ECHO OF THE HEART

Sa’dullah      

O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam) of Allah (SWT)! Where shall I find the source of my adoration for Allah by obeying you? How shall I find the source of my praise for you? I have memorised hundreds of your sayings since my teens, taught your Seerah to numerous students, grown a beard, used the miswaak, recited odes in praise of you. None of these made me any more like you; rather they merely flung me into the fray of insignificant debates in the arena of so many of the Sunnah-less Muslims who see your Sunnah only as an endless array of harsh laws and practices or as some justification for their cultural tendencies.

O Allah (SWT)! Save me from being of those who consider the Sunnah of Your beloved as being expressed only through aimless imitations and who do not recognize Your Prophet as a conveyor of Your commands and warnings.

O Prophet of Allah (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam)! I did not truly find you in the books of dialogues, nor in grand seminars and conferences throughout the world, and certainly not in the harsh arguments between various groups proclaiming mutually exclusive rights over you, except them who are on the true path. I did find the path of adoration to you in a dream where I appeared searching for your holiness on the Day of Judgement in order to beseech your intercession. As I appeared, walking over the lush greens of Paradise, I found you amongst a group of poor people. I wondered what you were doing in their company but then I remembered your famous prayer: “O Allah! Let me live among the poor and the downtrodden; let me die amongst the poor and the downtrodden, and on the Day of Judgement, when You raise me up, raise me up amongst the poor and the downtrodden.”

I found my source of adoration for you in the love and respect that the Almighty has proclaimed for you; in the honour that He bestowed upon you; in His confirmation of you as “the ultimate exemplar”; “seal of Prophets” and “mercy unto all existence”. Allah (SWT) has elevated the very memory of you and has made His boundless love accessible through obedience to you.

O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam) of Allah (SWT)! What despicable insolence and diabolical arrogance leads those who know of you not to fully acknowledge you. Do they not remember you as an orphan nourished by Halima Sa’diah; as a reflective shepherd in your teens; as the truthful and trustworthy business representative for Khadijah; all this with exemplary excellence. Allah (SWT) chose you, taught you and empowered you.

I picture you in your solitude longing for communion with the Divine; your trepidation upon reception of the first revelation in the Cave of Hira. O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam) of Allah (SWT)! How can I not adore you for how you lived and how you behaved.

I catch but a dimension of you through the instances of compassion you extended to others; how you played with the poor orphaned boy when other children refused to play with him, how you prolonged your prostration out of consideration that your change in posture may inconvenience or hurt your dearest grandson, who had climbed on your back; how you commanded your army away from the anthill in order not to disrupt the ants’ activities; how you narrated the story of blessed with Paradise the sinful woman for saving the life of a cat by making the water of the well accessible with her shoes; how you intervened and prevented men from abusing their wives by teaching them that “the best of men are those who treat their wives the best”; how you patched your clothes, mended your shoes and did your daily household chores; raced with your wife; how you joked with the kids and carried the baggage of the elderly; and how you hosted the Christians of Najran in your mosque.

I recall another dimension of you through the moments of pain and hardship you had experienced; how you were orphaned in childhood and endured grief at the loss of all your sons in their youth and all but one of your daughters in your lifetime; how you withstood the abuse of the Quraish and how your beloved daughter, Fatimah, dusted the dirt off you as she wiped her tears; how you invited your relatives to the Truth and they mocked you; how you took the message of Islam to Taif and they stoned you and turned their naughty kids upon you. The angels begged you to invoke Allah (SWT) to turn the mountains on these people and you refused, praying that “perhaps their children will someday believe”.

I remember the incident when hungry soldiers came to you at the Battle of the Trench and realised that you had three stones tied to your stomach to still your hunger. I further recall the incident when your Jewess neighbour received a visit from your companion whom you had sent to inquire about her wellbeing since you had not seen her for a few days despite the fact that she used to empty her garbage on you when you passed her home.

O Mercy unto the Worlds (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam)! How I adore you for your tenderness and your refusal to hate yet how disgusting are so many who try to justify hate in your name.

O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam) of Allah! Why is it that so many of us who claim to be of you refuse to be like you? We sing for you and dress like you, but do not come near fulfilling the expression of love, care and beauty that generated from yourself. Why is it that we see in you that which suits our cultural, organisational and chauvinistic interests, yet ignore the essence of what is essential to your being. 

Others who are not of you proclaim the multi-dimensional and multi-faceted nature of your personality. “The personality of Muhammad is most difficult to get the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of him I can catch. What dramatic succession of picturesque scenes? There is Muhammad the Prophet; there is Muhammad the General; Muhammad the King; Muhammad the Warrior; Muhammad the Businessman; Muhammad the Preacher; Muhammad the Philosopher; Muhammad the Statesman; Muhammad the Orator; Muhammad the Reformer; Muhammad the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad the Judge; Muhammad the Saint... In all these magnificent roles and in all these departments of human activities he is equally a hero.” (Professor Ramakrishna Rao).

O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam)! Your life-example is not only an integrated biography, history and law; it is above all a model of excellence. O Prophet (SallAllaho alaihe wasallam) of Allah (SWT)! I beg your indulgence at my audacity in expressing my praise for you. You have certainly been praised by many much more worthy than I. Yet, neither the inability to capture my appreciation for you with the eloquence of Rumi or Sa’di nor my weakness as a believer debars me from qualifying as one who praises you; for in the commemoration of your being do I find the dignity and honour of my existence.

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