In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent the MercifulMuhammad is the Messenger of Allah'(Qur'an 48:27-29)IN 610 A.D he received the first revelation in the Quran. This occurred in a cave in Makkah where he had retired to reflect over the circumstance of the people of his time, the circumstance of humanity today: young and old who were steeped in ignorance, men and women who were neck-deep in debauchery, the rich and the poor who were engaged in macabre dance of savagery and self-assured destruction.Makkah, before 610A.D was like the modern cities of today: cities where women's nudity are paraded as if in shopping malls, where chastity is abhorred the same way the unbeliever detests death, where injustice is the order of the day as is the situation in the contemporary world where justice has been manacled. Prophet Muhammad took refuge in the cave and soon heard a call or command: 'Recite! (or read!) In the name of your Lord Who created- created man from clots of blood. Recite! Your Lord is the Most Gracious, Who taught by the pen, taught man what he knew not.'-(96: 1-5)The above verses speak about knowledge, how to acquire it and to whom knowledge should be dedicated. It establishes the primacy of intellectualism over and above the abyss and the oddities of ignorance. The verses marked the beginning of a journey ' 10 years of prophethood calling in Makkah during which the Prophet, together with those who heeded his call, were subjected to the most harrowing of all treatments; 13 years of sojourn in Madinah during which Islam realised its full potentials.Makkah was a place where Islam was oppressed; Madinah was a space where Islam gained its freedom; Makkah was a place the Prophet was born; Madinah was destined to be the place where he would be buried; Makkah was the laboratory in which the concept of martyrdom was experimented with; Madinah was the terrain in which the idea of religious freedom and multiculturalism was operationalised: Makkah was the place Muhammad was treated as a villain, Madinah was the place he was treated as a hero; Makkah came into history for its initial repudiation of the truth, Madinah stepped into the centre of history for its momentous acceptance of Islam.Eventually Makkah and Madinah became the twin cities of Prophet Muhammad and, together with Jerusalem, they became the triple cities of Islam. When taken together, Makkah and Madinah became for the Prophet what it has become for Muslims and forever, too: cities where humanity is taught how to behave, first outside power and second, inside power; cities where men are made not only by virtue of the action they took but equally by serving as witnesses, and active ones for that matter, to other people's action and inaction, to other peoples errors of omission and commission.Thus, Muslims adulate and celebrate Prophet Muhammad because his message found practical exemplification in his persona, in his reality, in his life. He was a theorist and a pragmatist. In his persona, Islam in the text and Islam in socio-political and economic contexts of Arabia were mutually complimentary; a compliment which shames the shambolic crises and puts to question the anarchic realities of Muslim societies in the contemporary period.Muslims celebrate the birthday of Muhammad because of the humanity in his prophetic enterprise. Put differently, we adore and rejoice in his birth because he humanised the prophetic vocation to the extent that his traducers and sworn enemies could not but declaim his prophetic vocation as a result of the nexus, which he established between the secular and the Divine. He once led the Muslims in prayer in the mosque. During the course of the prayer he heard the cries of an infant. He quickly paused and remonstrated with the woman-worshipper to take care of her child because his cries and tears weighed heavily on his heart'In other words, Muhammad was a Prophet who could not bear the sight of his enemies in pains. How else might we describe the cartography of the union between the Divine and the profane in a prophet who never said 'I still dey laugh o!' at a time his political-'enemies' were in positions of loss'How might the Muslims cease celebrating the birth of a Prophet who was blessed by Allah more than his companions among the Prophets of Allah. In a report quoted by Ibn Kathir, he was quoted as having said as follows: 'God has favoured me more than the other prophets in six ways: I have been endowed with the gift of speech, which is brief but full of knowledge; I was granted victory owing to my awe; the spoils of war were made lawful unto me; the whole earth has been made the place of worship for me and it has become the means of purification for me also; I have been sent to the whole world; and the line of prophets has come to its final end in me'. On a trans-Atlantic flight from New York the other day, I realised it was time for early- morning prayer and I quickly set out to observe my duty as a Muslim. A co-passenger sitting next to me was surprised. He wondered whether it was valid for me to observe prayers inside the plane. I quickly reminded him that it was a measure of the treasure of Islam!Celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad once it dawns on you that unlike others, the message he brought for humanity was practical. In other words, Islam is that religion which is suitable and useful at all times and in all climes. Arguments to the contrary would be a function of either ignorance, prejudice or cowardice. Colleagues in Alaska and in some part of Sweden wondered whether fasting is possible in parts of the world where sunlight occurs for less than five hours a day; others wanted to know whether as a lonely Muslim I could practice my religion with dignity and fidelity in societies where humans are at war with their Creator. My response was and still is: if it is possible for the sun to rise and set in any part of the world, then it is possible for Islam to be practiced in full in such regions.We shall continue to rejoice in the birth of Prophet Muhammad because he brought a message to the world, which was universal and comprehensive. His was a message of love and gender equity; his was a message of racial equality; his was a message, which is applicable in Malaysia as it is suitable in Philadelphia. Muhammad brought a message, which attends to the political the same way it does economical. This explains the finality in his persona, of the Prophetic enterprise. He says: 'I am Muhammad, I am Ahmad, I am the al-Mahi (the Effacer) in that through me infidelity shall be erased; I am al-Hashir (Assembler) in that people shall be assembled after me. And I am al-'Aqib (the Last) - Prophet Muhammad.(email-guardianfridayship@gmail.com)
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