Who Is the Prophet Muhammad ?

Who Is the Prophet Muhammad ?
التعريف بالنبي الكريم

Muhammad was born in Makkah in the year 570. Since his father
died before his birth and his mother died shortly thereafter, he was
raised by his uncle who was from the respected tribe of Quraysh. He was
raised illiterate, unable to read or write, and remained so till his
death. His people, before his mission as a prophet, were ignorant of
science and most of them were illiterate. As he grew up, he became
known to be truthful, honest, trustworthy, generous, and sincere. He
was so trustworthy that they called him the Trustworthy. Muhammad was
very religious, and he had long detested the decadence and idolatry of
his society.
At the age of forty, Muhammad received his first revelation from
God through the Angel Gabriel. The revelations continued for
twenty-three years, and they are collectively known as the Quran.
As soon as he began to recite the Quran and to preach the truth
which God had revealed to him, he and his small group of followers
suffered persecution from unbelievers. The persecution grew so fierce
that in the year 622 God gave them the command to emigrate. This
emigration from Makkah to the city of Madinah, some 260 miles to the
north, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.
After several years, Muhammad and his followers were able to
return to Makkah, where they forgave their enemies. Before Muhammad
died, at the age of sixty-three, the greater part of the Arabian
Peninsula had become Muslim, and within a century of his death, Islam
had spread to Spain in the West and as far East as China. Among the
reasons for the rapid and peaceful spread of Islam was the truth and
clarity of its doctrine. Islam calls for faith in only one God, Who is
the only one worthy of worship.
The Prophet Muhammad was a perfect example of an honest, just,
merciful, compassionate, truthful, and brave human being. Though he was
a man, he was far removed from all evil characteristics and strove
solely for the sake of God and His reward in the Hereafter. Moreover,
in all his actions and dealings, he was ever mindful and fearful of God

The prothet Mohammed in the Bible
إثبات نبوة النبي الكريم من الإنجيل


According to the Bible, God said to Moses, on whom be peace: " I
will raise upfor them a prophet like you from among their brothers, I
will put my words inhis mouth, and he will tell them 'everything I
command him" (The Holy Bible, NewInternational Version, Deuteronomy
chapter 18, verse 18).

The prophet described in the above verse must have the following threecharacteristics:
1. He will be like Moses.
2. He will come from the brothers of theIsraelites, i.e. the Ishmaelites.
3. God will put his words in the mouth ofthe prophet and he will declare what God commanded him.
Let ussee which prophet God was speaking of.

1. The prophet like Moses
Some people feel that thisprophecy refers to the prophet Jesus,
on whom be peace. But, although Jesus(peace be upon him and all of
God's prophets and messengers) was truly a prophetof God, he is not the
prophet spoken of here. He was born miraculously, andfinally God raised
him up miraculously. On the other hand, Muhammad is more likeMoses;
both were born in a natural way and both died natural deaths.

2.From among the Ishmaelite
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael andIsaac (Genesis, chapter 21).
Ishmael became the grandfather of the Arab nation.And Isaac became the
grandfather of Jewish nation. The prophet spoken of was tocome not from
among the Jews themselves, but from among their brothers,
theIshmaelite. Muhammad a descendant of Ishmael, is indeed that prophet.

3.God will put his words in his mouth
" Neither the ******* of therevelation, nor its form, were of
Muhammad's devising. Both were given by theangel, and Muhammad's task
was only to repeat what he heard" (Word Religionsfrom Ancient history
to the Present, by Geoffrey Parrinder, p.472).

God sent the angel Gabriel to teach Muhammad the exact wordsthat
he should repeat to the people. The words are therefore not his own;
theydid not come from his own thoughts, but were put into his mouth by
the angel.These are written down in the Qur'an word for word, exactly
as they came fromGod.

Now that we know that prophet we must listen to him,for,
according to the Bible, God says: 'I will punish anyone who refuses to
obeyhim' (Good News Bible, Deut. 18:19).

