Description of the Prophet – Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

Transcript Text

One of the calamities of religions is when the Messenger becomes exalted over the One who sent him. We do not believe the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is divine. We have been given the gift of understanding the Messenger in relation to the One who sent him. The Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is central to teachings of Islam. You cannot exalt the Creator without exalting His Messenger, and you cannot exalt His Message without exalting His Messenger. We are commanded by God to magnify the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). Shaykh Hamza Yusuf eloquently explains why we must celebrate the Prophet every day of our lives. He also adds at the end an elucidating explanation of how Muslims should emulate the behaviour the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) had during trying times, reminding us that Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) taught. The believer is one from whose evil humanity is safe and that he was sent only as a mercy to everyone.

Love (mahabba) for people arises from three characteristics: 1) their physical outward beauty, 2) their inward beautiful character, and 3) the good or the sacrifice they do for us. To increase and maintain his love for the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), Sayyidina Hassan (the Prophet’s grandson) sought descriptions of all three of these aspects of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) because he wanted something to hold on to. Adding his own commentary to these intimate descriptions, Shaykh Hamza, with his usual eloquence, passionately relates what Sayyidina Hassan gathered about the Beloved of Allah. Shaykh Hamza says if you knew what the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) did for you, you would fall in love with him and explains that mahabba grows like a seed. For those who desire to fall in love with the Beloved of Allah, this talk is for them.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem 

Hasan ibn Ali asked his maternal uncle Hind bin Abi Haalah about the description of the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). He said about his uncle that he was very capable of describing, he had given an excellent description of the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). He said “I desired to hear this description from him because I wanted something to hold onto”.

One of things about the ulema, they say mahaba (love) for most human beings arises out of three things. The first is the physical love. You see something beautiful and your heart inclines towards it. So He put the love of beauty in the hearts of human beings. If you see something beautiful, you incline towards it. Your eye delights in it. If you see a human being that is beautiful, you can fall in love, it can happen just from sight. The ulema have maintained the physical description of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) because that is a level of mahaba – to actually hear how beautiful he was. He was the most beautiful human being. He was more beautiful than Yusuf. One of the gifts of this ummah is that we have an exact description of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), it is as if you are looking at him. There was a desire to keep the description of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) so people could have a physical attraction to him as well as the first stage of love.

Book Excellent Qualities Of The Holy Prophet And His Companions – Sahih Muslim

KITAB AL-FADA’IL

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Chapter 1 : INTERCESSION BY THE APOSTLE OF ALLAH (MAY PEACE BE UPON HIM) AND THE PAYING OF SALUTATIONS BY A STONE TO HIM BEFORE HIS ADVENT AS A PROPHET

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Book 30, Number 5653:

Wathila b. al-Asqa’ reported: I heard Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Verily Allah granted eminence to Kinana from amongst the descendants of Isma’il and he granted eminence to the Quraish amongst Kinana and he granted eminence to the Quraish amongst Banu Hashim and he granted me eminencece from the tribe of Banu Hashim.

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Book 30, Number 5654:

Jabir b. Samura reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying : I recognise the stone in Mecca which used to pay me salutations before my advent as a Prophet and I recognise that even now.

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Chapter 2 : THE EMINENCE OF OUR PROPHET (MAY PEACE BE UPON HIM) OVER THE WHOLE CREATION

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Book , Number 5655:

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: I shall be pre-eminent amongst the descendants of Adam on the Day of Resurrection and I will be the first intercessor and the first whose intercession will be accepted (by Allah).

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Chapter 3 : THE MIRACLES OF THE HOLY PROPHET (MAY PEACE BE UPON HIM)

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Book 30, Number 5656:

Anas reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) called for water and he was given a vessel and the people began to perform ablution in that and I counted (the persons) and they were between fifty and eighty and I saw water which was spouting from his fingers.

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Book 30, Number 5657:

Anas b. Malik reported : I saw Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) during the time of the afternoon prayer and the people asking for water for performing ablution which they did not find. (A small quantity) of water was brought to Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and he placed his hand in that vessel and commanded people to perform ablution. I raw water spouting from his fingers and the people performing ablution until the last amongst them performed it.

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Book 30, Number 5658:

Anas b. Malik reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) and his Companions were at a place known as az-Zaura’ (az-Zaurd’ is a place in the bazar of Medina near the mosque) that he called for a vessel containing water. He put his hand in that. And there began to spout (water) between his fingers and all the Companions performed ablution. Qatada, one of the narrators in the chain of narrators, said: Abu Hamza (the kunya of Hadrat Anas b. Malik), how many people were they? He said: They were about three hundred.

The Light of the Prophet

by Dr. Mostafa al-Badawi

“Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth . . . “^{[1. Qur’an (24:35).]} The Light is one of the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah. Light is that by which things become known. Things may exist in the dark, but they cannot be seen. Light may be physical, such as the light of the sun or the moon, or intelligible, like the light of the intellect. The latter is that which illuminates the darkness of ignorance with the light of knowledge. Total darkness is non-existence, thus light is that which brings created beings out of non-existence into existence. It is the creative act of Allah and this is one of the meanings of “Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth . . . ” The other meaning is that every light in the universe is but a reflection of His mercy, every knowledge a reflection of His knowledge and so on. “Allah created His creation in darkness,” said the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, “then He sprayed them with His light. Those whom this light reached became rightly guided, while those it did not went astray.”^{[2. Tirmidhi.]} And he also said, as recorded by Muslim, “Allah, August and Majestic is He, wrote the destinies of creation fifty thousand years before He created the Heavens and the earth. His throne was on the water. Among what He wrote in the Remembrance, which is the Mother of the Book, was: Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets.”

