Understanding The Life Of Rasulullahﷺ
To our mind, the only object of understanding Rasulullahﷺ's life is that the light of his message becomes again fresh before us and before humanity, and in the midst of prevailing darkness life again finds the path of felicity just as the way was found in the crisis-ridden sixth centuries of Christian era. Unfortunately, we do not study Rasulullahﷺ's life in the appropriate spirit with the understanding that we have to adopt him as our model and mold our lives accordingly. On the other hand, some other considerations have come the way and are multiplying.
Muslims take interest in Rasulullahﷺ's life just for the sake of heavenly reward. It is true that every attempt to get access to Rasulullahﷺ is a virtue in the sight of God and we expect a reward for it, but should not the foremost aim of such an effort be to reform our lives? We hold gatherings on Rasulullahﷺ's birthday in the belief that Rasulullahﷺ's soul is present at these gatherings and is pleased to see the devotion of his followers.
Trays of sweets, garlands of flowers, Qasidah, Sholawat and poems in praise of Rasulullahﷺ, burning incense, and illuminations are all mere ostensible indications of this devotion. But the picture of Rasulullahﷺ's life which is presented to us in such gatherings is not the picture of a man-a man of flesh and blood. We are introduced to a superhuman being whose body has a halo of light, whose shadow does not fall on the ground, whose entire life is full of miracles and all his duties and prayers are performed by angels, and everything about him is a mystery.
It is not denied that Rasulullahﷺ's spiritual and moral level is supreme among human beings. Many superhuman factors can be seen as also miracles and the presence of angels. But in any case, the holy life was that of a human being and this is the very basis of its greatness because a life with no parallels was presented by a man. Every activity of his is carried on under the laws of nature and conventions of history and culture, and sacrifices are made at every stage of success.
Rasulullahﷺ life the best model for us to emulate only as a man and only as a man can we take lessons from him, learn adherence to principles and recognition of duties, acquire courage and determination from him, cultivate the spirit of service to humanity from his example and create in ourselves an urge to fight against the forces of evil. If you make Rasulullahﷺ's life all miracles and give it the color of the life of a superman, where will then be the model for this earthly man? We can feel dreaded for such a person but cannot imbibe any of his attributes. We can adore him but cannot follow him.
Of late, a tendency has crept in from the West which is called hero worship under which great personalities of history are adored and idolized and their birthdays are celebrated with all pomp. But such demonstrations are hollow and although a particular kind of sermonising is common in all such celebrations they have the least effect on our lives.
Another tendency is to regard Rasulullahﷺ's message not as a code of conduct of life, but just as a religion only for reverence. Those who think like this feel that Rasulullahﷺ came to teach a few beliefs, some rites and prayers, some recitations, some moral principles, and some religious laws, and his object was just to produce people who would call themselves Muslims. For them, Rasulullahﷺ's life is nothing more than the combination of some rules of cleanliness, prayers, recitations, and individual moralities.
But in the wider field of social life, they serve every evil purpose with perfect ease and league themselves with any mischief. Such people have missed the brightest chapters of Rasulullahﷺ's life and got themselves lost in its preface alone. This picture of Rasulullahﷺ's life cannot have any effect on other nations of the modern age, even the Muslim youths cannot conceive that Rasulullahﷺ can also be a leader of civilized life and that some of the most complex and difficult problems can be satisfactorily solved through him. This led to a curtain being drawn before the Prophet's life.
These erroneous conceptions flourish only because the atmosphere is congenial to them. The political and social system which is before us and the kind of life we lived need a particular type of man and want to see a particular type of character in him. In other words, the practical life here does not at all need the type of man which is presented by Rasulullahﷺ's life, and the mind and character which can be acquired from Rasulullahﷺ's life have no relevance.
Parents are fostering their children on the model of their choice and years are devoted to educating the young for this life. now entire world which has been consciously or unconsciously adjusting itself to this model can gain nothing by writing or reading books on Rasulullahﷺ's life or by hearing and delivering sermons on the subject. They will never have the urge to follow the real model of Rasulullahﷺ's life.
The fact is that we have completely missed the correct concept of Rasulullahﷺ's life because other extraneous viewpoints are at work. Thus despite the presence of all the spectacles of devotion and love and the minds devoted to the study of Rasulullahﷺ's life, the man whose model Rasulullahﷺ has presented never appears. Rasulullahﷺ's life cannot enter into us in any other way except by our determination to work for the ideal to which he dedicated himself.
Rasulullahﷺ's life is not the story of Rustam and Sohrab or the tale of a Thousand And One Nights. It is not the story of an imaginary character and its study is not to be treated as a literary pastime! It is not the life of a person but the story of a historical force that appeared in the form of a man. It is not the story of a darvesh who cut himself off from the world and sat in seclusion had devoted himself to self-purification. On the other hand, it is the biography of one who was the moving spirit of a movement. It is not the story of a man but of a man-maker.
