PROPHET OF ISLAM

people treat us well, that we should treat them well. We should rather be accustomed to being good to those who are not good to us and to not wronging those who harm us. By God, he is not a believer, by God, he is not a believer; by God, he is not a believer, with whom his neighbours are not secure. The above teaching of the Prophet shows how much he loved and cared for all human beings. One of the lessons he taught was that we should live among others like flowers, and not like thorns, without giving trouble to anybody. If a believer is not able to benefit others, he must at least do them no harm. This shows that to the Prophet the man who becomes useful to others leads his life on a higher plane. But if he fails to do so, he should at least create no trouble for his fellow men. For a man to be a really good servant of God, he must live in this world as a no-problem person. There is no third option. The Prophet’s own example is testified to by Anas ibn Malik who served the Prophet for ten years. He says that the Prophet never ever rebuked him. “When I did something, he never questioned my manner of doing it; and when I did not do something, he never questioned my failure to do it. He was the most goodnatured of all men.” Such conduct gained him the respect even of his enemies and his followers stood by him through all kinds of hardship and misfortune. He applied the principles on which his own life was based in equal measure to those who followed his path and to those who had harmed or discountenanced him. It could never happen in the present world that everyone’s’ thinking, tastes, aptitude, likes and dislikes exactly coincided. For many reasons, differences do arise in this world. But then, what is the permanent solution to the problem? The solution lies in tolerance, called iraz in Arabic. The Prophet’s entire life served as a perfect example of this principle. According to his wife, Aisha, “He was a personification of the Quran.” That is to say, the Prophet moulded his own life in accordance with the ideal pattern of life which he presented to others in the form of the Quran. He never beat a servant, or a woman, or anyone else. He did, of The Prophet moulded his own life in accordance with the ideal pattern of life which he presented to others in the form of the Quran.