba, which I read, khutba number 192, says that at that time, there was only one house which had Islam, one household which had Islam, and that was Rasulullah, and Khadija, and the third of them. I am Rasulullah, Khadija, and I, Imam Ali sallam, I am the third. Mashallah. And now this went on for, obviously for, if you like, for three years. Imam Ali says, Imam Ali says, I see the light and the brightness of revelation and the message. I breathe the aroma of prophethood. Imam Ali sallam was with the prophet all along. On other occasions he says he used to go to the cave with him where I could see him and no one else could see him. In fact, in the same khutba, Imam Ali says that from young age the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi started taking care of me. He was obviously again very young. The food must have been hard or the bread was hard. It says that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi used to chew the food and then give it to me. The prophet was taking care of him. And of course, the angel was along with the prophet. As I said, it was day and night with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. And he used to teach the prophet, if you like, akhlaq. And Imam Ali says that every day the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi used to show me one of the teachings, set up one of the teachings for me and he used to command me to follow that, to practice that. And he was basically trained by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and all the teachings that he had he transferred to Imam Ali alaihi sallam which made him to have the qualification to succeed the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. These are the important things. That's why the prophet wanted to make sure to say that khilafah is important and it must succeed, it must continue and it isn't just anyone can continue the message of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and from day one he appointed Imam Ali alaihi sallam being the Khalifa. And also the second important is wanted to stress that Ali is the one. So over the course of 23 years the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi made it clear continuously throughout the time that Ali is my successor. And this is the second point. It made it clear to the people, to the masses. Not only he made it clear that khilafah is important but as far as the prophethood is concerned he also wanted to make it clear to the people who are going to be the people in charge. Who is going to be the individual who is going to be the Khalifa if you like. The leader after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi for mankind, to steer this religion and steer the people. From the word Imam, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi said it's Imam Ali alaihi sallam. This is something which is very important. Masha Allah. With regards to the prophet s mission what was his mission in the beginning? So in those three years what was he preparing before announcing it to the public? Were there any preparations that took place where ayahs of the Holy Quran being revealed throughout those three years? Did they start after the announcement to the public? Yes, as the verses of the Quran were being revealed he would recite these verses to the people, the handful of people who were around him. We have reported that the fourth person who became, if you like, on the surface of it became a believer in the message of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi after the fourth person as I said in that household of three the prophet, his wife Khadija and Imam Ali was Ja'far al-Tayyar, the brother of Imam Ali. It's reported that Abu Talib alaihi sallam said to his son Ja'far go and join them in prayers. So he did the evolution of the wudu and he joined them. So he became, if you like, the fourth one to follow. So we have such reports. So basically you, of course I want to say that as we mentioned some time ago it is reported that Abu Talib was Hujja and his wasi was Abu Talib, alaihim sallam. But Abu Talib in order to, because he was acting as a mediator as far as the prophet was concerned of course he had his status of the chief of Quraish after Abu Talib and he was highly respected. Bani Hashim, sorry, chief of Bani Hashim, I should have said, no Quraish. Bani Hashim themselves were respected and Abu Talib after the, after Abdul Muttalib Abu Talib was highly respected by all of Quraish. So he had his status, he had his social status if you like. And when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and he knew that his nephew Muhammad will be the prophet and when he announced his prophethood and he announced his message he wanted to play the role of mediator between Quraish and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi. So it was important that he, if you like, he doesn't look like okay I'm a devout follower of Muhammad to begin with so that he can, they have a, if you like, communication channel he can have a communication channel with Quraish. So he orders, if you like, his son Ja'far to go and join them and more and more people came and joined in as the message spread and when they hear the message those who were worshipping idols and whatever they came forth they abandoned that religion, paganism or whatever and they became muslim and followed the prophet. Prophet Muhammad was known for his manners he continued over like 20 years he continued the same manner he was, and now he's got this message so basically he was gathering more and more people until he received the order from Allah that he should go public which he went with his close relatives. Now as to regards to the tactics and the methods he deployed during that period can you please clarify to me? Yeah, so after he went public Quraish took notice they realized that this guy is not one of those many who came and claimed something and vanished you know, late after a while in fact, for example Waraqa Waraqa bin Naufal he used to preach Christianity in Mecca Was he Quraish or he came from? No, he's Quraish, he's the cousin of Seyda Khadija and in fact I read somewhere that before that others were preaching various religions whether Christianity or others and so on Quraish didn't now when it came to Prophet Muhammad to begin with he started saying these idol worshipping is false these are stones, you shouldn't be doing this you should worship Allah the One who created everything these idols they don't hear, they don't speak, they don't have any benefit for you, they can't do any harm to you so why are you doing this? This Quraish didn't like because basically he's undermining their base some people are joining him and going away from idol worshipping mostly they didn't like you because it hurt their pockets if you like and of course their status and they came to Abu Talib they have a lot of respect for Abu Talib Abu Talib was no ordinary person highly respected, the chief of clan of Bani Hashem but the clan of Bani Hashem was highly respected they came to him and said look, he's ridiculing our gods he's and ridiculing our ideas and beliefs you have to stop him he said, okay, I'll speak to him he spoke to him nothing happened he continued, they came back to him they said to him, look you either deal with him or you go away move aside stop protecting him so that we can deal with him and stop him he said, let me speak to him again and he spoke to the Prophet and of course the Prophet said the well-known statement that if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand in order to stop this mission I would not and I'll continue this until either Allah will make make this revelation widespread so that everyone accepts it and it becomes a prominent religion or I die I'm not going to give up no matter what and they realized that he's very serious about this they tried to bribe Abu Talib in order to so that he doesn't protect him so that they can deal with the Prophet Muhammad of course remember other than Abu Jahl sorry, Abu Lahab and two other individuals from Bani Hashem all of Bani Hashem with this young man Muhammad they are believed in him or out of respect out of respect and honor in the sense that he is a member of our tribe and it's our duty because of kinship we have to protect him they may be people who didn't believe in the religion of Prophet Muhammad but they believed in protecting him out of the fact that they are both in the same tribe in the same clan so he had Bani Hashem behind him he had Abu Talib who was the chief of Bani Hashem at the time highly respectful individual it didn't work then they came to the Prophet and they came to Abu Talib to say this they said look if he wants money we will gather money so that we will make him the richest in Mecca richer than ourselves and if he wants status they said something which is very surprising they said that we will make him our master the king of Quraish but they used the phrase which people say king of Quraish but I think if one is careful the meaning which is in Mursat they said numallikuhu alayna numallikuhu means we make him that he owns us basically that means that we become his slaves numallikuhu alayna so we submit we become his slaves just we want him to stop this they knew this this man he was a gentleman he was very kind he was very well mannered he was very truthful loyal he had all the attributes all the virtues and the Mursat they could think of he had them so they wouldn't be afraid as you said that if they for the sake of him stopping spreading the message to give him all the power they knew that he would not abuse it that's why they were so confident to govern them because they knew and were confident that he would never abuse the power and they would not be in trouble basically the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi he didn't want confrontation from with Quraish he continued with his message of non-violence and he absorbed all the violence that they showed him and he wanted to convey his message to the people