Studying the Prophet’s Life in the Light of his Message
The present age is regarded as being fraught with difficulties for Islam. But the actual state of affairs is quite the opposite. In fact, Islam has done for the present age what the annual monsoon rains do for agriculture.
But Muslims, because of their lack of awareness, have failed to understand this and as such have not been able to turn Islamic potential to good account.
What is called religious ascendancy in the Quran was not of a temporary nature but was rather a proclamation of the eternal domination of Islam. This meant that, in the world of ideology, such a revolution would take place as would lead to Islam remaining in the forefront forever. Such potential is produced by God, but the task of putting it to the proper use falls on the believers.
The aim of the revolution brought about by the Prophet and his companions in the 7th century was the dominance of divine religion as enshrined in the following verses of the Quran:
They want to extinguish God’s light with their mouths, but God seeks only to perfect His light, no matter how those who deny the truth may abhor it. It is He who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of Truth, so that He may make it prevail [ideologically] over every other religion, however much the polytheists may hate this. (The Quran, 9:32-33)
What is meant here by ascendancy (in Arabic, izhar) in the religious context is ideological and not political pre-eminence. It follows that from the doctrinal standpoint; God’s religion will assume such a superior position that ideological veracity will become the sole preserve of Islam.
Granting ideological ascendancy to divine religions is no simple matter. It is, in fact, akin to producing an entire new history. As a matter of fact, God’s religion has always enjoyed a superior position, but since ancient times, human sciences and learning had been evolving along superstitious lines. This had cast a veil over its pristine state.
Now God ordained that such an ideological revolution should be brought about by the Final Prophet as would transform this unfavourable, man-made situation. After this had taken place, the human sciences themselves would testify to the truth of divine religion. By the accepted academic standard of human beings, the religion of monotheism would be proven authentic.
In the above verse, the predominance of religion was to result from a divine plan carried out with the succour of God by the Prophet and his companions. And indeed, this revolution initiated a new process in human history. Its aim was to unravel all superstitious veils in order that all such hidden scientific proofs might be revealed as would highlight the truth of the religion of monotheism. This revolution in modern times has reached its culmination.
There were two chief objectives of this predominance of religion. One was to bring the system of religious coercion to an end, so that the task of dawah—a task which had to be performed in the past in very difficult circumstances—could be performed in a propitious atmosphere. The other aim was to lend the full support of rational argument to God’s religion, so that no other religion could compare with Islam in terms of ideological veracity. These two tasks have been performed on a large scale in modern times. We give below a brief description of this.
In ancient times the rule of monarchy was prevalent all over the world. Such a system, based as it was on personalities, could be upheld only by force. That is why kings everywhere had resorted to coercion to establish and maintain their positions, inevitably crushing any tendency towards intellectual or religious freedom. This state of affairs was a permanent obstacle to performing dawah as well as to the general development of human thought. The aim of the revolution brought about by the Prophet and his Companions was to abolish the oppressive political system of the times and to usher in an age of freedom and democracy. This revolution gradually influenced the course of human history and remained alive until in modern times it reached its culmination. Now calling people to accept religious truth can be done in total freedom. Earlier this task was seriously hindered by the atmosphere of oppression.
In ancient times polytheism (in Arabic, shirk) dominated the minds of people all over the world. Whole nations were so mentally fettered by superstitious thought that the development of science had become well-nigh impossible. The Prophet and his companions, however, put an end to the irrational beliefs arising from superstition. In this way they opened the doors to the scientific way of thinking and paved the way for the advent of the age of science. Now the scientific revolution of today has, in turn, opened up vast opportunities for Islamic dawah.
One result of this scientific revolution, which was, in fact, a by-product of the Islamic revolution, is our modern system of communications, which has made it possible for the first time in human history to perform the task of the propagation of Islam much more rapidly and on a world-wide scale. According to a tradition of the Prophet, a time would come when God’s word would enter all the homes of the “world” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 23814). It is a prophecy, in an indirect sense, of the coming of this age of fast communications. For, without the modern media, the universal propagation of Islam could never have become so accelerated.
This modern scientific revolution has resulted in the development of a new, scientific rationale in support of Islamic beliefs. Earlier, dayees of Islam had only traditional types of arguments to draw upon. In present times, it has indeed become possible to authenticate Islamic realities by measuring them up to accepted scientific norms.
In ancient times, religion was considered sacrosanct, so that any study of it could only be uncritical.
That is why, academically, no distinction could be made between reliable and unreliable religions. In present times, under the influence of the scientific revolution, religion has begun to be treated in the same objective and critical manner as other non-religious matters and subjected to the same scientific scrutiny.
This has established on a purely intellectual level that, historically, Islam is the only reliable religion. All other religions are lacking in this historical credibility. It was only after this intellectual awakening that it became possible to verify the truth of Islam by the standards of pure human knowledge, and to advance arguments for its being, out of all the religions, the only true religion.
