A Most Beautiful Model (Uswa al-Hassanah)
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam , was born in 569 after Christ at Arabia in the city of Mecca on the 12th day of Rabi-ul-Awwal. Which was Monday the 20th day of April, 571 A.C. In commemoration to our beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, this falls on Monday March 9, 2009 . Our beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, offers humanity a perfect example in all facets of life. The Holy Quran declares: "Verily, you have in the messenger of Allah, a most beautiful model (Uswa al-Hassanah)." Laqad kana lakum fee rasooli Allahi oswatun hasanatun Quran 33:21
His father, 'Abdullah had died some weeks earlier, and it was his grandfather who took him in charge. According to the prevailing custom, the child was entrusted to a Bedouin foster-mother, with whom he passed several years in the desert. All biographers state that the infant prophet sucked only one breast of his foster-mother, leaving the other for the sustenance of his foster-brother. When the child was brought back home, his mother, Aminah, took him to his maternal uncles at Madinah to visit the tomb of 'Abdullah. During the return journey, he lost his mother who died a sudden death. At Mecca, another bereavement awaited him, in the death of his affectionate grandfather. Subjected to such privations, he was at the age of eight, consigned at last to the care of his uncle, Abu-Talib, a man who was generous of nature but always short of resources and hardly able to provide for his family.
Young Muhammad had therefore to start immediately to earn his livelihood; he served as a shepherd boy to some neighbours. At the age of ten he accompanied his uncle to Syria when he was leading a caravan there. No other travels of Abu-Talib are mentioned, but there are references to his having set up a shop in Mecca. (Ibn Qutaibah, Ma'arif). It is possible that Muhammad helped him in this enterprise also.
By the time he was twenty-five, Muhammad had become well known in the city for the integrity of his disposition and the honesty of his character. A rich widow, Khadijah, took him in her employ and consigned to him her goods to be taken for sale to Syria. Delighted with the unusual profits she obtained as also by the personal charms of her agent, she offered him her hand. According to divergent reports, she was either 28 or 40 years of age at that time, (medical reasons prefer the age of 28 since she gave birth to five more children). The union proved happy. Later, we see him sometimes in the fair of Hubashah (Yemen), and at least once in the country of the 'Abd al-Qais (Bahrain-Oman), as mentioned by Ibn Hanbal. There is every reason to believe that this refers to the great fair of Daba (Oman), where, according to Ibn al-Kalbi (cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar), the traders of China, of Hind and Sind (India, Pakistan), of Persia, of the East and the West assembled every year, travelling both by land and sea. There is also mention of a commercial partner of Muhammad at Mecca. This person, Sa'ib by name reports: "We relayed each other; if Muhammad led the caravan, he did not enter his house on his return to Mecca without clearing accounts with me; and if I led the caravan, he would on my return enquire about my welfare and speak nothing about his own capital entrusted to me."
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam , lived among his people and taught them about the belief in one God, ethics in everyday life and the importance of education in leading an exemplary life. In this regard, some of his famous sayings are "Seek knowledge even unto China", "acquire knowledge, for he who acquires it performs an act of piety; he who speaks of knowledge, praises God: he who seeks it, adores God." He also declared: "The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr."
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam , bequeathed to posterity, a religion of pure monotheism; he created a well-disciplined State out of the existent chaos and gave peace in place of the war of everybody against everybody else; he established a harmonious equilibrium between the spiritual and the temporal, between the mosque and the citadel; he left a new system of law, which dispensed impartial justice, in which even the head of the State was as much a subject to it as any commoner, and in which religious tolerance was so great that non-Muslim inhabitants of Muslim countries equally enjoyed complete juridical, judicial and cultural autonomy. In the matter of the revenues of the State, the Quran fixed the principles of budgeting, and paid more thought to the poor than to anybody else. The revenues were declared to be in no wise the private property of the head of the State. Above all, the Prophet Muhammad set a noble example and fully practised all that he taught to others.
http://www.whyislam.org/Prophethood/ProphetsBiographybyaMuslim/tabid/78/Default.aspx
http://www.whyislam.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment