The Quran

144

Preface

وَما مُحَمَّدٌ إِلّا رَسولٌ قَد خَلَت مِن قَبلِهِ الرُّسُلُ ۚ أَفَإِن ماتَ أَو قُتِلَ انقَلَبتُم عَلىٰ أَعقابِكُم ۚ وَمَن يَنقَلِب عَلىٰ عَقِبَيهِ فَلَن يَضُرَّ اللَّهَ شَيئًا ۗ وَسَيَجزِي اللَّهُ الشّاكِرينَ

Yusuf Ali

Muḥammad is no more¹ than a messenger: many Were the messenger that passed away before him. If he died or were slain, will ye then Turn back on your heels? If any did turn back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to God. but God (on the other hand) will swiftly reward those who (serve Him) with gratitude.

This verse primarily applies to the battle of Uḥud, in the course of which a cry was raised that the Messenger was slain. He had indeed been severely wounded, but Talhah, Abū Bakr, and ʿAlī were at his side, and his own unexampled bravery saved the Muslim army from a rout. This verse was recalled again by Abū Bakr when the Messenger actually died a natural death eight years later, to remind people that God, Whose Message he brought, lives forever. And we have need to remember this now and often for two reasons: (1) when we feel inclined to pay more than human honour to one who was the truest, the purest, and the greatest of men, and thus in a sense to compound for our forgetting the spirit of his teaching, and (2) when we feel depressed at the chances and changes of time, and forget that the eternal God lives and watches over us and over all His creatures now as in all history in the past and in the future.