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Prophets

Reclaiming the Narrative About Our Prophet ﷺ | Part 1

Sh. Omar Suleiman, Founder and President of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy, Fellow at Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, speak about reclaiming the narrative about Prophet Muhammad ﷺ at the 2017 ISNA-MAS Convention in Baltimore, MD.

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
In the name of Allah, all praise and glory belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Indeed, Allah is deserving of the best of things and the most beautiful of praises. And Allah is worthy of all praises, those that we say far above and beyond anything we can say about Him, subhanahu wa ta'ala, the glorified, the exalted. We testify that no one is worthy of our worship and our devotion and our dedication and our absolute love and obedience but Allah alone for any partners. The true supreme king and the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was indeed in truth his prophet and his servant and his messenger whom Allah sent as a mercy to the worlds. To begin, why is it that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose that our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam come forth from the purest of ancestries? And that he, alayhi salatu was salam, had the most impeccable, brightest smile? And that he, alayhi salatu was salam, above and before all, had the most flawless morals, the most flawless ethics? Because Allah azza wa jal through that was legitimizing him. I claim legitimizing him by that perhaps more than by anything else. Because whether people like to admit it or not, we as human beings historically, and this is even capitalized on in marketing, we are more moved by people, personas, personalities that impress us.
We see that as more legitimate. We're more inspired by those that impress us than those that convince us. Our decisions, we may not admit it, are more emotional than we think and less intellectual than what we may realize. And so Allah legitimizes the message of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam by what? By the person who carried that message. And so to delegitimize the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as a person is the number one tactic if you want to call his message into question. And that's why when we see so many attacks against the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's quote unquote civility, his peacefulness, when they question his mercy alayhi sallatu wa sallam, that has been a major catalyst behind what he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also foretold. That at the end times people will enter Islam in waves but also leave in waves. Because to delegitimize the Messenger is to call into question the message of that Messenger alayhi sallatu wa sallam. But for those that are paying attention to the importance of this, they take all the allegations that are made against our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Him supposedly not being a nice guy and just waiting for the right time to strike, being an opportunist. Or him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam requiring his followers supposedly to force conversions as a requirement of their faith. They see that as an opportunity and we should, and a necessity as we should to rediscover the beauty of his character alayhi sallatu wa sallam. And so anyone who studies the narrative, the life story of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, would by that immunize themselves, immunize their families, their children, their communities from the allegations.
They would be able to decipher which is an honest depiction, which could not possibly be our Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. What was his norm and what were exceptions to the norm. As a matter of fact, and this is very important, the more we study the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the more you realize these exceptions to his mercy were in fact not even exceptions. They were other dimensions of his mercy that he alayhi sallatu wa sallam, people failed to understand. And so studying the seerah, this is the importance of studying his narrative, his life story, it liberates us, it liberates us from the manipulative illustrations of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And it helps us notice first hand what Allah said about him. Not that he was a mercy to the world, but that he was nothing but a mercy to the world. That everything about him alayhi sallatu wa sallam was that mercy. But when you have superficial information about his life, when it's just casual information about his life, then you could be prone to, may Allah forbid, doubting that. You know, there's a phenomenon called anti-intellectualism. And it's a product of the information age that we live in. Anti-intellectualism is basically the disregard for expertise, right? Anti-intellectualism is not the result of ignorance, because the person that doesn't know, they know they don't know. They realize they need to learn. But it's the anti-intellectualism comes from the assumption of knowledge. When someone's out there that thinks they know, that there's nothing more to the story, right? And so I don't need to go find out. And so people that think they know the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they feel qualified to pass a judgment about him. Or when you go online, when everything is just so Google-able, right?