Compassion and Mercy of the Prophet Muhammad
بعثة النبي للبشر رحمة للعالمين


As for compassion, tenderness and mercy to all creation, Allah
said about him: "Grievous to him is what you suffer, anxious for you,
compassionate is he, merciful to the believers." (10:128) Allah says:
"We only sent you as a mercy to all the worlds." (21:107)


Part of his excellence is that Allah gave him two of His names, saying: "merciful, compassionate to the believers."


Ibn Shihab said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him
and grant him peace, went on a raid [and he mentioned Hunayn]. The
Messenger of Allah gave Safwan ibn Umayya a hundred camels, then a
hundred, then a hundred." Ibn Shihab said, "Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab
related that Safwan said, 'By Allah, he gave me what he gave me. He was
the most hated of people to me and he continued to give to me until he
was the most beloved of people to me.'

It is related that a bedouin came asking for something from him.
He gave the man something and said, "Have I been good to you?" The
bedouin said, "No, you have not and you have not done well." The
Muslims became angry and went for him. The Prophet indicated that they
should hold off. Then the Prophet got up and went into his house. Then
the Prophet sent for him and added something to his gift and said,
"Have I been good to you?" The bedouin replied, "Yes, may Allah repay
you well in family and tribe." The Prophet said, "You said what you
said and that angered my Companions. If you like, say what you said in
my presence in their presence so as to remove what they harbour in
their breasts against you." He said, "Yes." He came back later and the
Prophet said, "This bedouin said what he said and then we gave him
more. He claims that he is *******. Isn't that so?" He said, "Yes, may
Allah repay you well in your family and tribe." The Prophet said, "The
example of this man and me is like a man who has a she-camel who bolts
from him. People chase it and they only make it shy away more. The
owner calls to them to stay clear of him and his she-camel, saying, 'I
am more compassionate and better to it than you.' He goes in front of
it and takes some clods of dirt and drives it back until it comes and
kneels. He saddles and mounts it. If I had given you your heads when
the man said what he said, you would have killed him and he would have
entered the Fire."(Al-Bazzar from Abu Hurayra)


It is related that the Prophet said, "None of you should come to
me with anything about any of my Companions for I do not want to go out
to you except with a clear heart.” (Abu Dawud and at-Tirmidhi from Ibn
Mas'ud)


Part of his compassion towards his community was that he made
things easy for them. He disliked doing certain things out of the fear
that they would become obligatory for them. He said, "If I had not been
compassionate to my community, I would have commanded them to use the
siwak every time they did wudu'.” (Muslim and al-Bukhari.)


There is also the tradition about the night prayer and the one
forbidding them to fast continuously and the one about his dislike of
entering the Ka'ba lest it became incumbent on his community and his
desire that his Lord should make his curse against them a mercy to
them. When he heard a child weeping, he would shorten the prayer.


An instance of his compassion was that he called on his Lord and
made a compact with Him saying, "If ever I curse a man or make an
invocation against him, make it zakat for him and mercy, prayer,
purification and an act of drawing-near by which he will draw near to
you on the Day of Rising.” (Muslim and al-Bukhari and Abu Hurayra)


When his people rejected him, Jibril came to him and said,
"Allah has heard what your people say to you and how they reject you.
He has ordered the angels of the mountains to obey whatever you tell
them to do." The angel of the mountains called him, greeted him and
said, "Send me to do what you wish. If you wish, I will crush them
between the two mountains of Makka." The Prophet said, "Rather, I hope
that Allah will bring forth from their loins those who will worship
Allah alone and not associate anything with Him.” (Muslim and
al-Bukhari and the Six Books)


Ibn al-Munkadir related that Jibril told the Prophet, "Allah has
ordered heaven, earth and mountains to obey you." He said, "Reprieve my
community. Perhaps Allah will turn to them." (Mursal hadith)


'A'isha said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and
grant him peace, was never given a choice between two things but that
he chose the easier of the two."


Ibn Mas'ud said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him
and grant him peace, was careful when he admonished us, fearing he
would tire us." (Muslim and al-Bukhari)


'A'isha was riding an unruly camel which was recalcitrant and
started to hit it repeatedly, The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless
him and grant him peace, said, "You must have compassion." (Al-Bayhaqi)

In or about the year 570 the child who would be named Muhammad and who
would become the Prophet of one of the world's great religions, Islam,
was born into a family belonging to a clan of Quraysh, the ruling tribe
of Mecca, a city in the Hijaz region of northwestern Arabia.

