THE EMERGENCE AND LEGACY OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
Poised between Africa, Asia and Europe, the Arabian Peninsula lay at the heart of the ancient world. Yet no ambitious conqueror had invaded the territory; no ruler had sought to bring it under his domain. All military campaigns had been limited to the area bordering Arabia—Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. As for the Arabian Peninsula, no one had considered it worth fighting for. True, its shores were lapped by three seas, but its interior offered little beyond the inhospitable desert and barren mountains.
Makkah was the central township of this land; it was in this “uncultivable valley” in which it lay, that the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, on whom be peace, was born. His father, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abdul Muttalib, died a few months before the birth of the Prophet. He was only six when his mother, Aminah, also passed away. For two years, he was cared for by his grandfather, ‘Abdul Muttalib, and when he too died, the Prophet’s uncle, Abu Talib, became his guardian. Abu Talib’s demise occurred three years before the emigration of the Prophet to Madinah. At the most difficult stage of his life, the Prophet was left without a protector. But nature had endowed the Prophet with a remarkable personality. Those who saw him in his youth said: “This boy has a great future.” His dignified and impressive personality grew with age. ‘Ali8 once commented, “Those who saw him for the first time were filled with awe, and those who came close to him grew to love him.” The Prophet’s noble character was undisputed, yet people’s attitude to him changed when he announced his prophetic mission in his fortieth year. They poured scorn on his claim to prophethood. “Look at this village boy who reckons he’s in contact with the heavens,” they would say.
His preaching mission extended over a mere twenty-three years. During this short time, he brought about a revolution among the Arab tribes, the like of which the world had never seen. Within one hundred years, this revolution had vanquished both the Sassanian and the Byzantine Empires. With the fall of these two great empires, Islam annexed the territory extending from Iran and Iraq to Bukhara in the east, while in the west, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and then the whole of North Africa also fell to Islam. And the torrent did not halt there. In A.D. 711, Islam surged across the Straits of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula. In 732, a Frankish prince, Charles Martel, arrested the advance of Islam at Tours. Then followed the Crusades, stretching over two centuries, and after the Crusades, the horrific onslaughts of the Tartar tribes. But despite these attacks from the outside, the Islamic Empire held its own until the 15th century, when Spain was lost due to infighting among the Muslims.
It was then the turn of the Turks and the Mughals to be aroused by the spirit of Islam. In 1453 the Turks conquered Constantinople and advanced into Eastern Europe as far as Yugoslavia. A Turkish army remained encamped outside Vienna until 1683. In the 16th century, the Mughals established Islamic rule in India and Afghanistan. Over the last thirteen centuries, Muslims have spread to every corner of the globe. Close to four-dozen countries in Asia and Africa have come to constitute a Muslim world. According to the World Muslim Gazetter there are 900 million Muslims today.
This resulted from a twenty-three-year effort in Arabia under the Prophet’s guidance. In this short time, the Islamic revolution not only assured itself of a permanent place in human history; but also created a new history of its own. Humans alone do not have it in them to accomplish such a gigantic task; God can only do it. The Islamic revolution was indeed the work of God. When the Muslims returned from their victory at the Battle of Badr, they were met at Rauha by some well-wishers, who congratulated them on the outcome of the fighting. “Why do you congratulate us?” asked Salmah ibn Salamah. “The enemy was like tethered camels, and we duly slaughtered them.”
All of this was evidently pre-ordained by God. From the bare Arabian Desert, He raised a people of extraordinary tenacity whose characters had been tempered by their environment. They knew only acceptance or denial; they had no third alternative. All the natural qualities needed for dedication to a cause were preserved in them. Added to this was the fact that the two great powers of the day lay on their country’s borders. It was only natural that the mighty empires of Rome and Persia should not take kindly to the emergence of a new power on their doorstep. In their attempt to arrest the rise of Islam, they waged war against the Muslims. In so doing, they forced the Muslims to fight back. This allowed the Muslims to conquer the empires of Rome and Persia, whose borders, at that time, extended to the farthest reaches of the known world. There is no doubt that the conquests of Islam were not wars of aggression against others; instead, they were a response to aggression from others. They were wars of self-defence, and never, in any country, have there been two minds on the justification for such battles.
Over and above the political significance of these events was that the Islamic revolution opened out hitherto unexplored opportunities for humanity. It made God’s revealed religion a historical reality, something that it had not been before.
It ushered in the age of the press, ensuring the preservation of the Quran for all time. It brought the age of democracy and freedom of speech to the world, removing all artificial barriers obstructing preachers in their call to truth. Finally, it made scientific discoveries possible, enabling religious truths to be proved and explained rationally and intellectually.
An even more important aspect of this revolution was that, through the Prophet, God showed the world what would happen in the hereafter. His life and mission provided us with a preview of the events of the next world. Those who accepted and patterned their lives upon the truth that he brought to them were made supreme, and that is how they will remain forever in the hereafter if God wills. The wicked, meanwhile, were made to taste the humiliation that they would forever be prey to in the world to come.
History shows that those who devote their lives to God always appear in a passive and depressed condition, while those devoted to wealth and power always seem to have their way in the world. Such is the sombre evidence of the history of saints and prophets. This state of affairs is quite contrary to reality, for, eventually, God will bestow everlasting honour and glory upon His faithful servants, while self-worshippers and worshippers of the world will forever be assigned to a pit of humiliation and disgrace.
This world is for our trial. Here, people have the chance to act as they please. That is why God does not hold anyone in check in this world. But once, at least, through the prophet of Islam, God has shown on earth the situation that will prevail in its most complete and permanent form in the next world.
The companions of the Prophet, whose homes were demolished, for whom the earth had become a place of unmitigated oppression, who were robbed of their properties, who were so victimized and terrorized that they lived in constant fear of extermination—these very people were raised to a position of great honour. The Quraysh and the Jews, the Romans and the Iranians, the Yemenis and the Ghassanis—those who took pride in their wealth and power—were meanwhile reduced to ignominy and disgrace.
Every prophet who comes from God provides a criterion of divine justice. Through him, God announces to humanity the decisions He Himself will announce in the next world. But the Prophet of Islam gave such a display of divine justice that it became a world experience and an accepted historical reality. We could see with our own eyes how God honoured His faithful servants and degraded those who rebelled against Him. Of course, heaven and hell were realities that would be made manifest in the next world. But we had been given a preliminary glimpse of them in this world so that we might take heed.
What really emerged with the prophethood of Muhammad was the divinity of God Himself. That is why the New Testament foretells his prophethood as the “Kingdom of God.” Undoubtedly, the Prophet’s revolution had tremendous political and strategic implications. But its primary importance is as an earthly manifestation of God’s glory, a revelation of divine justice. The revolution of the Prophet Muhammad showed us in advance the realities that would come upon us in the stark and absolute form in the hereafter.