The Mother of the Book is the source of all knowledge, including the Divine Scriptures. It is the essential knowledge of Allah before He created creation. This is why it is said to have been written fifty thousand years before the creation of the cosmos, a symbolic number, since without stars and planets there cannot be days and years as we understand them. Allah conceived His creation in the darkness of non-existence, then with the light of His creative act brought them out into existence. Thus the First Light was created, a being appearing against the dark background of non-existence. “The first thing that Allah created was the Intellect,”^{[3. Tirmidhi.]} said the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him. He also said, “The first thing that Allah created was the Pen,” which amounts to the same thing, since the first intellect is the primordial light in its passive aspect as recipient of the knowledge of what is to be, while the Pen is the primordial light in its active aspect of writing this knowledge on the Guarded Tablet at Allah’s command. “The first thing that Allah created was the Pen and He said to it: Write! So it wrote what is to be forever.”^{[4. Tabarani and Abu Nu’aym.]} From this First light all of creation, with all its varied forms and meanings till the end of time unfolds.

Quraysh of the Hollow

MUHAMMAD

his life based on the earliest sources

By Martin Lings

OTHER of the most powerful Arab tribes of Abrahamic descent was Quraysh; and about four hundred years after Christ, a man of Quraysh named Qusayy married a daughter of Hulayl who was then chief of Khuza’ah, Hulayl preferred his son-in-law to his own sons, for Qusayy was outstanding amongst Arabs of his time, and on the death of Hulayl, after a fierce battle which ended in arbitration, it was agreed that Qusayy should rule over Mecca and be the guardian of the Ka’bah.

He thereupon brought those of Quraysh who were his nearest of kin and settled them in the valley, beside the Sanctuary -his brother Zuhrah; his uncle Taym; Makhzum, the son of another uncle; and one or two cousins who were less close. These and their posterity were known as Quraysh of the Hollow, whereas Qusayy’s more remote kinsmen settled in the ravines of the surrounding hills and in the countryside beyond and were known as Quraysh of the Outskirts. Qusayy ruled over them all as king, with undisputed power, and they paid him a tax every year on their flocks, so that he might feed those of the pilgrims who were too poor to provide for themselves. Until then the keepers of the Sanctuary had lived round it in tents. But Qusayy now told them to build themselves houses, having already built himself a spacious dwelling which was known as the House of Assembly.

All was harmonious, but seeds of discord were about to be sown. It was a marked characteristic of Qusayy’s line that in each generation there would be one man who was altogether pre-eminent. Amongst Qusayy’s four sons, this man was’Abdu Manaf, who was already honoured in his father’s lifetime. But Qusayy preferred his first-born, ‘Abd ad-Dar, although he was the least capable of all; and shortly before his death he saidto him: “My son, I will set thee level with the others in despite of men’s honouring them more than thee. None shall enter the Ka’bah except thou open it for him, and no hand but thine shall knot for Quraysh their ensign of war, nor shall any pilgrim draw water for drink in Mecca except thou give him the right thereto, nor shall he eat food except it be of thy providing, nor shall Quraysh resolve upon any matter except it be in thy house.”[ LL 83. Throughout this book, everything between quotation marks has been translated from traditional sources.]

The King of Yemen and the Last Prophet (s)

The incredible story of the King who sent a letter to our Prophet (s) a thousand years before his birth, seeking his intercession!

The following account is narrated in Al Mustazarf, Hajjatullah `alal-Alamīn’ and in Tārīkh ibne Asākir and translated from an article by Abū Nūr Mohammad Bashīr.

Once the King of Yemen, Tab’a Awwal Hamirī, about 2,500 years ago, went on tour of his country and those surrounding it. He was a very rich King indeed. In his entourage he had 12,000 `ulama, physicians and learned men in addition to his army of 114,000 soldiers. Wherever they went, the procession of these men and soldiers which marched in much pomp and ceremony that people lined the roadside to watch them, gathered wherever they went and welcomed them.

When the entourage reached the outskirts of Makkah, no one came to see them or welcome them to the town. This greatly surprised the King. He asked his Chief Minister, “Wherever we have gone people have gathered in droves to see and welcome us. But not here. What is the reason?”

The Chief Minister replied, “Your Highness! There is a House in this town. It is called Baitullāh. The people of this town and its Khādim have a great respect for it. Our entourage has no comparison to it. People in large numbers from places near and far come for Pilgrimage to this House. In this town no one will heed you or give you any importance. They respect the holy House more than kings.”

Hearing this, the King was furious. In his anger, he swore and declared, “I will raze this House to the ground and have the people of this town killed.” No sooner had the King uttered these words that blood began spurting from his mouth, nose and eyes. The blood was so foul smelling that his companions moved away from him and no one would come near him. He called upon his Physicians and doctors for treatment, but no one could help or treat him any way. His condition got worse. He could not sleep at night and kept on tossing and turning. He wanted to get treated by any means and at any cost.