Is that a word? It is now. You just think there's nothing more to the story. You know, it's like, they say that some Islamophobes, some supposed expert, just because he has a website. And they do have a lot of money, right? They got a lot of money. Are they hiring? I mean, somebody from Mecca, no. And so, just because he has a website, he has funding behind him, and he can't even spell his name in Arabic sometimes, right? Supposedly an expert on Islam, and says, you know the religion of Muhammad alayhi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. This Islam, he brought the first obligation on that blood, in this religion, this bloodthirsty religion. When you become Muslim, the first thing that happens is what? They cut you. It's called circumcision. And then if you think that's too tough and you want to leave, you know what happens? They cut you. Decapitation. And so a person that thinks there's nothing more to the story, he goes and checks with the sheikh who doesn't understand the context sometimes, and the sheikh fumbles the answer, the person will walk away thinking, oh man, this is all I need to know. I get cut on the way in and cut on the way out. Why would I want this? But when a person takes ownership of his Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's life, you know personally, I developed a newfound appreciation for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in that article that Yaqeen Institute, the paper that Yaqeen put out. You all know Yaqeen, yes? Sheikh Omar, I believe, gave a talk about doubt in here, right? Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, called the 70 Moments of Moral Greatness. How the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam consistently and always rose above enmity and insult. You know when I collected the first few dozen incidents,
I said, wow, man, Allah Akbar, our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam really was amazing at containing himself. But then, I'll be perfectly honest, the more I kept collecting, I realized it wasn't just self-control. That he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was really something humanity has never seen before. So you need to give yourself time to develop that realization. And you need to know that this is not a given in your family, it's not a given in your children. Wallahi, by the end of the research I was sitting there like, I remember the statement of one of the salaf when he said, if only we were with our enemies as he, with our friends, he said, as he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was with his enemies, things would be swell, fine and dandy. If we can treat our friends the way he treated his enemies, alayhi salatu wa salam. And so a person begins to shift when they learn that, from feeling qualified to critique his morals, the morals of the Prophet alayhi salatu wa salam, whom Allah said was on an exalted standard of character. So now getting in the back seat and saying, no, no, no, whatever happened in his life, if it is confirmed that it happened, there must be something wrong with my discretion, my understanding of it. That's the comfort zone every believer needs to be. And you need to give yourself time to gradually allow that to crystallize inside. And I want to give one example regarding this, that was very moving for me in that paper, the 70 moments of moral greatness. And that was the conquest of Mecca. And the conquest of Mecca is truly worthy of being called a conquest like no other. I mean, you can only begin to imagine what it's like for our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the sahaba to march into Mecca. Like after all these years, you walk into these streets, these alleys where we were beaten to bloody pulp, right?
These places where children were pulled apart, like the son of Abu Salama, their arms dislocated. This is where Sumayya was killed. This is where Bilal is tortured. These are the homes of the people that gutted open Hamza. This is the place, this is the place where Khadija radiallahu anhu was kicked out, and she never recovered from the boycott. And Abu Talib as well, and they died in the same year. You don't think that they were not thinking about these things when they walked into Mecca. And so when they saw the leaders of Mecca, the sahaba said to Abu Sufyan, اليوم يوم المرحمة, today is payback time. Today is the day of slaughter. Your people will finally get what they deserve. And so when news of this reached the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, بل يوم يوم المرحمة. Today is the day of mercy. Today is the day Allah will honour Quraysh. Allah will honour the Kaaba. Allah will guard the Kaaba. Clean slate. This is the day. And then after they secure the city, they all gather in front of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, at the doors of the Kaaba, and he says to them, ماذا ترون أني فاعل بكم؟ What do you think I'm going to do with you? And so they say خيرا. You only do good with us. You're going to be the bigger man. And they say to him, أخم كريم, ابن أخم كريم, noble brother, son of our most noble brother, we all know you're the most noble family in Mecca. Where was that ten years ago? Right? We all know it. And so then he says to them something, عليه الصلاة والسلام, that is unimaginable. Like think of what victors do when they enter countries. How they make an example out of the leadership. How they gloat over punishing those that resisted them. And he had every right and every ability, but he wanted something more.
