The Prophet of Islam?
Sahil Sharifdin Bhat
Hate is short-lived and love is everlasting. Hate begets hate and love begets love. People share only what they possess. Frogs cannot sing and nightingales cannot croak. Feel proud if you are among lovers and curse your fate if you are among haters. Hate is self-annihilating and love conquers all.
By the way, it is not the common people who hate your religion or my religion or burn your holy book or my holy book or abuse your God or my God or insult your prophet or my prophet. It is the frustrated and depressed religious missionaries in your religion or my religion who foolishly try to change the world or gain the cheap fame for themselves overnight.
They are the enemies of the humanity. Hence, they are your enemies and my enemies. All the religions and all the religious leaders that make their followers harmful, hateful and violent in the name of religion are absolutely false. If your religion or your sect does not make you loving, peaceful, patient and kind, it is false and you must change it immediately.
Which person, thing, nation or religion wants to get weaker with the passage of time? Islam is not hypocrisy. Islam is truth. It wants to get better with every passing day and it says it boldly to the face of cowards, hypocrites, traitors and haters. Anyways, Islam is not for wild animals that enjoy injustice, anarchy, aggression, nudity, incest, debauchery, dirt, dung and filth.
Islam is for the people who love justice, peace, unity, kindness, fraternity, humanity, truth and order. Islam is neither a helpless sheep nor a cruel lion. It is a just judge that rewards the good and punishes the evil. Islam is the religion that makes sense to a scientific, philosophic, logical and reasoning mind and the prophet of Islam (PBUH) impresses the world’s best geniuses.
Thomas Carlyle has written, ” if Islam was a false religion, it will not stand this long”.
Alphonse de Lamartine has written in his bestseller ,”If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Mohammad?”
William Muir has it,” The magnanimity with which Mohammad treated a people (people of Makkah) who had so long hated and rejected him is worthy of all admiration.”
Pringle Kennedy has said, ” He (Mohammad PBUH) is the supreme instance of what can be done by one man.”
Michael H Hart writes, ”My choice of Mohammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he is the supreme instance of what can be done by one man … he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels .”
Who is the prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and why is he hated by the foolish and admired by the wise? How badly has he harmed the humanity or how greatly has he benefitted it? Is he still worth following? Has his teachings grown outdated? Let’s analyse all these questions objectively here:
A beautiful kid was born to a young widow probably on 29th of August, 570 CE and he was named Mohammad (The praised one). Her husband had passed away about six months before the birth of the beautiful kid. When the kid, Mohammad (PBUH) was just eight days old, he was entrusted to a village lady named Halima saadia for paid babysitting according to the custom of the town and she nursed him for six years at her own home.
When the little Mohammad (PBUH) was returned to his biological mother, Amina bint Wahab, the widow mother and the orphan son enjoyed each other’s companionship for a few weeks and then the mother departed this mortal abode leaving her only orphan son in the care of his grandfather, Abdul Muttalib and a loyal slave-girl , Baraka .
The grandfather expired two years later in 578 CE and the responsibility of raising up the little Mohammad (PBUH) fell on the shoulders of Abu Talib, a paternal uncle of Mohammad (PBUH). Abu Talib was a poor man and had a large family to support. He lived in a dilapidated house and his family members suffered often from starvation.
Therefore, the little Mohammad (PBUH) was not taught reading and writing, instead, he was sent to work as a shepherd. When he was twelve years old, he accompanied his poor uncle, Abu Talib to Syria on a trade journey. He continued going on such trade journeys for his livelihood and when his fellow merchants observed his behaviour and principles, they named him Al-Amin (The trustworthy).
Impressed by his fame and character, a wealthy merchant of Makkah named Khadija employed him and later married him. She was forty and he was just twenty-five years old at the time of their marriage. The duo begot four daughters and two sons. As he neared the age of forty, he started having unusual dreams and hearing mysterious voices. Consequently, he retired to a cave located outside Makkah. He kept often meditating in it until he received the first verses of the holy Quran there. The experience frightened him first but he learnt gradually and slowly that he was the last messenger of God and he had an exceptional mission to fulfill.
He started propagating the teachings he received almost daily from God and the people began to hate him and torment him. It was a challenge to convince the people of that time to be kind and just, to manumit slaves, not to bury the female kids alive, to give rights to women, not to murder, not to practice adultery, not to circumambulate the holy Kaba naked, not to worship stones etc.
He was assaulted frequently for propagating such novel teachings. His early followers were martyred brutally. He was coerced to flee to the city of Madina which was miles away from his hometown. It took him full twenty-two years to convince his people that he was truly the last messenger of God sent to them to bring them out of the depths of ignorance and to enlighten them with the divine guidance and knowledge. Some understood him and began to respect him. Alas, some hate and abuse him till date!
