Muhammad The Prophet of Islam

Muhammad The Prophet of Islam

1985 12 December 19-22 Muhammad The Prophet of Islam (1522)

Part IV, Chapter II

A NURSERY OF HEROES

In this book, The History of the Arabs, Professor Philip Hitti has written that “after the death of the Prophet, sterile Arabia seems to have been converted as if by magic into a nursery of heroes the like of whom both in number and quality is hard to find anywhere.”

For Islam to reign supreme in the world, people’s entire way of thinking has to change. Islamic thought has to gain the ascendancy over every other system of thought. This was the task that God chose the Prophet and his companions to perform – the immensity of which task should not be underestimated. Only after being reared in a nursery of heroes did the Prophet’s immediate successors become capable of performing it. They established the dominance of Islamic thought over polytheistic thought, after surmounting numerous and hazardous obstacles. But today Islam has once again lost its dominance – this time to atheistic thought. For its ascendancy to be re-established, another nursery of heroes will have to emerge. If the Prophet and his immediate successors had to undergo such a rigorous phase of initiation, there is no reason why his latter-day successors should not have to do so.

Just as the followers of the prophet in his day suffered every privation and courted every danger to bring Islam to its position of supremacy in the world, so Muslims in the present day have staged titanic struggles for its restoration. In terms of sheer human exertion, the efforts which modern Muslims have made for the sake of Islam have been even greater than those made by Muslims of the Prophet’s time. They have sacrificed their lives and properties, expended time and energy on preparing literature and lectures in support of Islam; they have traveled great distances in furtherance of the Islamic cause. As far as the quantum of effort put in concerned, the struggle of present-day Muslims in the path of Islam has been much greater than that of the Prophet’s contemporaries and his immediate successors. As far as results are concerned, however, the story is very different. The efforts expended by the Prophet and his companions changed the course of human history while the efforts of present-day Muslims have only aggravated their own plight.

The reason for this difference can be found in the differing psychologies that lie behind the struggle of the first Muslims on the one hand, and that of modern Muslims on the other. While the former were moved by a sense of discovery, the latter have been moved by a sense of loss. The address which Ja‘afar gave in the court of the Negus, king of Abyssinia, provides a vivid picture of the feelings which moved the companions. When the Quraysh sent two men to try and secure the return of those Muslims who had emigrated to Abyssinia, the Negus questioned the Muslims about their religion. Ja‘far’s response was: “O king, we were a people steeped in ignorance, worshipping idols, eating unsacrificed carrion, committing abominations, and the strong would devour the weak. Thus we were, until God sent us a Messenger from out of our midst, one whose lineage we knew, and his veracity and his worthiness of trust and his integrity. He called us unto God, that we should testify to His Oneness and worship Him and renounce what we and our fathers had worshipped in the way of stones and idols; and he commanded us to speak truly, to fulfill our promises, to respect the ties of kinship and the rights of our neighbour, and to refrain from crimes and from bloodshed. So we worship God alone, setting naught beside Him, counting as forbidden what He has forbidden and as licit what He has allowed. For these reasons have our people turned against us, and have persecuted us to make us forsake our religion and revert from the worship of God to the worship of idols. That is why we have come to your country, having chosen you above all others; and we have been happy in your protection, and it is our hope, O king, that here, with you, we shall not suffer wrong.”

We can see from Ja‘afar’s words how much Islam meant to him, and on whose behalf he was talking. Islam was for them a life of conscious awareness as opposed to ignorant neglect; it was a discovery of One God, an abandonment of idols. They had shunned the path of falsehood, and taken the road of divine guidance, revealed to them through the Prophet Mohammad. They now sought eternity, not the world. Gone was the permissiveness of yesteryear; what they had discovered now was the joy of an upright moral bearing – the path of justice as opposed to oppression, of kindness as opposed to cruelty.

Such was the state of the first Muslims. With their latter-day counterparts, however, things are quite different. What moved the Muslims of the Prophet’s time was a feeling of having found great spiritual enlightenment. What moves the Muslims in the modern age is a sense of having lost out in life – a sentiment reflected in words such as these uttered by their leaders:

“We have lost all our forefathers’ legacy. Heaven has thrown us down from the high Pleiades to the earth.”

Practically all Muslim movements of modern times have arisen out of a feeling of loss and persecution. They may differ from one another in the way they put their point across. Some use the language of nationalistic politics, while others confine themselves to religious terminology. But in essence they are all the same, being derived from a feeling of having lost their glory of the past.

When the Greek mathematician Archimedes (287-212 BC) discovered a law of specific gravity, he was so overjoyed that he ran home without his clothes, shouting “eureka, eureka” (I have found it, I have found it). In the joy of his discovery he felt as if he had found everything.

The Shah of Iran lost just his throne, but look what became of him afterwards. His loss deprived him of even the will to live. Such is the nature of both discovery and loss. All one sees is the object that one has discovered, or lost.

It is this difference of mentality which lies at the root of the differing results which emerged from the efforts of the first Muslims, on the one hand, and those of latter times on the other. A sense of discovery imbues one with an unquenchable spirit, putting vitality into one’s thoughts and an irresistible dynamism into one’s actions. A sense of loss, meanwhile, dooms all one’s efforts to failure. One plagued by such a feeling becomes incapable of constructive thought or action. The first Muslims were moved by a sense of discovery. That is why they produced an incomparable example of dynamic action. Modern Muslim movements have sprung from a feeling of loss, and for this reason have given use to an unprecedented saga of misconceived policies and ill-fated initiatives.

There is no doubting the fact that a feeling of discovery engenders positiveness of character, while negativity is all that can come from a feeling of loss. The elevated and noble manner in which the first Muslims conducted their affairs was a result of their sense of discovery. They were high-minded enough to bow low before truth, magnanimous enough to acknowledge the worth of others. People of their word, they did exactly what they said they would. They were forgiving to others, in the hope that God in turn would be forgiving to them. So constant was their vision of truth that they would not waver from it; nor would they allow their own feelings to cloud their vision of it. Their decisions were based on sound reason. They did things – not to retaliate for the way they had been treated – but because they were the right things to do.

This is how a positive character works. The functioning of a negative character is totally different. Negativity is to follow impulse rather than truth. The hesitant and suspicious nature that it fosters prevents one from taking meaningful initiatives, or co-operating with others. A lack of realism dominates one’s attitudes, both towards oneself and to others. Unable to see things in terms of truth, one sees them through one’s own tainted vision. One’s own ability is inflated in one’s view, while that of others is minimized. One’s defeats turn into victories in the fairy-tale world of one’s own imagination, while in reality even one’s successes turn into failures. It is here that present day Muslims differ from the founding fathers of their religion.

The Prophet of Islam brought an unprecedented revolution to the world, one that was initiated from a profound feeling of spiritual discovery, and was accomplished by a unique display of positive virtues. Should anyone wish to achieve the same revolution from the negativity that comes from a sense of loss, he should have to find another God – for it is not God’s will that this should happen. He should also have to find another prophet – for that was not the way of the Prophet.