His heart was different. It was far more alive. And so he immortalized his legacy of forgiveness, of mercy, of matchless morality by saying to them, لا أقول لكم إلا كما قال يوسف لي إخوتي, I will not say to you anything but what Yusuf said to his brothers that kicked him out, stuffed him down a well, got him sold into slavery, got him thrown into prison. I will only say to you what Yusuf said. لا تثريب عليكم اليوم يغفر الله لكم There will be no blame on you whatsoever today. I pray that Allah forgives you. Meaning I pray you get the message now and become Muslim so Allah will forgive you. And then he says, إذهبوا أنتم الطلقاء Go, you are unbound. No one's going to touch you. Go ahead. Go about your business. This was so unexpected, so unbelievable, that even some of the Sahaba, some of the Ansar, the younger Ansar, I want you to stop here for a second because this is the point. Even some of the Sahaba who lived around him, but not as long as the Muhajireen, not as long as the early Ansar, not the Muhajireen, the migrants from Mecca. And the Ansar are those that received them and stood with them in solidarity. Some of the younger ones that did not yet have the full image of who he was, in the toughest hours, in the darkest moments, that nothing could bend him. They said, لقد أخذ هذا الرجل رغبة في قومه وعفة في عشيراته They said, this man, Muhammad ﷺ, he's become overtaken, he became soft by his compassion for his relatives and his hopefulness for his town. You know what they're saying? They're saying, he's tired of fighting, he's hopeful to move back to Mecca,
he just wants to put it all down. That's it. He can't anymore. It has affected his judgment. Abu Huraira radhiAllahu anhu, he says, and then revelation came down. And when revelation came down, it was always clear to us. And nobody would lift their eyes, their stare at the Prophet ﷺ when he was undergoing that experience of receiving that weighty revelation. He said, then it concluded, and he looked up. And he said, you have said that this man has been overtaken by hopefulness for his hometown. He wants to go home. Qalu naam kana hath. That was said. That took place. And so he said to them, Ana abidullahi wa rasool. I am the slave of Allah and His Messenger. Hajartu ila Allahi wa ilaykum. I migrated to Allah and towards you. Fal mahya mahyaakum. Wal mamatu mamatukum. My living is with you. And my dying is with you. The Ansar turned to him in tears at this point. And they said, wallahi ya rasoolAllah, maa qulna maa qulnaahu illa dhinnan billahi wa rasoolik. He said, wallahi, the only reason we said that was out of protectiveness for Allah and His Messenger. We don't believe you would do that. But we're afraid that you're going to do that. We're afraid you're going to leave us. We couldn't bear that thought. And so the Prophet ﷺ, he says to them, Inna Allah wa rasoolahu tusaddiqanikum wa ya'buranikum. Allah and His Messenger believe you. And they excuse you. The Prophet ﷺ understood that what he just did
of supreme forgiveness with Quraish, I can excuse you for not being able to comprehend that this was for no worldly benefit, for nothing at all, just because this is who Allah wants me to be. I know it's hard to believe that a human can do this, wa ya'buranikum. That's why I'm excusing you. And so it takes time. Don't expect of yourself, you need to dedicate time to this. Invest time to this. Rehearse this reality about the Prophet ﷺ. I don't know if time is up. So I'll close in two minutes. And so the last thing, the last point I want to make and then get off the stage, is what about the incidents now when the Prophet ﷺ appears to have stepped outside of his norm. He did take part in battles, alayhi salatu wasalam. He did command, though we must reiterate always and I get tired of saying this disclaimer, though he did command as the head of a state to take certain people out, to execute certain people. And our country by the way does that with drones all the time. As a head of a state he did that. But is that immoral? First of all, the first thing we need to do is we have to agree that this wasn't his norm. If you're not going to agree that this was not his normative practice, the standard, the default for the Prophet's lifestyle, alayhi salatu wasalam, and that's what that whole paper was about, 70 moments to wash out everything else, right? Let's first establish that's the norm. Because if we're not going to establish that's the norm, then you're not being fair and there's no point in continuing the conversation. Or perhaps you just need to pick up a book and don't talk about a subject you haven't read one book on. And then from there we say that the Prophet ﷺ did take part in these incidents. At least those of them that were confirmed. That's another issue, right?
