Chapter Four:
As - Sadiq The Truthful
Perfect Model For Human Life
The personality of Muhammad, it is most
difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch.
What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes?
There is Muhammad, the Prophet.
There is Muhammad, the Warrior;
Muhammad, the Businessman;
Muhammad, the Statesman;
Muhammad, the Orator;
Muhammad, the Reformer;
Muhammad, the Refuge of Orphans;
Muhammad, the protector of Slaves;
Muhammad, the emancipator of women;
Muhammad, the Judge;
Muhammad, the Saint.
All in all these magnificent roles, in all
these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero.
Orphanhood is the extreme of helplessness and his life upon this earth
began with it. Kingship is the height of the material power and his life ended
with it. From an orphan boy, to a persecuted refugee, then to a an overlord -
spiritual as well as temporal - of a whole nation and arbiter of its destinies,
with all its trials and temptations, with all its vicissitudes and changes, its
lights and shades, its ups and downs, its terror and splendor, he has stood the
fire of the world and come out unscathed to serve as a model in every phase of
life. His achievements are not limited to one aspect of life, but cover the
whole field of human conditions.
Muhammad (peace and blessings
of Allah be upon him) The greatest
If for instance, greatness consists in the purification of a nation,
steeped in barbarian and immerse in absolute moral darkness, that dynamic
personality who has transformed, refined and uplifted an entire nation, sunk
low as the Arabs were, and made them the torch-bearers of civilizations and
learning, has every claim to that greatness. If greatness lies in unifying the
discordant elements of society by the ties of brotherhood and charity, the
Prophet of the desert has got every title to this distinction. If greatness
consists in reforming those wrapt in a degrading superstition and pernicious
practices of every kind, the Prophet of Islam has wiped out superstitions and
irrational fear from the hearts of millions. If it lies in displaying high
morals, Muhammad has been admitted by friends and foes as Al-Amin, and
As-Sadiq, the trustworthy and truthful. If a conqueror is great man, here is a
person who rose from a helpless orphan and a humble creature to be the ruler of
Arabia, the equal of Khusros and Caesars, one who founded a great empire that
has survived all these 14 centuries. If the devotion that a leader commands is
the criterion of greatness, the Prophet's name even today exerts a magic charm
over millions of souls, spread all over the world.
The Unlettered Prophet
He had not studied philosophy in the school of Athens or Rome, Persia,
India or china, yet he could proclaim the highest truths of eternal value to mankind.
Unlettered himself, he could yet speak with an eloquence and fervor which moved
men to tears of ecstasy. Born an orphan and blessed with no worldly goods, he
was loved by all, He had studied at no military academy; yet he could organize
his forces against tremendous odds and gained victories through the moral
forces which he marshaled. Gifted men with a genius for preaching are rare.
Descartes included the perfect preacher among the rarest kind in the world.
Hitler in his 'Mein Kamp' has expressed a similar view. He says:" A
great theorist is seldom a great leader. An agitator is far more likely to
possess these qualities. He will always be a better leader. For, leadership
means the ability to move masses of men. The talent to produce ideas has nothing
in common with the capacity for leadership". But, he says:"
the union of the theorist, organizer, and leader in one man is the rarest
phenomenon on this earth; therein consists greatness". In the person
of the Prophet of Islam the world has seen this rarest phenomenon on the earth,
walking in flesh and blood.
" A poor, hard-toiling ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar
men toil for. Not a bad man, I should say; something better in him than HUNGER
of any sort - or these wild Arab men, fighting and jostling three-and-twenty
years at his hand, in close contact with him always would not have reverenced
him so!.
" They were wild men, bursting ever and anon into quarrel, into
all kinds of fierce sincerity; without right worth and manhood, no man could
have commanded them. They called him Prophet, you say? Why, he stood there face
to face with them; bare, not enshrined in any mystery; visibly clouting his own
cloak, cobbling his own shoes; fighting; counseling, ordering in the midst of
them; they must have seen what kind of a man he WAS, let him be CALLED what you
like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own
clouting".
" During three-and twenty- years of rough actual trial, I find
something of veritable Hero necessary for that, of itself". Carlyle
in, "Heroes and Hero-Worship".
And more wonderful still is what the Reverend Bosworth Smith remarks:"
Head of the State as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but, he
was Pope without the Pope's pretensions, and Caesar without the legions of
Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a police force,
without a fixed revenue. If ever a man had the right to say that he ruled by a
right divine, it was Muhammad, for he had all the powers without their
supports. He cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his
private life was in keeping with his public life".
Muhammad (peace and blessings
of Allah be upon him) - Untainted
And Pure
After the fall of Mecca more
than one million square miles of land lay at his feet. Lord of Arabia, he
mended his own shoes and coarsed woolen garments, milked the goats, swept the
hearth, kindled the fire and attended to other menial offices of the family.
The entire town of Madina, where he lived, grew wealthy in the later days of
his life. Everywhere there was gold and silver in plenty and yet in those days
of prosperity many weeks would elapse without a fire being kindled in the
hearth of the king of Arabia, his food being dates and water. His family would
go hungry many nights successively because they could not get anything to eat
in the evening. He slept on no soft bed but on a palm mat after a long busy
day, to spend most of his night in prayer, often bursting with tears before his
Creator to grant him strength to discharge his duties. As the reports go, his
voice would get choked due to weeping and it would appear as if a cooking pot
was on fire and boiling had commenced. On the day of his death his only assets
were a few coins, a part of which went to satisfy a debt and the rest was given
to a needy person who came to his house for charity. The clothes in which he
breathed his last had many patches. The house from where light had spread to the
world was in darkness because there was no oil in the lamp.
Consistent Unto Death
Circumstances changed, but the Prophet of God did not. In victory or in
defeat, in power or in adversity, in affluence or in indigence, he was the same
man, disclosed the same character. Like all the ways and laws of God, Prophets
of God are unchangeable.
Muhammad The Greatest
"If greatness of purpose,
smallness of means,
and astounding results,
are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to
compare any great man in modern history
with Muhammad?
The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded,
if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbles away
before their eyes. This man Muhammad moved not only armies, legislations,
empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men; and more than that, he
moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the
souls.
On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has become law, he created
a spiritual nationality which blended together peoples of every tongue and of
every race…
The idea of the unity of God, proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of fabulous
theologies, was in itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from his lips
it destroyed all the ancient superstitions…
His endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and
his triumph after death: all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm
conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold,
the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God
is, the latter telling what God is not…
…"PHILOSOPHER, ORATOR, APOSTLE, LEGISLATOR, WARRIOR, CONQUEROR OF
IDEAS, RESTORER OF RATIONAL BELIEFS, of a cult without images; the founder of
twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad. AS
REGARDS ALL STANDARD BY WHICH HUMAN GREATNESS MAY BE MEASURED, WE MAY WELL ASK,
IS THERE ANY MAN GREATER THAN HE?".
(Lamartine, Historie de la Turquie, Paris
1854, Vol.II pp.276-277)
to be continued . . . .
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