The Personality of the Prophet of Islam

Such examples are to be found in the times of the Prophet Adam, who was the first man as well as the first prophet. We find from the Quran that Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain quarreled violently with Abel and matters escalated to the point where he became intent on killing his own brother. On this occasion, Abel, the virtuous brother, has been recorded in the Quran as having said: If you stretch out your hand to kill me, I shall not lift mine to slay you. (The Quran, 5:28) From this we learn the shariah based on the example (uswah) set by a virtuous person who had received guidance from the first prophet. This shows that among the believers, mutual strife is totally forbidden. If at times the believers reach a point of head-on clash and confrontation, it is the virtuous one who refrains from killing his brother and who risks being killed. This example is borne out by the teachings of the Prophet of Islam himself. According to a tradition the Prophet totally forbade fighting or even confrontation amongst Muslims. Once a certain person asked the Prophet how, if a Muslim were intent on killing him, he should react to this. The Prophet replied: You should be the better of the two sons of Adam. (Sunan Abu Dawood, Hadith No. 4259) A practical example of this shariah of the first Prophet, endorsed by the Prophet of Islam, can be seen in the life of Usman, the third Caliph. When a group of Muslims came to kill him, despite all the power he had at his disposal, he did not give permission for arms to be taken up against the insurgents. As regards Prophet Abraham in the Quran, the believers are told, “Indeed you have an excellent example in Abraham and those who followed him” (The Quran, 60:4). There are many aspects to this good example. Here we shall mention only one. We find from a prayer offered by Abraham that the culture prevalent in his times had totally corrupted people’s minds. As a result of worshipping false gods for several centuries, they had allowed these deities to become a part of their unconscious minds. It had become almost impossible for a person born in these urban centers of idol worship to keep himself untainted by this corrupting influence (The Quran, 14:36). At this juncture, the Prophet Abraham devised a historic plan of founding a new generation, a step which has no precedent in ancient history. According to this plan, the Prophet Abraham settled Ismail and his mother Hajira in a desert in Arabia. It was at that time an uninhabited valley far away from the centers of civilization. Here the environment was totally natural. Thus, it was possible to raise a generation, cut off from the atmosphere of idolatrous civilization, which would retain its God-given nature intact. Abraham’s plan fructified and when Ishmael grew up, he married a virtuous lady of a Bedouin tribe. With this union, the generation desired by God began to take shape in this desert world. In this atmosphere there were only two things required for intellectual training-internal human nature and the outer universe created by God “with Truth.” (The Quran, 14:19)