{"id":26524,"date":"2019-11-05T00:27:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T00:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/new-wp\/?p=26524"},"modified":"2019-11-05T00:27:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T00:27:55","slug":"understanding-the-muslims-attachment-towards-prophet-muhammad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/understanding-the-muslims-attachment-towards-prophet-muhammad\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Muslims\u2019 Attachment towards Prophet Muhammad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the 9th<\/sup>\nof November 2019 (12th Rabi’ al-awwal<\/em>),\nMuslims worldwide will continue the commemoration of the birth of the last\nProphet and Messenger of God, Muhammad (May God bless and give him peace), the\nSeal of the Prophets who lived more than 1,400 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is alarming\nhowever; that from our limited observation, we find educated Muslims from the\nyounger generation either facing difficulty to relate to the Prophet Muhammad,\nor experience ambiguity in their understanding on the place of the Prophet in their\nlives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words,\nmany Muslims today struggle with seeing, with their minds and hearts, the\nProphet Muhammad in the proper perspective, and thus naturally suffer from a\nlack of conviction or doubts on the belief they have inherited from their\nfamily.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a crucial\nmatter because for centuries, the love and esteem for Prophet Muhammad was understood\nby the Muslims at large to be an obligation, and was integral in the\npsychological and societal order in the civilisation of Islam as eruditely\narticulated by Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud in his published article in IKIM\u2019s TAFHIM\nJournal titled, \u201cThe Timelessness of Prophet Muhammad\u201d (Vol. 11, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increasing\ndetachment of present-day Muslims from the prophetic biography itself has led to\nthe following remark by the late Sayyid Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki (d. 2004), one\nof the most eminent Makkah-based scholar of Islam in the 20th<\/sup>\ncentury: \u201cThis distance and detachment from the prophetic biography is a matter\nof manifest peril, with grave consequences and evil ends in store for the\nMuslim community…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For centuries, the Muslims\nat large were able to relate to the Prophet Muhammad through the prophetic\nembodiments in scholars, teachers, and leaders, supplemented with the rich literatures\nof the sirah<\/em> (prophetic biography), shama\u2019il <\/em>(descriptive potrait of the\nProphet) and its commentaries,and qasidah<\/em> (poem in praise of the Prophet)\n\u2013 many of which have been transmitted orally throughout the ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earliest\naccounts of the Prophetic biography has indeed survived to this date thanks to\nthe efforts of Ibn Ishaq (d. 776) and Ibn Hisham (d. 833) whose sources were\nbased on earlier oral traditions. This work has been translated into English by\nAbu Bakr Siraj al-Din (d. 2005) under the title Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources<\/em> \u2013 widely\nrecognized as the best English translation of the sirah.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A monumental book\nwhich is necessary for contemporary Muslim to be re-acquainted with the true\nstature of the Prophet, with the esteem and respect which is due to him is the As-Shifa\u2019 bi-ta\u2019rif huquq Mustafa<\/em> (The\nCure by the Recognition of the Rights of the Chosen One) by Qadi Iyad ibn Musa\nal-Yahsub (d. 1149) \u2013 this too has been translated into English by Aisha\nAbdarrahman Bewley (Madinah Press, 1992).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the most\ncelebrated text poems in praise of the Prophet was composed by Muhammad ibn\nSulayman al-Jazuli (d. 870\/1465) known as the Dala\u2019il al-Khayrat<\/em> (Waymark of Benefits), and al-Busiri\u2019s (d. 1294)\nQasida al-Burda <\/em>(Poem of the Mantle).\nBoth poems have spread from Morocco and stretching all the way to the Malay\nArchipelago, and even becoming fashionable in Ottoman high society \u2013 princes\nexchanged magnificently embellished copies of it; the Qasida al-Burda<\/em> were written on the tiles of Topkapi Palace, while commoners\ntreasured them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is worth\nhighlighting some examples of how the Ottomans expressed their love and esteem for\nthe Prophet in the past. According to a senior Ottoman historian, Mehmet\n\u0130p\u015firli, \u201cThe love of Islam and Prophet Muhammad was placed at the centre of\nthe Ottoman existence as a comprehensive system and not as a sentiment that\nchanged from one sultan to the next in a sporadic fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the Ottoman\nSultans used to regard themselves as a khadim<\/em>\n(servant) for the Prophet and would practice utmost adab<\/em> even towards his descendants:  for at least five centuries the most learned\namong them (the sharifs<\/em>) were\nentrusted as the Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Medina, and\nGovernor of the Hijaz with autonomy, while the welfare of their families were\ntaken care by the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also known\nthat the Ottoman Sultans took the responsibility to preserve the sacred\nbelongings of the Prophet, which is still kept in the Topkapi Palace in\nIstanbul today. Among the prized belonging of the Prophet includes: his mantle,\nstandard, sandal, cup, footprint on a stone, swords, bow, his tooth that broke\nat the Battle of Uhud, soil he used for ritual ablution, and his seal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such is the esteem\nand love towards the Prophet by Muslims in the past that it is said the 15th<\/sup>\ncentury Portuguese military commander Alfonso de Albuquerque plotted to steal\nthe Prophet\u2019s body in Medina as part of his larger plans to destabilize the\nMuslim world \u2013 knowing well that it would profoundly impact the morale of the\ngenerality of Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because in\nthe consciousness of generations of Muslims, he is not simply a historical\nfigure but a continuous source of inspiration and the role model par excellence\n\u2013 the Almighty described him as uswatan\nhasana<\/em> (the “best example”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting\nattitude of the Muslims throughout the ages is succinctly explained by Syed\nMuhammad Naquib al-Attas in his Islam and\nSecularism<\/em>: \u201cWe praise him out of sincere love and respect and gratitude\nfor having led us out of darkness into light, and he is loved above all other\nhuman beings including ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when the\nMuslim is secularized in their reasoning, the Prophet Muhammad is no longer\nregarded as the central personality in their consciousness. When this is\naccumulated to the larger population of the community, it creates a\npsychological and societal rupture within the community. This rupture manifests\nitself in the crisis of identity between the sexes, between generations, and\nthe vicious circle of unattainable in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is for this reason\ntoo that it is said the late Said Ramadan al-Bouti (d. 2013) composed the Fiqh al-Sirah<\/em> Al-Nabawiyyah<\/em> (Understanding the Prophetic Biography), which was\nwritten at a time when there were works that rationalize all episodes in the\nlife of the Prophet, and present them in a \u2018de spiritualized\u2019 version which can\nnaturally lead to a secularized conception of Islam itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And God knows best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 9th of November 2019 (12th Rabi’ al-awwal), Muslims worldwide will continue the commemoration of the birth of the last Prophet and Messenger of God, Muhammad (May God bless and give him peace), the Seal of the Prophets who lived more than 1,400 years ago. It is alarming however; that from our limited observation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}