At 40, Angel Gabriel appeared before him in the cave of Hira, three miles from Mecca, where he would often spend time in reflection and meditation. The angel brought to him the first message from God, conveying that he was appointed as the Divine's messenger.
On the occasion of Milad un-Nabi, let us seek prophetic guidance from his life and teachings.
The Prophet was the first person to bring about a revolution to establish equality in practise. In his letter No 175, Swami Vivekanand wrote: "If ever any religion approached this equality appreciably, it is Islam and Islam alone."
In an address during his last pilgrimage, the Prophet said, "No Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, and no non-Arab has superiority over an Arab. No black man has superiority over a red and no red over a black. All are born of Adam, and Adam was born of the earth."
All artificial walls dividing humanity crumbled. A new age was ushered in, in which there was no high or low status and no discrimination. It was an age in which one's position in society would be determined by character and achievement, not by accidents of birth or membership of a particular race.
The Prophet’s revolution brought into existence an egalitarian social structure, in which everyone enjoyed freedom of expression with no constraints whatsoever.
Education is essential for both men and women. Without education, both are incomplete, believed the Prophet. He clearly stated that learning is a duty for every person. He gave so much importance to women's education that he designated a day every week for it at the Masjid-e-Nabawi, the mosque he built next to his house in Medina.
As a result, his wife, Aisha, was more educated than many men of her time. That is why, the destroying of women’s educational institutions by the Taliban goes against the Prophet’s teachings.
In the traditional age, free dialogue was a taboo, particularly among the religious. But the Prophet of Islam encouraged dialogue between foes and friends alike. He once had a dialogue with representatives of three religions — Islam, Christianity, and Judaism -- probably the first of its kind in history that happened inside the Mosque. This shows how much the Prophet of Islam valued peaceful interaction with adherents of different religions.
Inter-religious dialogue aims to seek peaceful solutions to controversial matters. In ancient times, people used to take a confrontational course whenever differences arose. In such cases, the Prophet prescribed the path of peaceful negotiations.
He was born at a time when an atmosphere of militancy prevailed in Arab society, there being, in their view, no other path to justice. But the Prophet always opted to avoid conflicts.
Another well-known instance of the Prophet's dislike for hostilities is the Hudaibiyyah Peace Treaty, in which he accepted all the enemy’s conditions so as to arrive at a peaceful settlement with his dire opponents.
In life, we have to choose between two courses: confrontational and non-confrontational, peaceful and violent. The Prophet's life teaches us that in all matters, it is always better to abandon the confrontational course in favour of the peaceful or non-confrontational one.