His message is simple and lucid. He did not claim to be God or an equal of God or a superhuman. He always stated that he was a common man like other common people but he has been assigned the job of conveying the divine guidance to people. He preferred to live in a house of mud when he could live in a palace of gold. He patched his clothes, swept his house, milked his goats, looked after his camels and mended his shoes with his own hands.
His job was to humanise the evil people. He advised them to shun infanticide, incest, sodomy, intoxicants, sorcery, self-mutilation, murdering, cheating, oppressing , exploiting , stealing , lying, worshipping anyone other than the creator of the universe and shun all other evil things.
For the same teachings, he was hated then by some people and he is hated now by some people. There are thousands of books, thousands of movies, thousands of websites, thousands of accounts on the social media and thousands of TV and YouTube channels that vilify him and spread the hate against his followers and against his teachings which are collectively known as Islam.
The haters of the prophet Mohammad (PBUH) claim that he was an extremist and his religion, Islam promotes violence and asks its followers to do Jihad and kill non-Muslims. That is not true at all. He (PBUH) and his true followers are peaceful and peace-loving. Nevertheless, all communities and religions have black sheep and Islam is not an exception.
Islam is, undoubtedly, a religion of peace and justice. But remember, peace and justice are established by helping the weak and by restraining the aggressor and Islam approves of both the ways. It does not promote violence but it does not teach its followers to be cowards and turn a blind eye to violence, injustice, aggression and oppression.
It clearly instructs them to ”fight in the way of God those who fight against you but do not exceed the limits, surely God does not like those who exceed the limits ”. (Quran, 02:190) . The message of Islam is to fight back the bad people and when they come to their senses and give up doing evil things, be friendly, gentle and kind to them.
Islam is certainly unlike Christianity that teaches its followers to turn the other cheek. Islam prohibits killing innocents. It also prohibits dying timidly. It recommends people to live and let others live peacefully.
Another allegation that the enemies of the prophet Mohammad (PBUH) make against him is that he was a pedophile because he married a young girl named Ayesha (RA). This allegation hurts us, Muslims most. To tell you the truth, no Muslim or non-Muslim has pointed a finger at the moral character of the holy prophet (PBUH) before the twentieth century.
It is the modern lecherous haters who when find no reason to malign the holy prophet (PBUH) come up with such false accusations. The honest people of the world know that the childhood, teenage, youth and old-age of the holy prophet (PBUH) were immaculate, unstained and unsullied from any moral corruption. He was not lustful, sensual and libidinous at all.
There came a time when he ruled almost the entire Arabian Peninsula and he was hailed as the greatest hero from every corner of that region. Hundreds of beautiful women came to him and offered to marry him but he was too shy to even look at them. In his later years, he was the most powerful man in his region. If he were a pedophile, who would stop him from practicing pedophilia?
In that case, his enemies would also have more stories of his pedophilia to share, not just the story of Ayesha (RA). In fact, he did not marry any other woman as long as his first wife, Khadija was alive. When she passed away and he was old, he married a few widows and Ayesha (RA) purely for political, educational and religious reasons.
He did not produce children with them. For instance, he married a daughter of his arch-enemy, Abu Sufiyan and a few months later he accepted Islam happily with all his army and supporters. He also married a daughter of his best friend, Umar because she was a widow and many men had rejected her proposal of marriage to them.
Likewise, he married Ayesha (RA) when she was about sixteen years old and she was sharp-witted and shrewd and the holy prophet (PBUH) realised that she could benefit the religion of Islam greatly. His decision proved right and Ayesha (RA) is the only female narrator of hadith in the history of Islam, who narrated over two thousand hadith.
She preserved almost the half of Islam with her narrations and many a time she corrected the greatest male narrators of hadith in Islam like Abu Huraira and Abdullah ibn Umar (RA) . He was a prophet of God and thus he could see the future with the permission of God. He saw that Ayesha (RA) would benefit the religion of Islam and so he married her. She too was happy to marry him. Her father and her other relatives were happy and all the beautiful ladies of that area seeing her marrying the holy prophet (PBUH) envied her.
All are happy with this holy marriage except a few idiots of today. These idiots hate the prophet Mohammad (PBUH) only because he wanted the humans to behave like humans, not like wild animals. However, all friends and enemies of Islam agree that the holy prophet (PBUH) did not consummate his marriage with Ayesha (RA) for three years after he married her.
Which pedophile will wait that long? Why did he marry only her when thousands of girls of her age were waiting restlessly for him to marry them? He was the greatest hero of his nation. He did not need to chase any woman. The women prayed to God to write him in their fate. None but a foolish person will label the holy prophet (PBUH) a pedophile. When his enemies fail to find faults with his infallible teachings and profoundly impressive personality, they make baseless allegations against him.
The prophet (PBUH) and his teachings have changed the lives of the billions of people for good till date. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the west today. No wonder, the greatest writers and intellectuals of every era have held him in high esteem.
(The author is a writer. His books are available on Amazon and Flipkart)
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