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Malik Ghulam Farid
‘It is strongly corroborative of Muhammad’s sincerity,’ says Sir William Muir, an unfriendly critic of Islam and the Holy Prophet (sa) ‘that the earliest converts to Islam were his bosom friends and the people of his household, who intimately acquainted with his private life, could not fail otherwise to have detected those discrepancies which more or less invariably exist between the professions of the hypocritical deceiver abroad and his actions at home.’
The family life of a man is the best judge of his character. He can dissemble and dissimulate in society, but he cannot disguise his real feelings and character from those among whom he is bred and brought up and spends the major part of his time. If man is known to be the company he keeps, his best judges are those with whom he keeps company, and they are the members of his family, relatives, and friends. Tested by this touchstone, the private character of the Holy Prophet (sa) of Islam stands unequal in sublimity and nobility. If his most unscrupulous and uncompromising enemies could not describe a lie to him, and his devout followers looked upon him as the most generous, the most courageous, the most truthful and honest man that had ever lived, the members of his family and those nearest and dearest to him were no less impressed by the uniform purity of his character.
At the age of 25, in the spring of his life, he married Khadijah (ra), a respectable lady of very mature age. She had passed the bloom of her life and was 15 years older than him. She had married twice before she married the Holy Prophet (sa).
Notwithstanding this disparity in the ages, mutual devotion pervaded this happy union for upwards of 25 years. What an indelible impression did the faithful and loving behaviour of the Holy Prophet (sa) leave upon Khadijah’s (ra) mind may be gauged from the following incident:
At the age of 40, when one night in the Mount Hira the Holy Prophet (sa) was absorbed in introspection and meditation, he was called by a mighty voice: ‘Read’, said the voice. ‘What shall I read?’ said the Holy Prophet (sa). ‘Read in the name of thy Lord.’
[Afterwards, he] ran to Khadijah (ra) trembling and told her all that had happened. He was rent with fear and anxiety. Doubt preyed upon his heart. He could not decide what the voice meant. He might have been possessed and fallen a victim to evil spirits, he had thought. Khadijah (ra) consoled and comforted him. ‘Be of good cheer, O dear husband. By him in Whose hands stands Khadijah’s (ra) life, He shall not disgrace and destroy thee, for thou speakest the truth, dost not return evil for evil, kepest faith, art kind to thy relations and friends, helpest the needy and the poor, and entertainest guests, and art the embodiment of all that is good.’
She was firmly convinced that it was the voice of an angel that had spoken to him, and that he was commissioned to reform the corrupted humanity and give life to the spiritually dead world.
When none believed in him, when he himself had not yet awakened to the full consciousness of his mission and his heart was full of doubts, and all around him was dark and despairing, her love, her faith had stood by him. She was ever his angel of hope and consolation. She loved him most because she knew him most. She was the first person to believe in him because she was the first to be given an opportunity to study his character.
The Holy Prophet (sa) was not only faithful to her when she lived: to the end of his life, he entertained the tenderest recollection of her love and devotion, and remembered her with the same intensity of affection. Her name was never mentioned before him but tears welled up in his eyes. He used to send presents to her friends. One day relates A’ishah (ra) (in later years his most dearly loved wife), Khadijah’s (ra) sister came to see the Holy Prophet (sa), and knocked at the door asking for permission. The Holy Prophet (sa) recognised her voice and hurried to open the door, exclaiming, ‘My Khadijah’s sister has come.’ Here is the husband whose example all husbands should follow.
The Holy Prophet (sa) was not only a loving husband, he was a noble master too. ‘Ten years,’ says Anas, his faithful servant, ‘I served the Prophet (sa), but he never scolded me for what I did and what I did not.’
His wife, Khadijah (ra), gave him a slave, Zaid Harith by name. He enfranchised him and loved him as he loved his own sons, so much so that people used to call him Zaid, son of Muhammad. This kindness on the one side gave rise to absolute devotion on the other, and the Arab boy could not be induced even by his own father to return to his tribe or forsake the Holy Prophet (sa). His father came to the Holy Prophet (sa) and requested him to allow his son to go home with him. ‘I have no objection,’ said the Holy Prophet (sa), ‘if Zaid wishes to go with you.’ ‘I will not leave thee,’ Zaid said, clinging to the Prophet (sa), ‘for thou has been a father and a mother to me.’
The Holy Prophet’s (sa) affection for Zaid was too strong to be cooled down by the death of the latter. It survived his death, and his son, Usamah, was treated by the Prophet (sa) with distinguished favour and was among the persons whom he loved most. When Abu Bakr (ra) and Umar (ra), his two most faithful followers, did not speak to him, Usamah would approach him without any hesitation. Faithfulness was the central point of his character and the cardinal article of his faith. If once he had contracted friendship with a person, he was not the man to break it or even let it cool down.