These modern developments have brought Islam to the point of unopposed victory. Now the need of the hour is for Muslims to end unilaterally all activities characterized by hatred and violence against their madu nations, so that normal relations may be established between dayee and madu and Islam may be communicated to them in strife-free circumstances.
There is now the possibility of initiating a serious and fruitful dialogue between Islam and non-Islam. Undoubtedly the results of such efforts will be in favour of the former.
A Great Potential
Since direct argument is not possible so far as religious beliefs concerning the unseen world are concerned, only indirect or inferential argument can be applied in order to prove their veracity. This fact had led the scholars to believe that religious realities were a matter of beliefs alone; they were not scientific truths. But in present times, after the smashing of the atom, a revolution has taken place in the science of logic, and now it has been admitted that inferential argument too is, in essence, as valid as direct argument. Subsequently, it has become possible to establish religious realities at the same scientific level on which proofs (or disproofs) are offered for material or non-religious theories.
In ancient times when man looked at the world, he would see that apparently there was in existence a great variety of objects so different from each other as to seem at times to be almost the opposite of one another. This observation produced the mentality of shirk. People thought that if things were diverse, there should also be a diversity of creators. But scientific studies have shown that this difference, or diversity, is only on the surface. Otherwise all things have originated from the same matter. This discovery deprived the shirk of any scientific basis, while scientific findings established an intellectual basis for monotheism.
According to the statements of the Quran, the signs of God lay hidden in the heavens and the human mind. Scientific studies brought them to the knowledge of the people (The Quran, 41:53). Ultimately, the Universe assumed the form of a great book of divine arguments.
With the new discoveries of science, many things have come to light as have made it possible to use new arguments to establish realities which are of religious importance. For instance, carbon-14 dating has made it possible to specify the exact age of the body of Ramses II (Moses’s contemporary) so that the following Quranic statement could be scientifically verified:
This day We shall save your body, so that you may become a sign to all posterity. (The Quran, 10:92)
Islam and the Modern Age
Islam is a religion of peace, in the full sense of the word. This being so, the question arises: Can Islam, which offers the teachings of peace, be relevant for the modern age? Can it regain a superior position for itself in changed circumstances?
The answer is totally in the affirmative. The very fact of Islam being a religion of peace shows that it is an eternal religion. If it had been otherwise, it would not have endured. For in this day and age, according to modern thinking, the use of violence has been totally rejected. Now the human mind finds acceptable or worthy of consideration only that system the teachings of which are based on peace and non-violence.
Communism, for example, has been rejected by modern thinking. One of the major reasons for this was that the proponents of communism believed in violence. And under no circumstances can the modern mind find this acceptable. Other ideologies like Nazism and Fascism have already been rejected on the same score. If modern man dislikes religious or secular extremism, it is because this leads ultimately to violence.
Islam, however, is a religion of nature and has always been an upholder of peace. For this reason, violence and extremism have been held totally undesirable from day one. For human construction, Islam has played a great role as a result of which human history entered a new phase of progress and development. The time has come today for Islam to play its constructive role once again and lead human history into a new phase of progress.
What is known as scientific or technical progress is the result of the discovery of nature. This nature has always existed in our world, so why has its discovery been so delayed? Why could the scientific progress made over the last few centuries not have been made thousands of years ago?
The reason was that in ancient times religion and science (divine learning and human learning) were, inextricably linked with one another. In this way, religious dogma was a permanent obstacle to scientific development. What Islam did was to separate religion, which in those days was nothing but a set of superstitious beliefs, from the process of scientific investigation. For instance, lunar eclipses and solar eclipses were believed to affect human destiny. The Prophet of Islam declared that eclipses had no bearing on the fate of human beings, for all such events were astronomical in nature and unrelated to the human lot. (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 20178)
This separation of religion and science is ably illustrated by the well-known incident of the pollination of dates which was narrated by Musa ibn Talha on the authority of his father and recorded in the Sahih of Imam Muslim:
I was with the Prophet when he passed by some people who had climbed up to the top of some date palms. The Prophet enquired as to what they were doing. He was told that they were pollinating the trees in order to fertilize them. The Prophet said, ‘I don’t think this will benefit them.’ When people learned of the Prophet’s comment, they stopped the practice of pollination. The yield, however, was very low that year. When the Prophet came to know of this, he said, “If they benefit from pollination, they should continue with this practice. I had only made a guess and formed an opinion. There is no need to follow my opinion in such matters. If, on the other hand, I say anything about God, it must be adhered to. Because I never say anything untrue when I am speaking of God.” (Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 2363)
The Prophet’s advice amounted to de-linking religion and science. In this way scientific research found an atmosphere of freedom in which to advance. Subsequently, for the first time in human history, scientific knowledge began to develop without the intervention of religion, and gradually reached the present stage of its development.
