Prophet Muhammad, a mercy to all mankind

M Hamza Haniffa-Chairman, Al Islam Foundation

Once again the Muslim world has reached the time to commemorate the birthday of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. In this Islamic month of Rabiul Awwal, more than billion Muslims all over the world mark this event year after year with regularity, but its significance and deep spiritual echo returns again and again with an ever-renewed freshness to the hearts and souls of Muslims, nay to all humanity.

The Prophet was after all the man, the servant of God as he called himself, who ushered in a message of renewed faith and hope for the entire world beginning with the first followers of his time and right down through the ages to the present day. As the Holy Quran describes him, he was a Rahmathul Aalameen, a mercy to all mankind.

Children praying

As the late Muhammad Shalthout of Al Azhar University said: “It is with deep reverence, of consecration, of joy and above all of humility that Muslims will once again remember the birthday of a Prophet who came during an age of ignorance in darkest Arabia with a message of love, light and understanding for all beings upon earth”. The Prophet Muhammad did not simply preach a message on his own but was the vehicle of a Message from the Divine enshrined in the Holy Quran, which was revealed to the Prophet in stages and was illustrated in the very life of the Messenger. The Divine Message was not meant to remain within the confines of Arabia, it was for all mankind and spread throughout the world as it necessarily had to in the course of time.

Betterment and progress

We must understand that the whole universe has been created by the One, the only One God. Therefore the Creator would like to see His creatures follow a proper and systematic way of life because this is the only way which satisfies them. His aim was to send a Way or a Code of life so that all of His creatures may follow it for their own betterment and progress. For this purpose He had to send a Prophet, a human being, with the Message to exemplify and practically demonstrate the teaching in practical life. Different apostles were sent to different peoples and nations throughout human history so that the Message of God may reach the entire humanity.

These Apostles acted as the ideal for their own limited communities. However, the Message brought by these Apostles was corrupted by later generations. Finally, the state was set for sending a Universal Message through a Universal Messenger who could present a comprehensive ideology for the whole world.

Immoral practices

At that time the social and moral conditions of the world had deteriorated in all ways. And history bears witness that Arabia was one of the darkest spots in that darkest age. Corruption, adultery, drunkenness, gambling were among the things common to them-there were no limits on their immoral practices and there was no law or restrictions - all were masters of all they surveyed - murder, unlimited marriage, free sexual intercourse were common, and it was a source of pride to a married woman to boast of the number of lovers she had in the presence of her husband; daughters were buried alive shortly after their birth.

Dispel darkness

There were many different tribes and a single word against any tribe could result in a blood feud. In fact, there was no evil which was not practiced in Arabia. That was the time in which there was a need of light to dispel the darkness just as the rain wipes out the effects of drought.

It was to this dark spot that God chose to send His universal Messenger and His universal Message to demonstrate a balanced Code of Life for the happiness of the individual and society, for if such a society could be transformed, then the transformation of other communities would be decidedly easier. All previous Apostles had a difficult task to perform. However, none had such a difficult task as this Universal Messenger.

The Holy Quran, in chapter 16 verses 63 and 64 explains the necessity of the Revelation:

“By Allah, most certainly, we sent Apostles to nations before you, but the devil made their deeds fair seeming to them, so he is their guardian today and they shall have a painful chastisement. And we have not revealed to you the Book except that you may make clear to them about which they differ, and as a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe.”

Unity of God

If an animal dies, man cannot give life to it, and if a fruit gets rotten man cannot make it fresh ones more. In the same way if the Word of God becomes corrupted by human hands it cannot come back to its original purity except if God Himself wants it. This is equally true with all revelations before Muhammad (PBUH).

At the time of the Prophet people used to worship stones, skies, rivers, stars, the moon, trees, the sun etc. whereas worship must be ONLY for God. We could find everywhere the practice of polytheism in its lowest form. It was Prophet Muhammad who had to undertake the onerous task of re-establishing the Unity of God in the belief of those people who used to practise polytheism. Even the first House of Allah, the Holy Ka'aba, where Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) used to worship, had become a place for worshiping countless idols. The gods were designed in different shapes - as human beings, as animals, etc. People used to feel proud to kill their children as sacrifices to the so-called gods of the Ka'aba.

Prophet Muhammad fulfilled the most difficult task of establishing the unity of God in its purest form and placed it one unshakable foundations even though he lived among those people who never thought of the Unity of God and had numerous idols to worship. Besides all this, he had the courage, faith and confidence to unite all of them and make them believe in the Oneness of God. He was unlettered in the worldly sense but he got that education which none had and the educator was his Lord, Allah. The sources of his education was through Revelation which he used to get from his Lord. He used to preach among them but before he could teach and preach anything he himself had to practise it so that he could be an ideal for others.

Prophets before him had come with the same Message but at that time the Divine Message was not a universal one. It was meant for certain nations or for particular times. Even so none of their teachings remained free from corruption, interpolation. Therefore, when Prophet Muhammad came there was a need for universal Divine Guidance. The advent of Prophet Muhammad was to restore the Divine Message in its original form by presenting the revealed Book, Al-Quran, which has retained its original purity to the present day, and his life was totally based on the Message which God sent.

Arabian community

Therefore, we can adopt Muhammad (OWBP) as an ideal because in him we find all the qualities which the Creator of the universe would like to see. The Prophet left examples in all facets of life which can benefit humanity in the proper way. He showed us how to live as a father, as a husband, as a judge, as a Head of State, as a commander of an army, as a preacher, as a trader, as a friend, etc. All these facets are among those things which one has to pass through in life. Therefore, he set an example for us so that we can see and judge for our own selves and act accordingly. As the Holy Quran declares: “In the Messenger of Allah, you have a beautiful example, a perfect model.”

Today, the world finds itself in the grip of evil, injustice and ignorance on a vastly more macroscopic scale than it did in the small Arabian community where the prophet was born. In his time, Prophet Muhammad stood forth as the representative of good over evil. In our time, there is the greatest need for a reaffirmation again of this good over the evil forces pervading the world, and it is in this that the profound significance lies of remembering the birthday of the holy Prophet Muhammad.

False hope and faith

The world today has forgotten God because, induced by evil, they prefer their own egoistic lives often deluded and tantalized by wealth, power, the glitter of a false life, and false hope and faith in the superiority of materialistic science. The Prophet Muhammad demolished the false gods, the idols of the Ka'aba, but today many are the false gods that man has created for himself, and it is to break these that the benefactor of Islam is more than ever needed. Today too the world suffers from injustice, immorality, oppression and exploitation. There is not only exploitation of the weak by the strong within frontiers and national borders, of the poor by the rich, but there is exploitation by the rich nations of the world of the poor nations. Drugs, racism, rampant crimes, free sex and with it AIDS, caste and religious wars confront the world. But fortunately for humanity, God's guidance in the form of the Holy Quran and God's final and universal Messenger as the ideal example exist today unlike in the days of ignorance before the advent of the Prophet.

To cherish the Prophet's memory should be to cherish his teachings and the Divine Message he brought to humanity.