It covers the noble deeds of the builder of a new world. The achievements of a whole community, a revolutionary movement, and a collective effort are comprised of it. Rasulullahﷺ's life from the cave of Hira to the cave of Thaur, from the sanctuary of the Kabaa to the market of Taif, from the closets of the Mothers of Muslims to the battlefield, is all-embracing.
His impression is the hallmark of many lives. Saiyidina Abu Bakrرضي الله عنه, Saiyidina Umarرضي الله عنه, Saiyidina Ali رضي الله عنه ,Ammar رضي الله عنه , Yasir رضي الله عنه , Khalidرضي الله عنه , Khwailidرضي الله عنه , Bilalرضي الله عنه , and Suhailرضي الله عنه are different chapters of one life. There is a whole garden where every flower and petal narrates the gardener's life. Rasulullahﷺ'in fact is not a "great man" in the limited sense of the term.
His life is not the story of any great or famous man as is indicated among the heroes. His personality is far above that of any of the great and famous men. The world has produced many great men and is still producing them. There have been great men who presented a constructive idea, those who thought over moral and legal codes, those who worked for social reforms and those who conquered countries and left marks of glorious achievements, and those who administered kingdoms and those who presented surprising examples of spiritual life and those who showed the world the highest models of personal morality.
But when we study the lives of these great men we find that their energies were concentrated on one branch only, leaving the other branches bare. We find one part very bright while the others are quite dark. There is an excess on one side and a deficit on the other. But in Rasulullahﷺ's life, every part is well-balanced and the whole is the model of perfection. There is warmth as well as coolness, spiritualism as well as materialism, prayers as well as respect for the individual, leadership of the community as well as household engagements, relief for the oppressed, and restraint on the oppressor, and all features are evenly balanced and supplement one another.
There is a model for every aspect of human life and once a man takes a lesson from it, he needs no other guidance from anywhere it is a light for all ages to come and for all climes and communities, the hottest or the coldest, the black or the white. Many great men have taken light and guidance from this greatest of men and prospered and wherever there is progress and advancement it is because of examples set by him.
The community organized by him had the responsibility of fostering and propagating his great message, but the community itself has strayed away from the right path and is in disorder. There are volumes and volumes of books describing his great achievements and the methods by which they were accomplished, but there is not a trace of this in the lives of the community or its actions or mental attitudes.
Some faded lines of his thinking, politics, life, conduct, character, and culture are still visible but they are being eroded by a mixture of many new features and as the community stands today it gives no evidence of being representative of those traditions. Rather, it stands as a beggar at the door of every perverse ideology and is ashamed of its own proud inheritance. The Qur'an has been kept wrapped up in covers and Rasulullahﷺ's life has become a forgotten chapter.
Worst of all, the Muslim community has lost its universal character and degraded itself into a religious and communal group and assigns to Rasulullahﷺ'the role of the only religious and national leader and confines this international personality and his universal message to a specified group although Rasulullahﷺ''s role was that of a world teacher and a redeemer of the humanity. It was necessary to present Rasulullahﷺ' as a model for humanity so that anyone casting himself in its mold could become a source of happiness for himself and for the human race and disentangle himself from perplexing problems and achieve a purified system of life.
The example of Rasulullahﷺ's life is a universal boon like the light of the sun or the rain or the air. It is we who have shut ourselves in the shell of ignorance and inaction. Today we try to gain something from the teachings of Plato, Socrates, Machiavelli, Marx, Freud, and Einstein without any prejudice but there are innumerable prejudices in the way of seeking any guidance from the light and enlightenment of Rasulullahﷺ' aka Muhammad (peace be upon him).
There is a notion prevailing that Rasulullahﷺ' is the Prophet of Muslims and since others have no concern with the Muslims, Muslims have no concern with them. Why should others have anything to do with Rasulullahﷺ' and teacher of the Muslims? Unfortunately, our own attitude is to a large extent responsible for this trend.
The western nations which held the lead in the later rationalistic and democratic age could not comprehend Rasulullahﷺ''s message and the order established by it. The European mind could not visualize the personality which shines in the background of the European renaissance and whose hand could be traced behind the democratic and international movements and religious reforms.
There are various factors to account for it but the major factor is the religious prejudice of the minority among them which became dominant and confronted the Muslim power with all available weapons making them subservient in the end. The bitterness created by the crushing defeat of the Crusades was also partly responsible for this.
Furthermore, the life of Rasulullahﷺ' is not studied as a whole but in fragments, giving prominence to the features regarded as unfavorable by the Western mentality. That method of studying a mission can never lead to a correct appraisal and the result is an overdose of biased and hostile literature on the subject, prejudicing the minds of even those who are not absolutely averse to the truth.
This book is a humble attempt to remove the cobwebs of prejudice and misconception and to present Rasulullahﷺ''s life in a manner that will appeal to a wider circle of humanity, to bring out clearly the universal aspects of Rasulullahﷺ's message, his concern for the entire mankind, for the whole world of the East and the West, of both black and white for the classes and the masses, for laborers and the elite class, for men and women of all walks of life and of all religions and political persuasions, for the rulers and the ruled, for the learned and the ignorant and for every man in every field of activity.
