BY MUSAWER IQBAL
Allah SWT says in the Quran:
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ.
“And we have not sent you (O Muhammad) except as a mercy to the all the worlds.” [Surah 21:107].
When Muslims around the world reflect upon the life of the Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) this month, we look at his mercy manifest in his noble birth, his personal qualities, his noble appearance, and his life of sacrifice, simplicity, zuhd and piety – a grateful servant of Allah (swt). We also look at the status that Allah (swt) has given him in this world – Khairu-Khalqihi (the best of creation), the master of Messengers – and in the Akhira, the one given the right of intercession with Allah (swt) on the Last Day.
However, can we do justice to remembering his life by reducing his (salallahu alaihi wasallam) mercy to just individual acts of ‘ibadah? Surely his (salallahu alaihi wasallam) life encompasses his message and mission, which were central to why Allah Ta’ala sent him (salallahu alaihi wasallam) as a Messenger to humanity.
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِنَّا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ شَاهِدًا وَمُبَشِّرًا وَنَذِيرًا .وَدَاعِيًا إِلَى اللَّهِ بِإِذْنِهِ وَسِرَاجًا مُّنِيرًا
‘O Prophet. We have you sent as a witness, as a bearer of good news and as a Warner. And as one to calls to Allah, by His Permission, and as a lamp spreading light.’ [Surah 33:45-46].
His (salallahu alaihi wasallam) message was a mercy that defined a distinct way of life – a set of ideas of why we exist, what our purpose of life is, where we will go after this life and who should be the source of all values, laws and systems in society. Rasool Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) came in a society that was steeped in jahilliyah – a society where the rulers oppressed the ruled, where corruption and cheating was rife, women were treated as objects, the orphan’s wealth was taken illegally and people were valued by the colour of their skin and class. Rasool Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) launched a mighty struggle against these man-made practices and led a struggle to uproot the darkness of jahillyah and establish a society based on the values, laws and systems revealed by Allah (swt).
الَر.كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ لِتُخْرِجَ النَّاسَ مِنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِمْ إِلَى صِرَاطِ الْعَزِيزِ الْحَمِيدِ .
Allah Ta’ala says: ‘Alif, Lam, Ra. [This is] a Book which We have revealed to you (O Muhammad) so that you might bring mankind out of darkness into the light by permission of their Lord – to the path of the Exalted in Might, the Praiseworthy’. [Surah 14:1]
Rabi’ ibn Amr, was sent as an envoy to the Persian leader Rustom in the time of the Khilafah Rashida. He told Rustom “Allah sent us to deliver you from the servitude of man to the servitude of the Lord of man and from the unjust nature of other religions to the justice of Islam and from the constriction of this Dunya to the vast life of the Hereafter.”
People who do not submit to Allah (swt) will naturally end up submitting to something else from the creation of Allah. In previous generations, people submitted to other men like tribal leaders, emperors and kings.
Nothing has changed today! Today people submit to the laws and rules made by men in the form of dictators and ‘democrats’. Today it is the politicians in collusion with the high priests of capitalism – bankers and big business that are subjugating the people. The result is a world dominated by a way of life that keeps people consumed in darkness chasing nothing other than material desires. A world where women are used as sexual objects in the name of ‘liberation’, where the poorest three billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day and where the evil of racism still persists and Muslims and others live in fear of being bombed and killed every day.
The Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) held on to Quran & Sunnah and worshipped Allah (swt) alone – and Allah (swt) made him victorious, establishing his authority in Madinah al Munnawwara and the whole Arabian Peninsula. His (salallahu alaihi wasallam) successors the righteous guided Khulafa, did the same, implementing Quran and Sunnah in reality – and Allah (swt) made them victorious spreading the light of Islam from modern day Persia in the east to Egypt in the west.
Islam spread its light to the world from what is now called Morocco to South Asia – unifying the people. Allah‘Azza wa Jal brought millions of people out of lives of war and conflict, poverty and tyrannical rule to the peace, justice and mercy of Islam – a golden age when education, scholarship, healthcare and technology flourished.
Today Muslims across the world commemorate the life of the Messenger of Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam),but as an Ummah we do not implement his message nor continue his noble mission. Our countries are dominated by much of the same jahillyah that was in Makkah 1400 years ago. What makes it still worse is that all Muslim countries today surrender their political and economic will to the colonial powers; a matter that the Arab Peninsula never experienced even in the time of jahiliyyah. The Ummah today is living under the darkness of corrupt and oppressive rulers – divided into numerous weak national identities and states – and defying his (salallahu alaihi wasallam) Sunnah in governance, economy, law and order, relations between men and women in society and international affairs. The state and government that was the Sunnah of the Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) – the Khilafah - has been replaced by secular man-made laws and rules.
Across the Muslim world, increasing numbers of Muslims are struggling to see Islam as a way of life implemented in a state, which will then carry the message and mercy of Islam to the whole of mankind. It is for this reason that the West mock and ridicule the personality and mission of Rasool Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) to prevent people seeing the true Message of Islam that Rasool Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) brought as a ‘Mercy for mankind’. Islam is depicted as backward and medieval, oppressive to women, violent and barbaric. This at a time when humanity can see how western man-made systems of secularism and democracy have brought chaos to the world – third world poverty, wars for grabbing resources, cozying up to tyrants by western governments for their interests and now austerity cuts paid for by the masses to keep the corrupt capitalist system afloat.
The Quraysh used the same propaganda tactics when Rasool Allah (salallahu alaihi wasallam) launched his call in Makkah. But the Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) was never deterred in his mission to establish this Deen. He (salallahu alaihi wasallam) persevered with patience depending on Allah (swt) and never allowed any of the difficulties he (salallahu alaihi wasallam) faced to slow him down in his mission or shy away from speaking about the truth of this Deen.
This is the struggle that is taking place between Islam and Secularism – between the system revealed by Allah (swt) and the system made by man’s own hands, which has now gone bust.
As we commemorate the life of the Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) let us enthuse ourselves with the same zeal and determination of the Prophet (salallahu alaihi wasallam) and his (salallahu alaihi wasallam) beloved Companions (ra). Let us rise to the challenge of carrying this Dawah to the people of the West, presenting Islam as an alternative for humanity and the Khilafah State as the State that will stand up against the atrocities of man-made systems we see in the world today.
لَقَدْ جَاءكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُّمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُم بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَؤُوفٌ رَّحِيمٌ . فَإِن تَوَلَّوْاْ فَقُلْ حَسْبِيَ اللّهُ لا إِلَـهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ عَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ وَهُوَ رَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْعَظِيمِ.
‘There has come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Your suffering is distressing to him. He is deeply concerned for you. He is gentle and merciful towards the believers. But if they turn away, say “Allah is enough for me. There is no god but Him. I put my trust in Him. He is the Lord of the Mighty Throne.”’ [Surah 9:128-129].
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