MUHAMMAD (S. A. W. S.)
his person, life & teachings
LECTURES
based on Non Moslems Centuries Long Research
By
Professor
MASOOD AHMED ABBASI
THE TRUTHFUL (AS-SADIQ)
1-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 one can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes? There is Muhammad, the General Muhammad, the King; Muhammad, the Warrior; Muhammad, the Businessman; Muhammad, the Preacher; Muhammad, the Philosopher; 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; Muhammad, and in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a Hero.
Orphan-hood is the extreme of helplessness and his life upon this earth began with it. Kingship is the height of all material power and his life ended with it. From an orphan boy, to a persecuted refugee, then to 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 splendour, 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.
2- MUHAMMAD (P. B. U. H.) THE GREATEST
If for instance, greatness persists in the purification of a nation, steeped in barbarism, and immersed 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 civilization 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 AI-Ameen & As-Sadiq, the trustworthy and truthful. If the conqueror is a great man, here is person who rose from a helpless orphan and a humble creature to be the ruler of Arabia, the equals of Khosros 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.
3- THE UNLETTERED PROPHET
Unlike most of his tribe, Waraqah could read and had made a study of the scriptures and of theology. He was therefore capable of seeing that one of Christ’s promises, generally interpreted by Christians as referring to the miracle of Pentecost, there were none the less certain elements which did not fit that miracle and must be taken to refer to something else – something which had not yet been fulfilled. But the language was cryptic: what was the meaning of the words
‘HE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF HIMSELF BUT WHATSOEVER
HE SHALL HEAR, THAT SHALL HE SPEAK’ (St. John 16:13)
He had not studied the philosophy in the school of Athens or Rome, Persia, India or China, yet he proclaim the highest truths of eternal value to mankind. Unlettered himself, he could yet speak with an eloquence and fever which moved man 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 amongst the rarest kind in the world. Hitler in his “Mein Kemp ,. has expressed 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.
(Thomas Carlyle in his Book “HEROES & HERO WORSHIP) England – 1841- “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 & 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 might 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 a veritable Hero necessary for that, of itself”. And more wonderful still is what the Reverend Bosworth Smith remarks: “Head of the state as well as the Church, he was Caesar & Pope in one; but, he was pope without 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 dressing of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life”.
4- MUHAMMAD (P. B. U. H.)-UNTAINTED & 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 coarse woolen garments, milked the goats, swept the hearth, kindled the fire and attended to other menial offices of the family. The entire town of Medina, 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 nights 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 chocked 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.
5- 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 diligence, he was the same man, disclosed the same character. Like all the ways and laws of God, Prophets of God are unchangeable. It is far all these greatest qualities of the person, life & teachings of Muhammad that Michael H. Hart in his book “The 100 – A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY”, New York, 1978 adjudges:
MUHAMMAD THE GREATEST
“IT IS THIS UNPARALLELED COMBINATION OF SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS
INFLUENCE WHICH I FEEL ENTITLES MOHAMMED TO BE CONSIDERED THE
MOST INFLUENTIAL SINGLE FIGURE IN HUMAN HISTORY”.
‘MY CHOICE OF MOHAMMED TO LEAD THE LIST OF THE WORLD’S MOST
INFLUENTIAL PERSONS MAY SURPRISE SOME READERS AND MAYBE
QUESTIONED BY OTHERS, BUT HE WAS THE ONLY MAN IN THE
HISTORY WHO WAS SUPREMEL Y SUCCESSFUL ON BOTH THE RELIGIOUS
AND SECULAR LEVELS”
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‘0 Muhammad We thee not save as a mercy for the peoples