LIFE OF THE PROPHET AN OPEN BOOK
The life of the Holy Founder of Islamsa is like an open book, to any part of which one may turn and meet with interesting details. The life of no other Teacher or Prophet is as well-recorded and as accessible to study as is the life of the Holy Prophetsa. True, this abundance of recorded fact has given malicious critics their opportunity. But it is also true that when the criticisms have been examined and disposed of, the faith and devotion which result cannot be inspired by any other life. Obscure lives escape criticism, but they fail to produce conviction and confidence in their devotees. Some disappointments and difficulties are bound to remain. But a life as rich in recorded detail as the Prophet’ssa inspires reflection and, then, conviction. When criticism and false constructions have been liquidated, such a life is bound to endear itself to us completely and for ever.
It should be evident, however, that the story of a life so open and so rich cannot even briefly be told. Only a glimpse of it can be attempted. But even a glimpse is worth while. A religious book, as we say, can have little appeal unless a study of it can be supplemented by a knowledge of its Teacher. The point has been missed by many religions. The Hindu religion, for instance, upholds the Vedas, but of the Rishis who received the Vedas from God it is able to tell us nothing. The need to supplement a message by an account of the messenger does not seem to have impressed itself upon Hindu exponents.
Jewish and Christian scholars, on the other hand, do not hesitate to denounce their own Prophets. They forget that revelation which has failed to reclaim its recipient cannot be of much use to others. If the recipient is intractable the question arises, why did God choose him? Must He have done so? Neither supposition seems reasonable. To think that revelation fails to reclaim some recipients is as unreasonable as to think that God has no alternative except to choose incompetent recipients for some of His revelations.
Yet ideas of this kind have found their way into different religions, possibly because of the distance which now divides them from their Founders or because human intellect, until the advent of Islam, was incapable of perceiving the error of these ideas. How important and valuable it is to keep together a book and its Teacher was realized very early in Islam. One of the Prophet’ssa holy consorts was the young ‘A’ishara. She was thirteen to fourteen years of age when she was married to the Prophetsa.
For about eight years she lived in wedlock with him. When the Prophetsa died she was about twenty-two years of age. She was young and illiterate: Yet she knew that a teaching cannot be divorced from its teacher. Asked to describe the Prophet’ssa character, she answered at once that his character was the Qur’an (Abu Dawud). What he did was what the Qur’an taught; what the Qur’an taught was nothing else than what he did. It redounds to the glory of the Prophetsa that an illiterate young woman was able to grasp a truth which escaped Hindu, Jewish and Christian scholars.
‘A’ishara expressed a great and an important truth in a crisp little sentence: it is impossible for a true and honest teacher to teach one thing but practise another, or to practise one thing but teach another. The Prophetsa was a true and honest Teacher. This is what ‘A’ishara evidently wanted to say. He practised what he preached and preached what he practised. To know him is to know the Qur’an and to know the Qur’an is to know him.
(Source: Life of Muhammad(pbuh) by Hadrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad)
Comments
John Doe
23/3/2019Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
John Doe
23/3/2019Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
John Doe
23/3/2019Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.