Tenets of Islam: The true Status of Prophet Muhammad SAWS (I)
The scholars of Sunnah were strongly opposed to it at inception but the Shi’ite government of that era overpowered them, as the powers that be. The celebration of Mawlid regrettably came to stay with the Ummah. However, since our scholars object to it, it is better to uphold the injunction of Allah, SWT, in Qur’an […]
The scholars of Sunnah were strongly opposed to it at inception but the Shi’ite government of that era overpowered them, as the powers that be. The celebration of Mawlid regrettably came to stay with the Ummah. However, since our scholars object to it, it is better to uphold the injunction of Allah, SWT, in Qur’an 6:90 that: “Those are the ones whom Allah had guided. So, their guidance you must emulate…”
Therefore, it is essential for Muslims worldwide to educate one another on the profound tenets contained in the biography of the Noble Prophet, SAWS. This will enable us to know his true status as clearly illustrated in the Qur’an and Sunnah, without us necessarily taking such for a celebration, talk less of being a festival.
Much has been said about the personality of this Great Prophet and Messenger of Allah, SAWS, who was born an orphan in the Year of Elephant; grew up as a trader and shepherd; married at the age of 25yrs, but was not called to the office of prophethood and messengership until the age of 40yrs. Allah, SWT, has however let us understand in Q.3V144 that: “Muhammad is no more than a Messenger, and indeed Messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you then turn back on your heels? And he who turns back on his heels will do no harm to Allah; and Allah will give reward to those who are grateful”.
We are to remind ourselves that: in the 18th Gregorian century -12th Hijrah century – the orientalists – the western writers – who studied Islam and Muslims’ history for the purpose of distortion, were insolently attacking the personality of Prophet, SAWS, in their works to discredit him. You can find this in the writings Voltaire in his work “Mahomet” written in 1742C.
That trend did not change until the 19th Gregorian Century (13th Hijrah Century) when the Muslim Ummah awoke from their slumber; as many Muslims in many parts of the world started learning the languages of those orientalists. With such awareness the Muslims themselves started counter-writing against those venomous works of the orientalists. The orientalists then started taking a seeming different approach as against the manner of their predecessors. Read the good work of this Christian English writer Sir Thomas W. Arnold “The Preaching of Islam” published in 1896, and compare it to the bad dispensation of the Jewish French writer of Hungarian origin, Ignoz Goldziher “The Creed & Law Of Islam” which Arabic translation was published in 1946C (1366H).
The orientalists of the 20th Gregorian Century (14th Hijrah) studied the life story of the Prophet, SAWS, in a way better than earlier writers although they still have their own blame because their scholarly works were not designed to plead for Islam and its Prophet SAWS. That is why you find some reliefs in the works of later western scholars such as D.S. Margoliouth who wrote “Muhammad And The Rise Of Islam” in 1905, Montgomery Watt who wrote “Muhammad At Mecca” in 1953 as well as William Muir who wrote “The Life Of Mahomet” in 1958, J. Spencer Trimingham who wrote “Islam In West-Africa” in 1967C, etc.
You will find that the likes of these writers differed from their predecessors in blatant attacks and deliberate distortion of facts in their academic works. Sequel to that new trend in the 20th Gregorian Century (14th Hijrah), when the western imperial colonisation started dwindling, we found that the West further adopted a different approach. That became indispensable because many western citizens started embracing Islam as contained in a book edited by Ebrahim Ahmad Bawan of Karachi-Pakistan “Islam Our Choice”.