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لَقَدۡ جَآءَکُمۡ رَسُوۡلٌ مِّنۡ اَنۡفُسِکُمۡ عَزِیۡزٌ عَلَیۡہِ مَا عَنِتُّمۡ حَرِیۡصٌ عَلَیۡکُمۡ بِالۡمُؤۡمِنِیۡنَ رَءُوۡفٌ رَّحِیۡمٌ ﴿۱۲۸ ﴾
“Certainly a Messenger has come to you from among yourselves; very painful for him (or very hard on him to bear) is your falling into distress, most concerned (he is) for you, to the believers (he is) compassionate, merciful.” — ch. 9, Al-Barā’at, v. 128
وَ مَاۤ اَرۡسَلۡنٰکَ اِلَّا رَحۡمَۃً لِّلۡعٰلَمِیۡنَ ﴿۱۰۷ ﴾
“And We have not sent you (O Prophet) but as a mercy to the nations (ِraḥmat-un lil-‘ālamīn).” — ch. 21, Al-Anbiyā’,v. 107
In Sūrah al-Fātiḥah, Allah is described as “the Lord of the worlds”, Lord of the ‘ālamīn. It then says that He is Raḥmān and Raḥīm, which both indicate that He is Merciful in the highest degree. In the second short verse that I have recited, it is the Holy Prophet Muhammad who is called a mercy or raḥmat to the ‘ālamīn, i.e. “the worlds” or “the nations”. So Allah being Himself a mercy to all nations and people, He then sent to them the Holy Prophet Muhammad as a mercy from Him. Thus the Holy Prophet reflected God’s mercy in this world in how he treated other people.
In the first verse that I recited, it is stated at the beginning that the Holy Prophet himself is one of the human beings, he is “from among yourselves”. Then it is said that the troubles and problems faced by humanity, their degraded moral condition and their misdeeds, bear very hard on him. He is most concerned about their welfare. In the statement that “very painful for him (or very hard on him to bear) is your falling into distress, most concerned (he is) for you”, “you” and “your” mean all humans, not just his followers. We can see this because the next words are: “to the believers (he is) compassionate, merciful”. These words mention believers in particular, that he is compassionate and merciful to them, ra’ūf-un raḥīm-un.
Many other verses of the Quran tell us that God Himself has these two qualities, of being compassionate and merciful, ra’ūf-un raḥīm-un, towards all humanity (2:143, 22:65). Another verse which makes it quite clear, in different words, that God is compassionate and merciful, ra’ūf-un raḥīm-un, to all mankind, says that God has created animals which “carry your heavy loads to regions which you could not reach but with distress to yourselves. Surely your Lord is Compassionate, Merciful” (16:7). The qualities of Allah being ra’ūf and raḥīm were reflected in the Holy Prophet being ra’ūf and raḥīm.
In the same chapter 16 it is mentioned, as regards those who were persecuting the Holy Prophet and the Muslims, and making evil plans against them, that God might humiliate them on earth, or take them by surprise with His punishment, or catch them so that they will not be able to escape, or reduce their numbers and power gradually. But immediately after this the Quran says:
“Your Lord is surely Compassionate, Merciful” (16:47).
These verses were revealed before his Hijra to Madinah. And all this did happen. The enemies lost the various battles they waged against the Muslims, and by the time of the conquest of Makkah their numbers, power and morale had been so reduced that they surrendered without fighting. It was then that God displayed His attributes of being Compassionate and Merciful through the Holy Prophet when the Holy Prophet forgave them all their crimes and let them go without any punishment. In his dealings with people of all kinds, the Holy Prophet, being totally obedient to Allah, demonstrated Allah’s qualities of being ra’ūf-un raḥīm-un.
Incidents from the Holy Prophet’s life illustrate these aspects of his character. Once, a Jewish scholar had lent some money to the Prophet Muhammad. He demanded it back. The Holy Prophet said: “I have no money that I can give you.” The man said: “Muhammad, I will not leave from here until you pay what you owe me.” The Holy Prophet said: “All right, I will stay with you.”
So he remained with him through the Ẓuhr, ‘Aṣr, Maghrib and ‘Ishā prayers, and the next morning’s Fajr prayers. His Companions became annoyed at the Jew’s behaviour and threatened him that they would throw him out. When the Holy Prophet saw this, he stopped them. They said:
“O Messenger of Allah, Can a Jew hold you up?”
He said:
“Allah has forbidden me to do injustice to anyone who is under our compact of security, and such people [the words ‘and such people’ may also mean ‘and anyone else’].”
As the sun rose, the Jew suddenly said:
“I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and I bear witness that you are the Messenger of Allah. I give a half of my property in the way of Allah. I swear by Allah that I did what I did only because I was testing you to see if the qualities that are recorded in the Torah about the promised prophet are found in you or not. The Torah says: ‘… He will not be abusive in language nor hard-hearted, nor will he shout loudly in the streets, nor will he indulge in foul talk …’ Here is my property. You may give any order with regard to it.” (Mishkat, Kitab-ul-Fitan, ch. ‘Morals and habits of the Holy Prophet’, sec. 3)
In this hadith, the Jewish scholar has mentioned a prophecy about the Holy Prophet to be found in the Torah. It is possible that he is referring to the following in the book of Isaiah in the Bible, where God says:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. … In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the far-off lands will put their hope” (Isaiah, 42:1–4).