Originally the site of the Ka'bah, a shrine of ancient origins, Mecca
had with the decline of southern Arabia (see Chapter l ) become an
important center of sixth-century trade with such powers as the
Sassanians, Byzantines, and Ethiopians. As a result the city was
dominated by powerful merchant families among whom the men of Quraysh
were preeminent.

Muhammad's father, 'Abd Allah ibn'Abd al-Muttalib, died before the boy
was born; his mother, Aminah, died when he was six. The orphan was
consigned to the care of his grandfather, the head of the clan of
Hashim. After the death of his grandfather, Muhammad was raised by his
uncle, Abu Talib. As was customary, Muhammad as a child was sent to
live for a year or two with a Bedouin family. This custom, followed
until recently by noble families of Mecca, Medina, Tayif, and other
towns of the Hijaz, had important implications for Muhammad. In
addition to enduring the hardships of desert life, he acquired a taste
for the rich ******** so loved by the Arabs, whose speech was their
proudest art, and learned the patience and forbearance of the herdsmen,
whose life of solitude he first shared and then came to understand and
appreciate.

About the year 590, Muhammad, then in his twenties, entered the service
of a widow named Khadijah as a merchant actively engaged with trading
caravans to the north. Sometime later Muhammad married Khadijah, by
whom he had two sons - who did not survive - and four daughters.

During this period of his life Muhammad traveled widely. Then, in his
forties he began to retire to meditate in a cave on Mount Hira outside
of Mecca, where the first of the great events of Islam took place. One
day, as he sat in the cave, he heard a voice, later identified as that
of the Angel Gabriel, which ordered him to:

Recite: In the name of thy Lord who created, Created man from a clot of blood.

Three times Muhammad pleaded his inability to do so, but each time the
command was repeated. Finally, Muhammad recited the words of what are
now the first five verses of the 96th surah or chapter of the Quran -
words which proclaim God the Creator of man and the Source of all
knowledge.

At first Muhammad divulged his experience only to his wife and his
immediate circle. But as more revelations enjoined him to proclaim the
oneness of God universally, his following grew, at first among the poor
and the slaves, but later also among the most prominent men of Mecca.
The revelations he received at this time and those he did so later are
all incorporated in the Quran, the ******ure of Islam.

Not everyone accepted God's message transmitted through Muhammad. Even
in his own clan there were those who rejected his teachings, and many
merchants actively opposed the message. The opposition, however, merely
served to sharpen Muhammad's sense of mission and his understanding of
exactly how Islam differed from paganism. The belief in the unity of
God was paramount in Islam; from this all else followed. The verses of
the Quran stress God's uniqueness, warn those who deny it of impending
punishment, and proclaim His unbounded compassion to those who submit
to His will. They affirm the Last Judgment, when God, the Judge, will
weigh in the balance the faith and works of each man, rewarding the
faithful and punishing the transgressor. Because the Quran rejected
polytheism and emphasized man's moral responsibility, in powerful
images, it presented a grave challenge to the worldly Meccans.

He would not hesitate to do the
menial work of others, particularly of orphans and widows (Nasi,
Darmi). Once when there was no male member in the house of the
companion Kabab Bin Arat who had gone to the battlefield, he used to go
to his house daily and milk his cattle for the inhabitants .

The Prophet (pbuh) enjoined upon Muslims to treat the poor kindly and
to help them with alms, zakat, and in other ways. He said:
"He is not a perfect muslim who eats his fill and lets his neighbor go hungr."
He asked,
"Do you love your Creator? Then love your fellow beings first."
Monopoly is unlawful in Islam and he preached that
"It is diffucult for a man laden with riches to climb the steep path that leads to bliss."

He did not prohibit or discourage the aquisition of wealth but insisted
that it be lawfully aquired by honest means and that a portion of it
would go to the poor. He advised his followers
"To give the laborer his wages before his perspiration dried up."

