The Prophet in the Quran

was completely free from all fear. Not even the hail of arrows could make his steps falter. The conviction of his being in possession of the truth, and that he was on the right path, had made him totally invincible. He once observed: “I see what you do not see. I hear what you do not hear. The sky is crackling, and it is liable to do so. By God, there is no space, not even an inch where an angel has not bowed his head in submission to God. By God, if you knew what I know, you would cry more and laugh less. Women would cease to give you any pleasure. Calling God, you would have left for the woods and the jungles.” The narrator of this tradition, Abu Dhar Ghafari says (so that he should be spared facing the Day of Judgement): “I wish I were a tree cut off by its roots.” (Sunan al-Kubra by Al-Baihaqi, Hadith No. 13337) Although these observations have been addressed to others, they, in fact, describe the psychological condition of the Prophet of Islam himself. This shows how his days and nights were spent, what his feelings were, what his thinking was and what the greatest news was that he had to communicate to others with the greatest urgency. We find from the Quran that God had entrusted the Prophet of Islam with the mission to tell human beings of the reality of life and warn them of the horrors of Doomsday. The world could not be a place of happiness and comfort for one upon whom such a responsibility had devolved. One so placed could not enjoy the things that made the ignorant happy. Such traditions have therefore been recorded in the books of Hadith to the effect that the Prophet used to remain in perpetual anguish. At the age of 25, the Prophet of Islam married a virtuous Arab lady called Khadijah. He had a happy married life with her until he received the prophethood at the age of 40. When he came home after the first revelation, his wife spread his bed for him and asked him to take some rest. The Prophet replied: ‘O, Khadijah, Where is comfort?’ (The days of comfort are gone.) Sense of Equality Abdullah ibn Masood, a companion of the Prophet, narrates that on the occasion of the battle of Badr, when they set forth, they did not have enough mounts. There was one camel for three of them, so they mounted by turns. Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abu Lubaba and the Prophet shared one camel. When the two companions had to take their turns, they would both ask the Prophet to mount instead of them, saying that they would continue on foot. The Prophet would reply, “You are not stronger than me in walking, and I am not less in need of God’s reward than you.” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 3901) This incident reveals the kind of feelings, which dominated the Prophet when he was amongst his people. In spite of being a prophet, he regarded himself as a human being like any other. He felt that he needed the divine reward like the rest of humanity and had to earn it just as others did. He was free of all feelings of pride and had no superiority complex whatsoever. Everything he felt for others came from the depths of his heart. One who has achieved the realization of God in the true sense of the word becomes somewhat