Isaiah lived about 1300 years before the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
Safiyyah, a wife of the Holy Prophet, was a Jew. Hafsah was a wife of the Holy Prophet from his own tribe of the Quraish and daughter of Hazrat Umar. Hafsah once described Safiyyah, with disrespect, as “daughter of a Jew”. It is reported in Hadith:
“The news reached Safiyyah that Hafsah said: ‘The daughter of a Jew’, so she wept. Then the Prophet came to her while she was crying, so he said: ‘What makes you cry?’ She said: ‘Hafsah said to me that I am the daughter of a Jew.’ So the Prophet said: ‘And you are the daughter of a Prophet, and your uncle is a Prophet, and you are married to a Prophet, so what is she boasting to you about?’ Then he said: ‘Fear Allah, O Hafsah’.” (Tirmidhi, book 49: ‘Virtues’, hadith 3894)
According to another version of this report, the Holy Prophet’s wives Aishah and Hafsah (daughters of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Umar) had said about Safiyyah: “We are more honoured by the Messenger of Allah than her,” and “We are the wives of the Prophet and his cousins”. When Safiyyah informed the Holy Prophet of this, he said to her:
“Why did you not say (to them): How can you be better than me when my husband is Muhammad, my father is Aaron, and my uncle is Moses?” (Tirmidhi, book 49: ‘Virtues’, hadith 3892)
The Holy Prophet was asking Safiyyah to tell Hafsah and Aishah (God be pleased with them all) that she was related to three prophets, to two of them by descent and to one by marriage, while they were related to only one prophet!
On the same subject, of the Holy Prophet’s Jewish wife being looked down upon by other wives, there is another report:
“The camel of Safiyyah was fatigued, and Zainab had a surplus mount. The Messenger of Allah said to Zainab: ‘Give her the camel.’ She said: ‘Should I give to that Jewess?’ Thereupon the Messenger of Allah became angry and kept away from her during (the months of) Dhu al-Hijjah, Muharram, and a part of Safar” (Abu Dawud, book 42: Kitab-us-Sunnah, ch. 4, hadith 4602).
This shows how highly displeased the Holy Prophet was that a person should be mentioned in this way because of belonging to a certain religious or ethnic group.
The Holy Prophet was always humble about his status. It is reported: “A man came to the Messenger of Allah and said (addressing him as): ‘O the best of creation (Khair al-Bariyya)!’ Thereupon the Messenger of Allah said:
‘That is Abraham, peace be upon him’.” (Sahih Muslim, book 43: ‘Virtues’, ch. 41, hadith 2369a)
Another report is as follows:
“Umar said: I heard the Prophet saying, ‘Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a servant of Allah. So call me the servant of Allah and His Messenger” (Bukhari, book 60: Prophets, ch. 48, hadith 3445).
In line with this, Muslims refer to the Holy Prophet as ‘abdu-hū wa rasūluh, and they have never elevated him to a category beyond that of mortal human beings, even though some Muslims have exaggerated in adding certain supernatural attributes to him which are not supported by the Quran.
An incident is reported as follows:
“One day the Messenger of Allah was performing wuḍu (ablution before prayer). His Companions started rubbing the water dropping from his wuḍu on their own bodies. The Messenger of Allah asked: ‘Why are you doing this?’ They replied: ‘Because of love for Allah and His Messenger.’ He said: ‘He who wishes to love Allah and His Messenger, or wishes that Allah and His Messenger love him, should speak the truth when he talks, faithfully return anything that he is entrusted with, and fulfil the rights of his neighbour’.” (Mishkat, Kitab-ul-Adab, ch. Love and mercy for the creation).
The Holy Prophet did not want to be venerated in this way, where people treat anything which he used, or anything which touched his body, as holy and sacred. He wanted people to be truthful and do good to others.
Lastly, I will relate a hadith report I came across recently. A well-known Companion narrated that he was sitting among a group of very poor muhājirīn (Emigrants), so poor that they had such little clothing that some of them were covering parts of their bodies with the garments that others were wearing. A man was reciting the Quran to them. Suddenly the Holy Prophet appeared and stood there. Then the reciter stopped and the Holy Prophet said salām to everyone. He then asked:
What were you doing?
They replied that they were listening to the book of Allah from one of their reciters. The Holy Prophet said:
“Praise be to Allah, Who has made such people among my followers that I have been commanded to sit with them.”
Then he sat down with them, in a way that he made himself equal with them. He then asked people, by a hand sign, to form a circle. The narrator says that the Holy Prophet didn’t know any of them except him. He then said to them:
“Be happy, you poor emigrants, because on the Day of Judgment you will enter paradise with perfect light upon you, long before the rich people enter.” (Abu Dawud, book 26, hadith 3666)
May Allah enable us to present this picture of the Holy Prophet Muhammad to the world — Ameen.