then returned to the soldiers' camp. They found him very ill, yet he urged them, saying, "Send Osama's soldiers onward!" Osama also came again that day, and his Excellency, on taking leave of him, said, "Fight, with the blessing of God!" As soon as Osama returned to the soldiers' camp, he gave orders to be mounted and start; but at that moment his mother sent him word, "The Apostle of God is in his death-struggle." On hearing this, he returned with the leading men of the companions, and had the great banner planted before the door of his Excellency's room.' (R.)

(50.) The Death of both these prophets was no less wonderful than their birth and life.

a. The approaching death was foreknown and foretold by them.

aa. 'From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day' (Matt. xvi. 21). Compare Luke xviii. 31-33.
'Now, before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end' (John xiii. i).
'It is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go: lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand' (Mark xiv. 41, 42).

bb. 'The biographers record that his Excellency was made aware, towards the close of his life, that this year he was to migrate from this transitory world to the vicinity of the Lord of Glory. He undoubtedly alluded to this subject in his Farewell Pilgrimage, when he said, "Learn ye the ceremonies of the pilgrimage well of me; perhaps after this year I shall not make any more pilgrimage;" and again, "They have, as it were, invited me to the abiding world; and I also have accepted the invitation, and have become one who is going to the eternal world."

'It is narrated that Abd Allah Ibn Masud said, "Our loved one and our prophet, that is, Mohammed, the chosen,

apprised us of his approaching death a month before he died. He invited us, his special friends, to the house of Aisha, the faithful, that mother of the believers; and when we came into his presence, so that his blessed eyes saw us, he began to weep. This weeping in all probability proceeded from his most tender feelings, and affection, for his friends, and from his picturing to himself his separation from them. On my asking, O Apostle of God, when will thy appointed time be completed? his Excellency replied, The time of separation has drawn nigh; and the hour of the return to the Most High, and to the remotest Sidra, and to the abode of Paradise, and to the upper companions, is at hand."' (R.)

b. Their death was not unavoidable, but freely accepted by them.

aa. 'Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again' (John x. 17, 18).
'But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence' (John xiv. 31).
'Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil' (Heb. ii. 14).

bb. 'It is a well-accredited tradition that Aisha gave the following narrative: "I heard the Prophet say in his healthy days, No prophet leaves this world for the next, without the option being given him whether he will choose the present world or the world to come. ¹ When his last illness befell him and he was seized with a cough, his Excellency said, 'With the higher companions,' or, according to another account, 'With the higher and most blessed companions, with Gabriel, Michael, and Asrafel.' Then I knew that the option had been given him, and that his Excellency had chosen the next world." It is also reported that in all his former