He did not encourage beggary either and stated that
"Allah is gracious to him who earns his living by his own labor, and
that if a man begs to increase his property, Allah will diminish it and
whoever has food for the day, it is prohibited for him to beg."
To his wife he said,
"O Aysha, love the poor and let them come to you and Allah will draw you near to Himself."

One or two instances of the Prophet's (pbuh) concern for the poor may
be given here. A Madinan, Ibad Bin Sharjil, was once starving. He
entered an orchard and picked some fruit. The owner of the orchard gave
him a sound beating and stripped off his clothes. The poor man appealed
to the Prophet (pbuh) who remonstrated the owner thus:
"This man was ignorant, you should have dispelled his ignorance; he was hungry, you should have fed him."

His clothes were restored to the Madinan and, in addition, some grain was given to him .
A debtor, Jabir Bin Abdullah, was being harassed by his creditor as he
could not clear his debt owing to the failure of his date crop. The
Prophet (pbuh) went with Jabir to the house of the creditor and pleaded
with him to give Jabir some more time but the creditor was not prepared
to oblige. The Prophet (pbuh) then went to the oasis and having seen
for himself that the crop was really poor, he again approached the
creditor with no better result. He then rested for some time and
approached the creditor for a third time but the latter was adamant.
The Prophet (pbuh) went again to the orchard and asked Jabir to pluck
the dates. As Allah would have it, the collection not only sufficed to
clear the dues but left something to spare .

His love for the poor was so deep that he used to pray:

"O Allah, keep me poor in my life and at my death and raise me at resurrection among those who are poor."

Kindness to animals
النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يحث على الرفق بالحيوان

The Prophet Mohammad(pbuh) not only preached to the people to
show kindness to each other but also to all living souls. He forbade
the practice of cutting tails and manes of horses, of branding animals
at any soft spot, and of keeping horses saddled unnecessarily . If he
saw any animal over-loaded or ill-fed he would pull up the owner and
say,
"Fear Allah in your treatment of animals."
A companion came to him with the young ones of a bird in his
sheet and said that the mother bird had hovered over them all along. He
was directed to replace her offspring in the same bush
During a journey, somebody picked up some birds eggs. The bird's
painful note and fluttering attracted the attention of the Prophet
(pbuh), who asked the man to replace the eggs .

As his army marched towards Makkah to conquer it, they passed a
female dog with puppies. The Prophet (pbuh) not only gave orders that
they should not be disturbed, but posted a man to see that this was
done.

He stated,

"Verily, there is heavenly reward for every act of kindness done to a living animal."

Equality
النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يحث على المساواة


The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) asked people to shun notions of
racial, family or any other form of superiority based on mundane things
and said that righteousness alone was the criterion of one's
superiority over another. It has already been shown how he mixed with
everyone on equal terms, how he ate with slaves, servants and the
poorest on the same sheet (a practice that is still followed in
Arabia), how he refused all privileges and worked like any ordinary
laborer. Two instances may, however, be quoted here:
Once the Prophet (pbuh) visited Saad Bin Abadah. While returning
Saad sent his son Quais with him. The Prophet (pbuh) asked Quais to
mount his camel with him. Quais hesitated out of respect but the
Prophet (pbuh) insisted: "Either mount the camel or go back." Quais
decided to go back.

On another occasion he was traveling on his camel over hilly
terrain with a disciple, Uqba Bin Aamir. After going some distance, he
asked Uqba to ride the camel, but Uqba thought this would be showing
disrespect to the Prophet (pbuh). But the Prophet (pbuh) insisted and
he had to comply. The Prophet (pbuh) himself walked on foot as he did
not want to put too much load on the animal.

The prisioners of war of Badr included Abbas, the uncle of the
Prophet (pbuh). Some people were prepared to forgo their shares and
remit the Prophet's (pbuh) ransom but he declined saying that he could
make no distinctions."

During a halt on a journey, the companions apportioned work
among themselves for preparing food. The Prophet (pbuh) took upon
himself the task of collecting firewood. His companions pleaded that
they would do it and that he need not take the trouble, but he replied,


"It is true, but I do not like to attribute any distinction to
myself. Allah does not like the man who considers himself superior to
his companions."