Overinflating the list. He did take part in this, number one, against his own will. In other words, he wished he didn't have to, alayhi salatu wasalam. For example, the Prophet ﷺ said, لا تتمنى لقاء العدو. Don't wish to meet your enemy. Allah عز و جل says, فإن جنحوا لسلم فجح لها وتوكل على الله. If they incline to peace, you incline to peace. Don't initiate, don't go look for it. And put your trust in Allah, that Allah will make the peace work out. But then if he didn't want to, why did he? Because ultimately our Messenger ﷺ's mercy was not for us to brag about him in lectures. That's not the primary reason. He did this out of devotion to Allah. And so he did this because Allah wanted him to do this. And so his mercy is not going to interfere with justice either, or obedience to Allah when Allah tells him to do something. So for example, the Prophet ﷺ wished, inclined to spare the captives at Badr. He wished to do that, alayhi salatu wasalam. And when he did so, Allah sent down ayat criticizing this decision. Why didn't you wait for revelation? You should have put your foot down here. They should not have been released. And so him and Abu Bakr as-Siddiq were found by Umar crying because of Allah's criticism of them, that they went with the default without double checking, is it applicable here? So does that mean Abu Bakr as-Siddiq and the Prophet ﷺ were more merciful than Allah? No way. Allah is the most merciful. Who gave them the aptitude to be merciful. He taught them how to be merciful. He's the one that inspired their hearts to be like that. But Allah azza wa jall knows best His creation,
that unlimited mercy and unconditional forgiveness will not work all the time. It can be seen as weakness sometimes, right? Like when the Prophet ﷺ for example executed Abu Izzah. Abu Izzah is a war monger. He's a poet who gets the troops up and going for the battle of Badr. He was caught captive. The Messenger ﷺ releases him. He promised, I'll never do it again. Fine, I won't start up a war against you. Then he releases him. He's caught again a year later bringing a triple sized army from Dawan and Badr for Uhud. And so he's like, oh Muhammad I'm never going to do it again. And so the Prophet ﷺ, he said, Wallahi you will not strut in Mecca any longer saying I tricked Muhammad twice. And he commanded his subeir Ibn Awwab, he said to him, a believer is not written from the same snake hole twice. We need to put our foot down here. And Abu Izzah was executed by the head of the state. Right? Why? If you excessively focus on this quote unquote harshness, you're going to lose sight of the fact of how much mercy it entails for everybody else. So even that was an expression of his mercy ﷺ. It was generally avoided. He would avoid it whenever he could. But he would not let that inclination of his be distorted by our human perceptions. You know there's a beautiful ayah when Allah ﷻ sends angels to tell Ibrahim ﷺ, we're going to destroy the town of your nephew Lut. The people of Lut. The people of Saddam and Gomorrah. Right? يُجَدِّلُنَا فِي قَوْمِ لُوطِ Allah ﷺ. He started debating with us regarding why, there's believers there, can we wait a little longer? The mercy in Ibrahim ﷺ didn't want to see it happen. Didn't want to see a town destroyed.
But then Allah says what? He says, إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ لَحَلِيمٌ أَوَّاهُمْ مُنِيدٌ Ibrahim ﷺ was forbearing, grieving, meaning he was hurt by human suffering. Allah is praising him for that quality. It hurts him to see that. But then he called him Munid, but he's frequently returning to us. He didn't let that feeling inside him, that noble feeling, stop him from resigning to Allah's decisions in the end. So it's like surgery almost. Surgery should be generally avoided. But when it is the only way to stop, to save someone's life, we are very welcoming to surgery. We don't say this doctor is an animal. Look at how big that cut was. You know how much blood he lost in that surgery? Likewise, Allah, عز و جل, for societal preservation, He told His Prophet ﷺ, you cannot act on that all the time. There are certain times when it was necessary for the greater good of everybody. Because Islam was about mercy and about strength. Excessive mercy is weakness, it's humiliation, you get run over. And excessive strength is oppression. And so Allah struck the balance between those two noble values. Through the story of Ibrahim ﷺ and elsewhere, He taught His Prophet ﷺ, do not be like the merciless of Quraysh. Don't be like that. But don't show so much mercy that it will embolden those without mercy. Some people just don't understand compassion. They don't understand forgiveness. So don't do what will embolden them and what will make so many other people vulnerable, because you want to have mercy here, you'll be at the expense of all that mercy there.
That was the perfect model of our Prophet ﷺ's values. Without seeing his life story head on, normative and then exception, and the understanding of how that exception applies, we will not be able to grasp this, and certainly a 20 minute lecture won't do it for you either. Forgive me for the elongation everybody.
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