The Holy Prophet’s (sa) life was an unbroken record of returning good for good or even good for evil when the latter was not incompatible with the sense of justice or involve no injustice to anybody else. Abu Talib, his uncle, had brought him up. After his marriage with Khadijah (ra), his monetary condition had been much improved. Abu Talib’s endeavour to maintain the old position of his family had considerably straitened his circumstances.
It was at this period that the Holy Prophet (sa) tried to discharge some portion of the debt of gratitude and obligation. He owed his uncle by charging himself with the education and upbringing of his son, Ali (ra). Henceforward Ali (ra) lived with his benefactor. Gifted with a remarkable insight, he studied the character of the Holy Prophet (sa) minutely. He believed in him when he was only a lad of fourteen or fifteen, and at a time when the Prophet’s (sa) mention of his claim met with division and mockery. This solicitous regard for his little cousin on the Holy Prophet’s (sa) part, and the reverential affection of the young Ali (ra) for him grew as they grew in years till the Holy Prophet (sa) sealed the bond of his love and devotedness by marrying his daughter, Fatimah (ra), to him.
The strength and beauty of the Holy Prophet’s (sa) character lies in the fact that whosoever came in contact with him believed in his honesty, sincerity, truthfulness, and the cause he held so dear to his heart.
The Holy Prophet (sa) was not only a warm friend, a noble master, a loving husband, but an affectionate and kind father as well. All the hardships and privations he had to undergo, and the bitter opposition and persecution he had to contend with could not disturb the equanimity of his mind and embitter his temper. He was a preacher, a teacher, a legislator, a lawyer, a magistrate, a judge, a general, and a king. But his onerous duties and grave public responsibilities could not encroach upon his affections as a father. He had divided his time into three parts – one was given to God, the second allotted to his family, the third to himself. When public business began to press upon him, he gave up one half of the latter portion to the service of others. He was scrupulously faithful to all these divisions of his time. He was tenderly devoted to his children. He had four daughters and three sons from Khadijah (ra), his dearly loved wife. All died before him; only Fatimah (ra), his youngest daughter, survived him. Their loss wrung the heart of the bereaved father, so tenderly and devotedly attached to them, that he wept over their death.
Standing by the deathbed of his son Ibrahim, he said, ‘Eyes are shedding tears and the heart is sorrowful, and we do not say anything that displeases our Lord, and we are sorely grieved, O Ibrahim, on account of your separation.’
One of his companions, seeing his eyes shedding tears, said, ‘What is this, O Prophet of God?’ ‘Who is not affectionate to God’s creatures and his own children, replied the Holy Prophet (sa), ‘God will not be affectionate to him.’ See a man whom the most deterrent and relentless persecution could not daunt, whose peace of mind was not disturbed even when the price was laid upon his head, and who led all the expeditions in which his armies were outnumbered and out-provisioned in person, weeping on the death of a little baby. ‘There is something so tender and womanly, and withal so heroic, about the man,’ says Lane Poole, ‘that one is in peril of finding the judgement unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and well-nigh love that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone, braved for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to withdraw his hand from another’s clasp; the beloved of children, who never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and a kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice.’
He placed a very high ideal before his followers in this respect. ‘Honour your children,’ he said, and he himself lived up to that lofty ideal. He used to stand up when his daughter Fatimah (ra) came to see him. All religions have laid down injunctions and precepts as to how children should behave towards their parents, but utter silence as to the kind of treatment to be meted out to the children by the parents is observable in all the faiths except Islam. The Holy Prophet (sa) was not unmindful of the mentality of children, and knew quite well that the lack of due honour shown to them in dealing with them produces meanness of disposition in them.
This is a very brief and incomplete sketch of the dealings of the Holy Prophet (sa) with the members of his family.
This is one aspect of his life in which he demonstrates, with practical example, that he is the best exemplar and the highest model of virtue for all men. It is the distinguishing characteristic of his life that he not only gave practical rules of guidance in all walks of life, but gave by his life a practical illustration of all those rules. Sentimentalists and transcendentalists may not be pleased with him because he did not give some moral precepts quite impracticable in the actual life of men, and because his message is less poetical and less mystical but appeals by its practicality and strong common sense to higher minds, and is adapted to the capacity and demands of inferior natures which require positive and comprehensible directions for moral guidance. His message was for all classes, and not for the visionaries only. He was sent as a mercy for all mankind, and a perfect model in all aspects of life. He was the victim of persecution at Makkah for thirteen years; the head of a state at Madinah, he legislated and disposed of legal cases like a wise judge; he led his armies to battle in person, and fought like a soldier in the cause of truth, justice, and freedom. He contracted marriages and had children. He served as a shepherd and acted like a king.
Thus we see that in all walks of life he was an excellent exemplar and a perfect model for all men in all ages and under all climes, and thus is justified the claim of the Holy Qur’an: ‘Certainly you have in the Apostle of Allah an excellent exemplar for him who hopes in Allah and the latter day and remembers Allah much.’
The Review of Religions, August 1925 edition.
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