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never
felt that he had had enough of the Prophet's company. Now he could
not stop weeping and his heart was burning.
....But he felt that he must do something.
The community was now orphaned, and outside there was a frightening
chaos and confusion.
....He got up with difficulty, went
to the mosque and said to the people who gathered around him:
"Be sure that Hazrat Muhammad is dead. But God, his Lord, is alive,
and does not die." Then he recited the Qur'anic verse "Muhammad
is but a messenger." (Aal-e-Imran, 144)
....Hazrat Umar came to himself;
it was as if he was hearing this verse for the first time; now
he believed that the Prophet was dead, and he collapsed.
....For the companions life seemed
meaningless, even unnecessary. The world without the Prophet,
for them, was colorless and tasteless. But the religion had been
entrusted to them and without them the reality of the Qur'an and
the tradition of the Prophet could not be transmitted to following
generations. This is why they had to go on living, for the sake
of religion, and they had to exert themselves for the sake of
religion.
....Most important of all, in such
an atmosphere of chaos and confusion, Islam could not remain without
a state nor the Muslims without a caliph.
....Hazrat Abū Bakr was elected as
the Caliph, and people sworn allegiance to him. Then they buried
our beloved Prophet, weeping for him.
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