They left Mecca and reached Medina…

As they were passing Medina our Master remembered where his mother and father were buried and all the experiences, he had there… his heart ached… 

The caravan was heading North and every day they were getting further away from Hijaz and closer to Damascus…The desert, the wind and the sand dunes that kept changing their place every day was now behind them… When they stopped for rest at night the more experienced travelers would share interesting stories of their past trips and encounters…

They passed Madyan and Wadi’ul Qirra and finally reached Syria… When they arrived at Basra, they stopped to rest in the wide courtyard of Priest Bahira’s monastery. Bahira, originally Jewish, was a convert priest, whose real name was Sarjis. He was one of the leading Jewish scholars. There was a book in the monastery that contained invaluable information about the future, based on the teachings of Jesus (pbuh).

One day Bahira had retreated to his secluded room, as he frequently did, to study his books, when the sudden sound of ringing bells startled him…  It must be one of the business caravans he thought… He left his books and looked out from the window. A fairly large caravan was approaching the monastery. He watched it for a while and then noticed something strange!

As the caravan moved, a cloud moved with it!

This was truly odd. Was it him, or was there really a cloud that was following the caravan? He observed closer. Indeed, there was a cloud right on top of the caravan and it was following it! When the caravan stopped to find a rest place the cloud stopped too. When the caravan moved toward the trees the cloud did too!

There was something to this!

Then someone parted from the caravan, ran under the trees and lay down. At that instant something supernatural took place! The branches of the tree immediately became green and joined together to make shadow for the person lying under it…

Clearly there was a great mystery and wisdom to this. Bahira had to find a way to meet this person. Perhaps he could invite all the travelers to a grand dinner… 

He picked up one of his books and flicked through its pages. This book contained information about the Nabi who was to come in the final days. After examining and reading his book for a while he found what he was looking for… With great enthusiasm he read that whole section. He had acquired all the knowledge he wanted. He put his book down and informed his people to prepare a big feast and invite all the travelers of the caravan. 

The travelers were surprised, for they had stopped by this monastery many times but had never been subject to Priest Bahiras invitation before…

Abu Talib was also surprised by this invitation as he knew the priest was not a man of big invitations and social events. Nevertheless, he saw no harm in attending. He took all the travelers with him and went to Bahira’s dinner. 

Bahira welcomed his guests, shook hands with each one of them and showed them their seats. When they took their places around the dinner table, Bahira took some time to observe the face of each of his guests, but alas! None of these faces were reflecting the light of prophethood…

Was he mistaken? He looked again, one by one he observed them, but no… no one had that light!

Disconcerted, he turned his gaze towards the caravan and saw the same cloud! It was still there; on top of the caravan… 

Bahira asked, “O people of Quraish… Is there anyone in your caravan who has not attended dinner?”

They answered, “O Bahira, everyone in our caravan is here! There is only a child who stayed behind to mind our goods, he is lying under the tree near the caravan.”

Bahira was very sad. The feast was prepared for a child after all. And he wasn’t even here!

He politely requested, “Please bring him too… Let us not prevent him from his share, after all, everyone has the right to get his share, and nobody can attain more than his lot…”

Haris, one of the travelers, stood up and said, “I swear by Lut and Uzza, it a great shame on us that Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, the grandson of Abdulmuttalib is not amongst us!” and walked towards the caravan…