Islam’s First Muezzin [Caller to Prayer]
Hazrat Bilal
by Captain S. A. Khan
The Light (Pakistan), 16th March 1967 Issue (Vol. 47, No. 11, pp. 5, 6)
On arrival in Medina, the first concern of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the erection of a house of prayer. The place chosen was an abandoned graveyard shaded by date palms. The land belonged to some orphans of the family of Bokhar. The Prophet offered to purchase the land, but the reply was,
“Messenger of God! From you we shall accept no money, verily God will compensate us.”
The land, however, being the property of orphans, the Prophet insisted on compensation being paid, and it was paid by one Abu Ayyub.
The believers — the new converts to Islam — worked hard to construct the mosque. Their zeal was augmented by the Prophet’s own share in the work. While lifting heavy stones on his back, the Prophet often used to bend because of the weight.
“Messenger of God”,
the converts would say,
“pray let us do this for you.”
On this, the Prophet would part with the stone he was carrying, only to lift another of equal size on to his back again. Thus the noble task of constructing the first mosque went on.
Abdullah ibn Rawaha, a renowned Arabic poet, also lent his hand in this masonry work. The builders of the mosque, as is common with manual workers, used to sing while working, to lessen their fatigue. Abdullah ibn Rawaha heartily joined them in the chorus, as did the Prophet. A rendering in English the words sung by Abdullah Ibn Rawaha and his companions is given below:
“One who builds a mosque
One who reads the Quran,
One who keeps awake at night (in meditation)
He or she is the beloved of God.”
This is the mosque which, in later times was repeatedly enlarged, remodelled and beautified, and this is the mosque which to this day bears the name Masjid Nabawi (The Prophet’s Mosque), the foundations having been laid by the Prophet’s own hands.
A reference to this mosque is also found in the Quran. Originally it was simple in form and structure, suited to the unostentatious religion which Muhammad (peace be upon him) professed and preached. The walls were of earth and brick. The trunks of the palms, newly felled, served as pillars to support the roof, which was formed of their branches and thatched with leaves. It was one thousand square metres and had three doors: one to the north, where the Qiblah was afterwards established; another called the gate of Gabriel; and the third, the gate of Mercy. A part of the edifice, called Suffah (raised platform) was assigned as a habitation to such of the believers as were without a home.
“Asked why he did not build a permanent roof to his house of prayer,”
Muir tells us,
“Mahomet replied, ‘the thatch is as the thatching of Moses, rafter and small pieces of wood; man’s estate is more fleeting even than this’”.
Summons:
Next the Prophet considered in what manner his followers should be summoned to their prayers. He took counsel. Some suggested the Jewish trumpet, others the Christian bell, but neither appealed to the Prophet. Ultimately Umar’s suggestion was accepted and to this day, the following summons is heard from the mosque minarets throughout the Muslim world calling the faithful to the place of worship.
“God is great! God is great! I bear witness that there is no God but God. I hear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Come to prayers, come to success! God is Great, God is great! There is no God but God.”
In the call to the dawn prayer is added the exhortation:
“Prayer is better than sleep.”
Could there be anything more simple, yet more impressive, more eloquent? The duty of delivering the Azan (summons) was assigned by the Prophet to his Abyssinian follower Bilal.
Today, thirteen centuries later, the magical words chanted by the muezzins of mosques, whether from the pagoda-like minarets of China or from the magnificent minarets of Turkey, are but an echo, of the magical words first chanted by Bilal from the crude, mud house-top of the first mosque in Medina.
Life Story:
It will not be out of place here to give a very brief life story of the first muezzin of Islam.
Sir William Muir tells us that he was the son of an Abyssinian slave-girl. He was very dark, with Negro features and bushy hair, and very stalwart in appearance, uncomely but vigorous and sinewy. Bilal never apostasized. He never faltered or wavered from his faith.
His devotion to the Prophet has no parallel in history. The agony of cruel blows, the fiery pains of thirst in the burning sands of the desert, the acute pangs of hunger, the long exposure of hrs body to the blazing sun upon the scorching gravel of the valley of Mecca, and the tortures inflicted on Bilal in various other ways — all failed to break his iron will, all failed to break his faith in the Oneness of God.
To the persecutors’ persistent demands to renounce Islam Bilal’s only answer was
“Ahad, Ahad” (One, only one God).
One day, while the poor Abyssinian was being thus tormented, a frail, slender, slightly-built man happened suddenly to appear on the scene. This was Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s bosom friend and later his father-in-law. On the spot he negotiated the purchase of the slave and rescued him from the tortures of his persecutors. The price paid was a cloak and ten pieces of silver.
Bilal was the Prophet’s constant attendant. History tells us that
“after chanting the call to prayer, Bilal would always arouse the Prophet with a pious ejaculation and when the congregation had assembled in the mosque, all eyes were fixed upon the African, who stood in the first row and whose genuflexions and prostrations were imitated by the rest.”
When Muhammad (peace be upon him) made his triumphant entry into Mecca, it was Bilal who received the keys of the Kaaba, and it was he who summoned the people of Medina to prayer when the princes came from the far-off land of Hazramaut to embrace Islam. It was Bilal who chanted the Azan when the cavaliers of Islam camped in the desert to prepare for battle with the idolaters. It is more pleasant to remember that when the Prophet made his last pilgrimage to Mecca, the faithful Bilal walked at his side to shade him with a primitive screen from the noonday sun.
After the death of the Prophet, Bilal took a vow never again to chant the Azan, for the voice that had summoned the Prophet of God to the house of prayer ought not, fancied Bilal, to be heard after the departure of his master.
The voice was heard yet once again, and for the last time, on the occasion of Caliph Umar’s visit to Damascus as the Commander of the Faithful.
In his inimitable language thus describes an English writer the last Azan of Bilal:
“When, after moments of tremulous watching, the grand voice of the aged African rolled out amid the hush, with the old beloved words, the old familiar tones, still deeper and clearer, Umar and all those about him wept aloud and tears streamed down every warrior’s face, and the last long notes of the chant were lost in a tempest of sobbing.”
Courtesy: The Pakistan Times, 11th November 1966.