A Brief Essay on Who Is Muhammad

A Brief Essay on Who Is Muhammad?

Throughout my life I have come to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and harmony. I have put my trust, my soul, and myself in Islam; it has not guided me astray nor has it guided me to beliefs that are illogic to the social norm's ability of understanding. Raised as a Muslim, some might say I had no choice but to be a Muslim. On the contrary, Islam itself has promoted in its holy book, the Quran, the need to search and know other religions. How can you know if you have the right religion when you don't know about other religions? But after studying Islam and other religions I have come to the conclusion that Islam is the most complex when it comes to finding the origins of its latest founder in this case Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Ibn Abdalmuttalib (peace and blessings be upon him).

In this paper I will discuss Muhammad's life according to scholars of Islam and why we can accept their information instead of regarding them as mythical. This paper is meant to describe Muhammad by the best possible sources using the Quran as the holiest source or as undistorted evidence to prove the ahadith. In this paper I am not arguing whether the Quran is God's words but for a moment let us accept that fact in proving the existence and validity of Muhammad's life.

Starting from our father Adam, God created the first human. Without doubt Adam accepted God's presence. The holy books of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all include this major creation of the first human being. According to the Gospel and Torah:

So God created man (Adam) in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

As people we do not think of Adam as a Prophet or a Messenger first, but rather as a human. Paintings and cartoons today display Adam as a man barely shading his shame with leaves. Is it because he was sent with no holy book, we do not think of him as a prophet or a messenger? Or is it because people during his time did not argue the fact that he was the first human God created in his time? Of course it would be foolish for non-heathens to believe that children will stone or deny their father because of what he claimed, as earlier people behaved toward prophets such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Muhammad unlike Jesus was born in the desert of Al-Hijaz or what is now known as Saudi-Arabia with no miracle of speaking but a miracle of light, which I will get into later in this paper. Muhammad was raised as an orphan by his uncle after his parents died. Like any normal child, Muhammad needed to be looked over, fed, and taught right from wrong; that is why Muhammad's stay with the Beni Sa'd with his wet nurse Halimah was necessary. Muhammad's life as an infant went by rapidly according to Gottfried Hagen in Ideas Of Childhood In Ottoman Hagiography:

Darir tells us that Muhammad grew fast, that he went through one year's growth in only one month, that he spoke early with his first words being Allahu ekber, and that he also started to walk early (G 1/283, not in D).

Muhammad's public childhood was not miraculous but abnormal if you will. The reason why I say public instead of private is because there was a miracle, which occurred during Muhammad's private childhood known as the opening of the breast. Most hadith, sayings and teachings of Muhammad, speak of the opening of the breast in detail but what makes the story true in general is its narration in the Quran. According to God in the Quran (Surah 94):

(1) Have we not opened your breast for you? (2) And removed from you your burden. (3) Which weighed down your back. (4) And have we not raised high your fame?

This indicates that the opening of the breast actually took place. In every human being there is a black spot, which symbolizes the place of the Iblis (devil) that is what's meant by God to Muhammad in verse two. In the fourth verse God is telling Muhammad what he has done for him that he has not done for other men, meaning Muhammad would be nothing more than a regular human being in history not spoken about in books by future sources. For example, he is being spoken about now because he is a prophet because God made him a messenger. Muhammad was an ordinary man, a warner like all other prophets as in they all died and were brought into the world from the belly of a female. According to God in the Quran (Surah 38):

(65) Say (O Muhammad): "I am only a warner and there is no God except Allah the One, the Irresistible.

Allah or God clearly calls Muhammad a warner and not anything greater than the regular man. In the Islamic religion there is a sin called Kibr (to believe you are better than the normal person). Kibr is a sin, which is avoided by all Muslims and condemned by God and his prophets. The only one in the universe that can practice Kibr is God himself for he is greater than man, which he created. Allah calls Muhammad a warner, meaning an ordinary man, the only difference is he was sent with a mission from God which makes him by God's words no better than a regular man. Of course God can love one man more than the other but the man cannot think of himself as better than the other. According to Hadith (The book of Faith) {Sahih Muslim} No. 165:

It is narrated on the authority of Abdullah bin. Mas'ud that the Prophet of Allah (pbuh), observed: He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise. A person (amongst his hearers) said: Verily a person loves that his dress should be fine, and his shoes should be fine. He (the Prophet) remarked: Verily, Allah is Graceful and He loves Grace. Pride disdains the truth (out of self-conceit) and shows contempt for the people.

This hadith is accepted because according to Allah in the Quran (Surah 31) and (Surah 38)

(18) "And turn not your face away from me with pride, nor walk in insolence through the earth. Verily, Allah likes not any arrogant boaster.

(74) Except Iblis: He was proud and was one of the disbelievers. (75) (Allah) said: "O Iblis! What prevents you from prostrating yourself to one whom I have created with Both My Hands? Are you too proud or are you one of the high exalted?"(76) (Iblis) said: "I am better than he. You created me from fire, and You created him from clay."

Kibr, as you know now, is a very sensitive sin in Islam, which has to be avoided by all humanity including the prophets and messengers of God. Muhammad