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Spirit of Islam Issue 35 November 2015
Biographies of the
Prophet are full of
incidents, which show
his life to be a perfect
model for mankind.
“and I am His servant.” He then asked the desert-dweller, “Hasn’t it
made you afraid, the way you treated me?” He said not. The Prophet
asked him why. “Because I know that you do not requite evil with evil,”
the man answered. The Prophet smiled on hearing this, and had one
camel-load of barley and another of dates given to him.
The Prophet lived in such awe of God that he was always a picture of
humility and meekness. He spoke little and even the way he walked
suggested reverence for God. Criticism never angered him. When he
used to put on his clothes, he would say: “I am God’s servant, and I
dress as befits a servant of God.” He would sit in a reverential posture
to partake of food, and would say that this is how a servant of God
should eat.
He was very sensitive on this issue. Once a Companion started to say,
“If it be the will of God, and the will of the Prophet ... “ The Prophet’s
face changed colour in anger when he heard this. “Are you trying to
equate me with God?” he asked the man severely. Rather say: “If God,
alone, wills.” On another occasion a Companion of the Prophet said:
“He that obeys God and His Prophet is rightly guided, and he who
disobeys them has gone astray.” “You are the worst of speakers,” the
Prophet observed, disliking a reference, which placed him in the same
pronoun as the Almighty.
Three sons were born to the Prophet, all of whom died in infancy. His
four daughters, all by his first wife, Khadijah, grew to adulthood. Fatimah
was the Prophet’s youngest daughter, and he was extremely attached
to her. When he returned from any journey
the first thing he would do, after praying two
rak’at
(units of prayer)
in the mosque, was to
visit Fatimah and kiss her hand and forehead.
Jumai’ ibn Umayr, a Companion, once asked
Aisha (the Prophet’s wife) whom the Prophet
loved most. “Fatimah,” she replied.
But the Prophet’s whole life was moulded
by thoughts of the Hereafter. He loved his
children, but not in any worldly way. Ali ibn
Abi Talib, Fatimah’s husband, once told Ibn
Abdul Wahid a story about the Prophet’s most beloved daughter.
Fatimah’s hands, he said, were blistered from constant grinding; her
neck had become sore from carrying water; her clothes would become
dirty from sweeping the floor. When the Prophet had received an
influx of servants from some place, Ali suggested to his wife that she