Seerat, a perfect model By Muhammad al-Ghazali THE entire history of mankind in the post-Muhammadan period provides testimony to the Prophet’s impact on humanity. With the emergence of the Prophet (SAWs) on the stage of history, humanity clearly entered a new decisive and final stage of religious consciousness and cultural development. When the Qur’an proclaimed in unmistakable terms that the institution of Prophethood had reached its final stage with Prophet Muhammad (SAWs), this proclamation was also fully attested by the subsequent course of human history. No new Prophet or messenger, nor any other Divine scripture succeeded the Prophet (SAWs) or the Qur’an. The Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sirah remain the authentic touchstone of the truth and the reliable source of Divine call to humanity. The foremost thrust of the Prophet’s teaching that changed the erstwhile religious perspective was to liberate humanity from the animistic notions of the past that involved a deification of the phenomenal world. The primitive religiosity of man largely prevailing in the world before Prophet Muhammad (SAWs), was to invest everything beneficial or harmful in this universe, with a supernatural sanctity or even at times with divinity. Thus, man humbled himself before sun and moon, stars and galaxies, sky and earth, rivers and oceans, even beasts and animals. This pantheistic notion constructed for man’s servitude and compelled him to bow before millions of gods and deities. Another less primitive but equally obscurantist view that was held by a number of other creeds was to see this world as an evil satanic scheme which undermines the spirituality of man. These creeds also enfeebled man before the diabolical and devilish influences of this world represented by corporeality and matter and body and flesh and thus took a negative view of man and this phenomenal world. These creeds and cults projected this world as a prison house in which man is placed by destiny and from which the deliverance should be sought by emancipating oneself from all sanguine, social, marital and material involvement. While one view imposed on man a direct servitude of this material world, the other painted the world in evil and adversarial terms. The Prophet’s sound and rational teaching dealt a powerful blow to all such obscurantisms and superstitions. He taught in unambiguous terms that man’s habitat and environment have been created for the service of man. He reminded that this world has been created, designed and tailored to suit the survival of man and to serve the needs of human life. Said he in one of his oft-quoted sermons: ‘indeed this immediate world has been created for you, but you have been created for the ultimate world of the hereafter’. For the eternal home of lasting bliss which will be the final abode of mankind is really worth man’s while. It was precisely this teaching of the Prophet (SAWs) clearly articulated in the Qur’an that gave rise to the crystallization of the empirical methodology of natural sciences. For unless one has the satisfaction of knowing that this world is not essentially man’s enemy, but friendly and compatible to humanity’s well-being and amelioration, natural science is hardly tenable. Science and all its modes and methods of inquiry and investigation seem to proceed clearly from the monotheistic doctrine of Islam taught by the Qur’an and the Prophet. The Qur’an contains profuse statements that fully substantiate this contention. All these statements of the Qur’an as explained by the Prophet’s teachings are premised on the doctrine that nothing created by Allah is futile and fruitless. But on the contrary, everything that He has created, He has created for a definite purpose. And the noblest of these purposes has been assigned to man under the terms of his august office of ‘vicegerent’. In this way, the Prophet (SAWs) emerges as a great benefactor of humanity. People might still be persisting in their polytheistic or pantheistic views of religion, but the enterprise of science is definitely a monotheistic enterprise. Sooner or later, humanity is going to reach the stage when it is no longer possible to disbelieve in One Supreme God Who alone is the Creator, Sustainer and Controller of this cosmos. The logical flow of the overwhelming scientific evidence that is continuously pouring in will also eventually shatter the myth that reason and revelation or theology and science were incompatible. Those shallow interpreters of science in post-medieval Europe who, fascinated by Newtonian physics, Darwinian biology and Freudian psychology, tried to dismiss theo-centric worldview and circulated the view that science had rendered god irrelevant, are now open to serious criticism by scientists themselves. The findings of ecological sciences, inter-alia, have furnished an un-controvertible evidence that the entire cosmos is serving the interest of human kind. Another conspicuous impact of the Prophet’s dispensation which is a logical corollary of the first doctrine is the elevation of the status of man. In the first place, the emergence of a man of the Prophet’s calibre on the scene of history in itself brought the status of man to great heights unknown to mankind previously. The Prophet repeatedly reiterated the lofty locus of man. He reminded him that his destiny lay in his own hands. He put great premium on the value of human endeavours and achievements. The Prophet rejected all erstwhile claims to pre-natal distinctions of race or colour, or clan or caste. He blotted out from the innocent face of humanity the stigma of original sin. Moreover, he declared in his last public sermon that all notions of mutual superiority among humans are false, and that man had been created in the best form and invested with unlimited potential for self-development. Thus he was fully eligible to fashion his own destiny. He could make or unmake success or failure by his own conscious deeds and misdeeds. What is more, the Prophet equalized genders. He recognized full value of woman and her natural God-given gifts and talents. The course of human cultural career subsequent to the Prophet (SAWs) is an ample self-evident commentary on these monumental cataclysmic reforms introduced by the Prophet (SAWs) and fully promulgated in the socio-cultural, moral and spiritual dispensation established by him and by his companions. These are only some aspects of the many significant changes in thought and behaviour, vision and perspective that the Prophet of Islam effected in the world. Humanity as a whole and not merely the community of his loving followers owe to the Prophet (SAWs) a great debt.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 10:09:11 +0000
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