Ushering in the Hamd Culture

The Prophet’s Companions had a unique role: to counter the culture of associating with God things other than God and replace it with the desired divine culture of adoring God alone.

The Companions of the Prophet had a unique role: to counter the culture of associating with God things other than God and replace it with the desired divine culture of adoring God alone. In the following verse of the Quran, the word ‘fighting’ is used as prevalent in those times:

“Fight them until there is no more [religious] persecution, and religion belongs wholly to God” (8:39)

In ancient times, the prevailing state of affairs was that the culture of shirk had the support of political power. This was why armed confrontation had to take place with the political powers of the time to end the culture of worshipping things other than God.

Consequently, God gave the commandments to the Companions to engage in a defensive war against the Roman and Sassanid empires, the pillars of religious persecution at the time.

This was a challenging task. The Companions’ military strength was almost zero compared to the Roman and Sassanid empires. But God sent exceptional help on this occasion: the two empires engaged in internecine warfare and thus entered upon a collision course lasting ten years, considerably weakening them. This point is made in the initial verses of Chapter thirty of the Quran. (30:2-5)

Many predictions in the Bible relate to the Companions of the Prophet. One of these concerns was the overthrowing of the Roman and Sassanid empires. The Bible explains these events in symbolic language: “He looked and startled the nations. And the everlasting mountains were scattered.” (Habakkuk, 3:6)

During the rule of the second Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab (634-44 AD), the Companions entered Iran. Rustam, the general of Iran’s army, was overawed by their conquest. Therefore, he invited a delegation to his court for negotiation. During their conversation, Rustam asked one of the Companions, Rib’i ibn Amir, why they had entered their country. Rib’i ibn Amir boldly replied: “God has sent us to bring people back from the worship of men to the worship of God.” (Al-Tabari: Taarikhul Umam wal Muluk, Vol. 3, p. 520)

This meant that God had raised them according to His plan to end the undesirable age of adoring things other than God (shirk) and usher in the divine age of the adoration of God alone (monotheism). This initiative of the Companions of the Prophet was not to establish political dominance: it had a much broader significance; their actual mission was to establish a new civilization worldwide. It was to replace one civilization with another, rather than first replacing one government with another—that meant to replace a civilization based on the adoration of entities other than God with a civilization based solely on God’s adoration.