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Description

The Blessed Tree – also known as the Last Living Companion and the Rasul’s (Messenger’s) Tree – is traditionally thought to have been one that the Prophet Muhammad sat beneath as a boy. According to various accounts, the young Muhammad, while travelling with his uncle’s caravan to Damascus, passed through a small town that was home to a Christian monk, who believed that a prophet would emerge from the Arabian peninsula. One day, as he watched an approaching caravan, he noticed a white cloud following it, giving protection from the sun for a particular boy, and only dispersing when the boy found shade under the tree’s extended braches. At that moment he realized he was in the presence of a prophet.

Local Safawi legend claims that this ancient wild pistachio tree (Pistachia atlantica), standing in isolation on the steppe, is that very tree – therefore it is protected and revered as the Prophet’s last living Companion. Some scholars think it more likely that this meeting occurred in the Roman frontier town of Umm ar-Rasas some 96 kilometres south, because Arab trade routes never passed through Safawi, nor is there any archaeological evidence of a monastery nearby. Nevertheless, the tree’s magnificence is a testament to life in a harsh environment.

Description

The Blessed Tree – also known as the Last Living Companion and the Rasul’s (Messenger’s) Tree – is traditionally thought to have been one that the Prophet Muhammad sat beneath as a boy. According to various accounts, the young Muhammad, while travelling with his uncle’s caravan to Damascus, passed through a small town that was home to a Christian monk, who believed that a prophet would emerge from the Arabian peninsula. One day, as he watched an approaching caravan, he noticed a white cloud following it, giving protection from the sun for a particular boy, and only dispersing when the boy found shade under the tree’s extended braches. At that moment he realized he was in the presence of a prophet.

Local Safawi legend claims that this ancient wild pistachio tree (Pistachia atlantica), standing in isolation on the steppe, is that very tree – therefore it is protected and revered as the Prophet’s last living Companion. Some scholars think it more likely that this meeting occurred in the Roman frontier town of Umm ar-Rasas some 96 kilometres south, because Arab trade routes never passed through Safawi, nor is there any archaeological evidence of a monastery nearby. Nevertheless, the tree’s magnificence is a testament to life in a harsh environment.