PROPHET MUHAMMED (SAWW)
The Messenger of
Peace
Islam means ‘Submission’ to One and only God. It
is a religion, which Allah (SWT) sent all His prophets, without any
exception, to preach and practice.
“And who will ever
renounce Abraham’s creed except one who fools himself? We certainly
chose him in the (present) world, and in the Hereafter he will
indeed be among the Righteous. When his Lord said to him, ‘Submit’,
he said, ‘I submit to the Lord of the worlds’. Abraham enjoined this
(creed) upon his children, and (so did) Jacob, (saying), ‘My
children! Allah has indeed chosen this religion for you; so never
die except as those who submit to Him. Were you witnesses when death
approached Jacob, when he said to his children, ‘What will you
worship after me?’ They said, ‘We will worship your God, and the God
of your fathers, Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, the One God, and to
Him do we submit’.”
(2:130-133)
The message of Islam to mankind is that of peace. A major part of
Prophet Muhammad (saww)’s mission was to bring peace to the world.
One of the ways in which he (saww) strove towards this end was to
attempt to convince people that all men and women, from different
regions of the world, and seemingly different from one another in
colour, culture and language, were infact each others brothers and
sisters. His message was crucial, for a proper relationship of love
and respect can only be established if that is how human beings
regard one another.
To
inculcate such feelings, the Prophet (saww) told his followers:
“You are all
Adam’s offspring and Adam was created of clay”.
He
(saww) would tell the people,
“Every religion has some
special characteristic, that of Islam being modesty”. In
the absence of such a virtue, no community can have lasting peace.
Prophet Muhammad (saww)’s own modesty, coupled with great strength
of character is depicted in a well-known story of an old woman who
hated him. Every morning when the Prophet (saww) passed by her
house, she would empty a basket of rubbish on his head from the
upper storey of her house. He (saww) never once argued with her on
this.
One day, when the Prophet
(saww) passed by the same place, no rubbish fell on his head.
Thinking that the old woman must be ill, he (saww) went upstairs to
inquire how she was and found her ill in bed. When she discovered
that the Prophet (saww) had come to visit her, she began to weep and
said, “I ill-treated you, and now you come to inquire after my
health!” Ultimately she became one of his followers.
Sa’d bin Hisham bin Aamir once said to Aayesha, the wife of Prophet
Muhammad (saww), “O Mother of the Faithful! Tell me about the
character of the Messenger of Allah”. She asked, “Don’t you read the
Quran?” Sa’d replied, “I do”. She said, “The character of the
Apostle of Allah was the Quran”.
(Saheeh
al-Muslim)
George Bernard Shaw has said about him,
“He (Muhammad) must be
called the saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him
were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would
succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it mush
need peace and happiness”.
(The Genuine Islam,
Singapore, Vol.1, no.8,1936)
Mahatma Gandhi, speaking on the character of Prophet Muhammad (saww)
said, “I
wanted to know the best of one who holds today’s undisputed sway
over the hearts of millions of mankind…I became more convinced that
it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the
scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter
self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his
pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his
intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his
own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them
and surmounted every obstacle”.
(Young India)
mulla@almahdi.org.uk
|