But the Prophet(sa) was ill and the ailment seemed to advance. Death seemed to draw nearer and nearer, and depression and gloom descended over the hearts of the Companions. The sun shone over Medina as brightly as ever, but to the Companions it seemed paler and paler. The day dawned as before but it seemed to bring darkness, not light. At last came the time when the soul of the Prophet(sa) was to depart from its physical frame and meet its Maker. His breathing became more and more difficult. The Prophet(sa), who was spending his last days in A’isha(ra)'s chamber, said to her, "Raise my head a little and bring it near to your side. I cannot breathe well." A’isha(ra) did so. She sat up and held his head. The death-pangs were visible. Greatly agitated, the Prophet(sa) looked now to this side and now to that. Again and again he said, "Woe to the Jews and the Christians. They encouraged the worship of the graves of their Prophets." This, we might say, was his dying message for his followers. While he lay on his death-bed, he seemed to say to his followers, "You will learn to hold me above all other Prophets, and more successful than any of them. But take care, do not turn my grave into an object of worship. Let my grave remain only a grave. Others may worship the graves of their Prophets and turn them into centres of pilgrimage, places where they may repair and perform austerities, make their offerings, and do their thanksgiving. Others may do this, but not you. You must remember your one and only objective—that is, the worship of the One and Only God."
After he had thus warned Muslims about their duty to guard the hard-won idea of One God and the distinction between God and Man, his eyelids began to droop. His eyes began to close. All he then said was, "To my Friend the Highest of the High—to my Friend the Highest of the High," meaning evidently that he was heading towards God. As he said this he gave up the ghost.
The news reached the mosque. There many Companions(ra) had assembled, having given up their private tasks. They were expecting to hear better news but instead heard of the Prophet's(sa) death. It came like a bolt from the blue. Abu Bakr(ra) was out. Umar(ra) was in the mosque, but he was utterly stupefied with grief. It angered him if he heard anyone say the Prophet(sa) was dead. He even drew his sword and threatened to kill those who should say the Prophet(sa) had died. There was much the Prophet(sa) had yet to do, so the Prophet(sa) could not die. True, his soul had departed from his body, but it had gone only to meet its Maker. Just as Moses(as) had gone for a time to meet his Maker only to return, the Prophet(sa) must return to do what had been left undone. There were the hypocrites, for instance, with whom they had yet to deal. Umar(ra) walked about sword in hand almost as a mad man. As he walked he said: "Whosoever says the Prophet(sa) has died will himself die at Umar(ra)'s hands." The Companions felt braced and they half-believed what Umar(ra) said. The Prophet(sa) could not die. There must have been a mistake. In the meantime some Companions went in search of Abu Bakr(ra), found him and told him what had happened. Abu Bakr(ra) made straight for the mosque at Medina and speaking not a word to anyone, entered A’isha's(ra) room and asked her, "Has the Prophet(sa) died?"
"Yes," replied A’isha(ra). Then he went straight to where the Prophet's(sa) body was lying, uncovered the face, bent down and kissed the forehead. Tears laden with love and grief fell from his eyes and he said, "God is our witness. Death will not come upon you twice over."
It was a sentence full of meaning. It was Abu Bakr(ra)'s reply to what Umar(ra) had been saying out of his mad grief. The Prophet(sa) had died once. That was his physical death—the death everyone must die. But he was not to have a second death. There was to be no spiritual death—no death to the beliefs which he had established in his followers and for the establishment of which he had taken such pains. One of those beliefs—one of the more important beliefs—he had taught was that even Prophets were human and even they must die. Muslims were not going to forget this so soon after the Prophet(sa)'s own death. Having said this great sentence over the dead body of the Prophet(sa), Abu Bakr(ra) came out and, piercing through the lines of the Faithful, advanced silently to the pulpit. As he stood, Umar(ra) stood by him, his sword drawn as before, determined that if Abu Bakr(ra) said the Prophet(sa) had died Abu Bakr(ra) must lose his head. As Abu Bakr(ra) started to speak, Umar(ra) pulled at his shirt, wanting to stop him from speaking but Abu Bakr(ra) snatched back his shirt and refused to stop.
He then recited the verse of the Qur’an:
And Muhammad(sa) is only a Messenger. Verily, all Messengers have passed away before him. If then he die or be slain, will you turn back on your heels? (3:145).
That is to say, Muhammad(sa) was a man with a Message from God. There had been other men with Messages from God, and all of them had died. If Muhammad(sa) should die, would they turn back upon everything which they had been taught and which they had learnt? This verse was revealed at the time of Uhud. Rumour had then gone round that the Prophet(sa) had been killed by the enemy. Many Muslims lost heart and withdrew from the battle. The verse came from heaven to brace them. It had the same effect on this occasion. Having recited the verse, Abu Bakr(ra) added to it a word of his own. He said, "Those amongst you who worship God, let them know that God is still alive, and will ever remain alive. But those amongst you who worshipped Muhammad(sa), let them know it from me that Muhammad(sa) is dead." The Companions recovered their balance on hearing this timely speech. Umar(ra) himself was changed when he heard Abu Bakr(ra) recite the verse quoted above. He began to return to his senses, and to recover his lost judgement. By the time Abu Bakr(ra) had finished the recitation of the verse Umar's(ra) spiritual eye was fully opened. He understood that the Prophet(sa) had really died. But no sooner had he realized it, than his legs began to tremble and give way. He fell down exhausted. The man who wanted to terrorize Abu Bakr(ra) with his bare sword had been converted by Abu Bakr's(ra) speech. The Companions felt the verse had been revealed for the first time on that day, so strong and so new was its appeal. In a paroxysm of grief, they forgot that the verse was in the Qur’an.
Many expressed the grief which overtook Muslims on the death of the Prophet(sa), but the pithy and profound expression which Hassan(ra), the poet of early Islam, gave to it in his couplet remains to this day the best and the most enduring. He said: ‘Thou wast the pupil of my eye. Now that thou hast died my eye hath become blind. I care not who dies now. For I feared only thy death.'
This couplet voiced the feeling of every Muslim. For months in the streets of Medina men, women and children went about reciting this couplet of Hassan bin Thabit(ra).