Today, once again, man is faced with a more serious impasse. That is, despite extraordinary progress in science and technology, human life is beset with all kinds of problems, and there appears to be no sign of getting rid of them.
This modern dilemma, in brief, is the unwillingness to recognize that freedom should have its limits. Modern man hailed personal liberty as the summum bonum but failed to set boundaries to it. Therefore, freedom became akin to permissiveness, which can lead only to anarchy. All the afflictions of western society today are traceable to this. Now man requires an ideology, which specifies distinct areas of freedom, and draws the line between desirable and undesirable actions. Only Islam can provide this kind of ideology.
Today the time is ripe for people to open their hearts to Islamic ideology. For one thing, the fall of communism has produced an ideological vacuum, which Islam alone can fill.
In the present world, we have countries, which are economic super-powers and military super-powers. But the place of the ideological super-power remains vacant, and that belongs, potentially, to Islam alone. There is only one obstacle to the realization of this potential and that is Muslim movements having taken a violent course in present times. These movements present Islam to the world in the guise of a violent religion. That is why modern man shies away from it. He develops a bias against it. But when this prejudicial state of affairs is brought to an end, and Islam is presented to the world as a non-violent religion, with a peaceful ideology, once again humanity will welcome it with open arms.
There is no religion of this kind today except Islam. It is Islam and Islam alone which meets all human needs. Individually, there are many men and women who, having studied Islam, have acknowledged its very special qualities. Out of these, some acknowledge the virtues of Islam in the ideological sense. Others have gone further and accepted Islam as a total way of life.
Dawah Activism
Islamic activism, in respect of its method, is based on non-violence, and in respect of its goal, on dawah. Dawah, in fact, is another name for the peaceful struggle to propagate Islam. It would therefore be true to say that Islamic activism and dawah activism are synonymous.
The work of dawah is no simple task. It enjoys a pivotal position. When this work is performed with thoroughness, all other difficulties will automatically be overcome. On this subject the Quran has this to say:
1. If we perform dawah, God will protect us from all evildoers. (The Quran, 5:67)
2. Dawah turns enemies into friends (The Quran, 41:34)
3. Dawah proves the ideological superiority of Islam. And without doubt there is nothing greater than ideological superiority.
4. Dawah produces positive thinking among the ummah which, in the Quran, is called ‘honest counsel’. (The Quran, 7:68)
5. The task of dawah is done through human beings, but conducive conditions for its performance are provided by God Himself—just as the rains are sent by God, but the work of cultivation is to be performed by the farmers. Now it is the duty of the believers to refrain from squandering their energies on fruitless activities. They should instead devote all their efforts to dawah work. All the best results will follow.
When, his life under threat, the Prophet of Islam left his native Makkah along with 200 of his Companions, the Makkan leaders having made their lives unbearable the very first speech he made after reaching Madinah was quite remarkable in being untinged by bitterness or threats of revenge on or retaliation against the Makkans. (Seerah ibn Hishain, Vol. 2, p. 105-106)
On reaching Madinah, he attached the utmost importance to entering into peace negotiations with the different tribes around Madinah, e.g. the Banu Khuza’a. These peace agreements were to the effect that neither would they (the tribe) fight against them (the Muslims) nor would the Muslims fight against them. Most of the Arab tribes entered into these peace agreements.
But the Quraysh of Makkah insisted on maintaining an aggressive stance, and even made some hostile moves as well. Finally, in the sixth year of Hijrah, the Prophet succeeded in resolving matters by a peace agreement reached at a place called Hudaybiya. However, this agreement with the Quraysh was made by unilaterally accepting their conditions.
Islam is a peace-loving religion in the full sense. If others create an atmosphere of violence and disharmony, the demand of Islam on such occasions will be to refrain from retaliatory violence and avoid reaction. Such positive steps are to be taken as will enable peace to be established between the Muslims and non-Muslims.
The reason for this is that the aims Islam wants to promote can be realized only in a peaceful atmosphere. In the negative atmosphere of violence and confrontation, no target can be achieved.
That is why the Prophet of Islam always unilaterally exercised patience. Whenever others wanted to ignite the fire of hatred and violence, he adopted such strategies as might, by God’s guidance, bring about an atmosphere of mutual love, toleration and moderation.
Whenever they kindle the fire of war, God puts it out. (The Quran, 5:64)
In the context of the position of ascendancy assumed by Islam in the early days, Muslims are duty bound to continue their struggle in this direction, from generation to generation, so that the religion of Islam may always enjoy a superior position.
This is a non-political goal and can be achieved only through non-political means. Only that movement is right for the achievement of this goal, which takes up Islam purely ideologically and confines this struggle to a purely peaceful sphere.
