Take a moment to really put yourself in someone else’s shoes… or sandals. They may be worn, dusty, and ill-fitting, but place your feet in them for a moment. Imagine being part of a small, highly contentious community fighting simply to live and believe as you like.
Everything you believe should be instinctive and natural, yet you live in a world that seems to run on a different rule book. The smallest words of faith are an act of courage, defiance, and antagonism to people who—wilfully and otherwise — are intent on misunderstanding you.
There is a brief respite in the open attacks against you and your small community, and a fragile truce is in place. In this time, the decision is made to spread your call — the worship of One God—to the wider world.
Then, imagine you are tasked with the job of riding horseback for weeks to enter into a land whose language you don’t speak, whose culture you’re not familiar with, and whose way of life is completely alien to you. And you are just as alien to them, too.
You’re going to be standing in the centre of power, the palaces of the superpowers, the belly of the beast. And there, you’ll have nothing more than a handwritten letter and your own convictions to see you through.
You’re not there to ask for money, nor for land or a share of anything material. What you’re asking for is only the biggest shift that is possible to make in life. Your message is one that will uproot the foundation of everything. It will mean dramatically altering all they take for granted and inviting them to beliefs and practices they have never heard of.
What do you do? How do you prepare, what is the game plan? How would you have the bravery… or rather audacity, to stand there and do this? What is the feeling in the pit of your stomach as you ride for days and weeks to get to your destination… What are the thoughts racing through your head and what is bubbling away in your heart?
Messengers were picked by the Prophet (ﷺ) of Allah to enter into Rome, Egypt, Abyssinia, and Persia. Each stood before the highest authority of the age — kings, emperors, and even those who believed they were ‘God on Earth’ themselves. Each of the lands were running on beliefs varied and rooted in other traditions, yet the task was the same: invite them to the worship of Allah, and to believe in His Messenger… now in Arabia.
The reception each messenger was given was something that could not be predicted. The reactions were wildly different, yet the lessons contained within each scenario continue to become more relevant with every passing day.
Learn what happened when dispatches from the Prophet (ﷺ) reached a Coptic King, a Persian Shah, a Roman Emperor, and an Abyssinian Christian… by opening up some Letters from a Prophet.
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Source: Islam21c
