Proofs of Prophethood
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Molding a Modern Generation: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments
How does a nation move from ignorance and alcoholism to moral fortitude in a single generation? Through Islam. The Companions and Successors of the Prophet ﷺ built a civilization based on justice, equality, and moderation. For centuries, the message of Muhammad ﷺ inspired believers to pursue knowledge, better their societies, and act with compassion and conviction. Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy describes the type of transformation that can only be brought about through God.
The Proofs for the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ eBook is available now. Download your copy here.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. In just 23 years, the final prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, takes a conglomerate of tribes in some remote region of the world, surrounded by perilous deserts, largely isolated from the ideas, from the events of the major civilizations of their era, and also further weakened by their internal strife and disunity, and their prevailing illiteracy, and somehow, within two short decades, they become a model generation that transforms the world forever. How is that possible? Upon becoming the purest observers of monotheism, this didn't just make them the most devoted servants of God in terms of their ritual worship of him, but also placed them at the forefront of contributing to humanity. At night, they would be found standing in prayer, longing for the divine, with tears streaming down their cheeks as they reflected over his revealed word. By day, they would live for purposes greater than themselves, exhausting themselves in philanthropy, in education, and riding off as knights as well, liberating the world from the tyrannical regimes that were subjugating them. They brought justice to the nations, as we find the book of Isaiah in the Bible foretelling that they would, and subsequently unlocked the virtue of innumerable ascetics and reformers, and men of piety, and women of piety, and great thinkers for centuries. Out of them emerged a civilization where chastity and integrity and propriety were the norm, and societies in which alcoholism was never widespread. Until this very day, when we see all around the world,
as the World Health Organization reports, millions upon millions of alcohol-related deaths, the lowest of these numbers are found consistently in Muslim countries, as is the case with sexually transmitted diseases, as is the case with suicide and homicide rates as well. The impact of Islam on preventing alcohol abuse and what becomes of it, and on low life satisfaction in all of its manifestations, is sometimes just so glaring. The hallmarks of Islamic civilization, feeding off of the inertia of that initial model generation, were justice and equality, balance and moderation, diversity, progress, and the pursuit of beauty. Adam Smith, the famous 18th century economist, he himself admits that the empire of the caliphs, as he puts it, seems to be the very first state in which a tranquility existed that the cultivation of the sciences requires. "'It was under the protection of those generous "'and magnificent princes,' he says, "'of the early years of Islam, "'that the ancient Greek philosophy was finally restored.'" That tranquility, he adds, which their mild, gentle, just, and religious government, he says, diffused over their vast empire, is what revived the curiosity of mankind and drove them to inquire about the connecting principles of nature. Muslim centuries later also looked back to the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, as the gold standard for magnanimity and clemency and forgiveness, even when it came to military conflict and rules of engagement. To share just one beautiful example of the precedent the earliest model generation set, Abu Aziz, who was a warring poet, who would spread propaganda
and provoke armies against the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was captured at the very first battle in the prophetic lifetime, the Battle of Badr. And he says the Prophet Muhammad told his companions, treat the captives well. And that is why every time, when it was lunch or dinner, they would leave to me the bread and they would only eat dates without any sort of breads out of regard for the strict instructions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And so we can look back at all of these accomplishments, all of these achievements, and ask ourselves, how did this happen in a single generation? Has history ever known anyone with the ability to wean a people off of alcoholism whatsoever, let alone do it overnight? Why were Muslims able to just give it up? These were a people whose honor and whose income was interlocked with drinking wine. Yet with a gradual program that the Prophet Muhammad set them upon, he reached his trajectory and whatever was remaining of wine upon the final instructions was poured into the streets. The barrels were broken and they flowed all at once. Has any single person ever been able to ban and abolish age-old customs, whether about unrestricted polygyny or about male-only inheritance laws or about female infanticide? Even modern India today, after a hundred years with strict enforcement, still struggles with their female infanticide problem. And yet with the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his meager resources over such a short span of time, all of this was changed. Such a blessed transformation. Even the famous Indian scholar, Mulla Ali Al-Qari, Rahimahullah, he comments on a statement of the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he said to the people,
Allah will raise people many ranks by virtue of their commitment to his book, the Quran, and he will demote others accordingly. He said, and we saw this as a historical reality within one generation after the Prophet Muhammad, the entire leadership practically of Muslim civilization was the slave class because they committed themselves to scholarship and committed themselves to studying the sacred texts. And so captured in these past five episodes are some of the unique achievements of God's final Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, through which God solidifies our belief and our certainty that all of this success could have only happened at the hand of God. He transformed those under his tutelage from one of the most savage and lawless communities imaginable to the best community of all among humankind brought out for the betterment and inspiration of humankind.
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