“I wanted to learn more about the life of one who holds today indisputably the hearts of millions of human beings; I am now more convinced than ever that it was not the sword that created a place for Islam in the heart of those who sought a direction to their lives. It was this humility, altruism of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his commitments, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his courage, his absolute trust in God and his own mission. These facts, and not the sword, brought him so much success and enabled him to overcome the problems. “
This testimony comes from the famous Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, considered the most important playwright since Shakespeare and drew inspiration from the critique of capitalist society. His comments may surprise many in our time as the author, in his time, was not the only one to show much respect to the Prophet of Islam.
It is true that these moments crossed by countless existential questions and where, more than ever, there is the problem of human destiny, given the legal and socio-political crises, it may seem naive or moved for some to evoke a religious figure and wanting to draw any lesson from his experience, especially when it is called prophetic.
The “disenchantment of the world” in the Weberian sense and triumphant secularism can induce religious obsolescence in favor of a final victory of rationalism. But it would be without counting the eternal quest for meaning which has never ceased to haunt humans. Despite the disaffection of traditional religions and / or classic forms of religiosity that fill our space – is called modern – persist, emerge and re-emerge it-and then with a more or less noticeable extent.
The clearest manifestation of the phenomenon of human attachment to the “means of production” of meaning is the conceptual and material impossibility of distinguishing today, like Durkheim the areas of “secular” and “religious” in social activity. One can believe that this need for meaning is inherent in human nature and lies in its very midst.
Religions in general, with the rise of extremism, are banished from “thinking society” and today’s media. Islam whose approach does not benefit from the same frame of mind as that adopted for the study of other monotheisms is pegged as the perfect illustration of the danger threatening religious freedoms, democracy and the antithesis of the spirit secular and progress. So, apprehended outside the social and historical conditions of its emergence in the different contexts in which it is at the heart of the social world, Islam is stigmatized and confined in regimens that make it a particularly monolithic monotheism therefore unable to provide the impulse and drive to the entrance into modernity.
However, a return to the path of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would see, in many ways, how this religion that was born in the 7th century has always been a source of dynamism and change factor shaping today’s life of more than one billion people on five continents. Evoking the personality of Muhammad (PBUH), we realize the extraordinary way in which religion he professed knew the contours of various cultures, in their diversity to unite peoples of different traditions closer to distant lands various socio-historical conditions.
Whatever contradictory opinions expressed by each other in form, the spread of Islam has always puzzled most analysts versed in historical processes. The time scale, the extent of the field and sociological adaptations of this expansion has not affected social harmony companies having embraced Islam are so many elements that deserve reflection.
“If greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who would dare to compare a man in modern history with Muhammad? “ wondered Alphonse de Lamartine in 1854. These questions are part of this lack of exhaustive explanation of the phenomenon of Muhammad (PBUH). Far from us, pretend to try to provide all the keys to establish an efficient grid man reading the story of uncommon for Muslims.
In addition to the quality of the man, the “super-human” character of his purpose makes it impossible to completeness. The author of the Life of Muhammad warns that it is not an easy task to account for all facets of the life of the Prophet of Islam which he considers the greatest: “No man is proposed voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was superhuman: Saper superstitions placed between the creature and the Creator, making God to man and man to God, restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity “ he says, without reservations.
We limit ourselves, therefore, a simple re-visit the stages of his life by stopping especially on the consequences of this preaching and this message on the course of history. Despite disagreements and differences of opinion, the birth of the prophet of this Seal June 22 570 (or 571 according to other sources) to Mecca mark the spirits forever.
The son of Amina and Abdullah Ibn Abdelmutallib was born in a changing society at some point in Arab history by qualified Islamic traditions disorder and dark. And now, in the words of Mujtaba Musawi Lari-, that “another sun rose in the sky darkened, the light suddenly lit up the dark horizon of life” . The merit of such a being was, according to his followers, to become the most gorgeous man in the world after having been brought up in a corrupt and unjust society.
The means to reach his goal could only be very modest with regard to the orphan’s social status Children shaken painful vicissitudes. Having never seen his father disappeared shortly before his birth, separated, very early by his mother’s death, and deprived of the assistance of his grandfather Abdelmutallib, this notable of Quraysh, which was lacking as soon as it had eight, Muhammad (PBUH) will be defenseless in society that would transform and where he could no longer count on the support of his uncle, Abu Talib, who left this world when the future prophet had not yet began his preaching.
In his Khilâs Dhahab al-Khayr al-Sirat fî’Arab , Seydi El Hadji Malick Sy Tivaoaune (Senegal) who made the celebration of Mawlid an event of great magnitude, describes well this youth Muhammad (PBUH) and his many adventures.
The orphan who wanted to be the father of mankind, the refuge of the oppressed in an unequal society and compassionate miserable surprisingly draw from addiction suffering, destitution and misfortune, the necessary strength to fulfill its mission . Thus, the young Meccans who came out of his natural Hijaz only twice: once with his deceased uncle and during his working caravan in the service of a wealthy widow who marry and will fully support , will have a hard fate to assume the task was so daunting.
The tradition is rather verbose about the moral and personal qualities she found in Muhammad (PBUH). Is it not in this fight the Meccan society that he won the title Al-Amin, ” the trustworthy “ ?At first glance, the course of his prophetic career, will have no originality in terms of similarities with all religious leaders or other messages that the original company has always fiercely resisted. No one is a prophet in itself looks like the maxim! But there is no denying the specificity of the first circle of the followers of Muhammad (PBUH) in the year 610 after JC
The university tradition of the 70 heavily inspired by a Marxist analysis in his approach, has long insisted on the dialectic characterizing the early years of the Muhammadan preaching. It is true that some aspects of his life and his preaching have good air if not of a “revolution”, at least from a deep societal change.
In a society marked by a polytheism part of the socioeconomic system, Muhammad (PBUH) will propose the worship of one God. The worship of deities represented, carved, it will attempt to replace that of a religion that creates the abstract relation between God and man. It is in this sense that Alphonse de Lamartine sees in him “the restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images.”
Early adopters of nascent Islam come from different backgrounds but all share the same social status dominated in a highly hierarchical context in which inequality is erected in order. Through their names, we perceive the diversity of their origins. Apart from the few Companions who could uphold a role and an important place in the Meccan society, Muhammad (PBUH) was surrounded by oppressed people and asylum social justice that were in the new message, reassurance and solidarity that they could expect in an unfavorable system.
Bilal, the freed slave according to Muslim tradition says al-Habashi (Abyssinians), coming from the other side of the Red Sea, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), is Suhayb al-Rumi, certainly from regions under the rule of Byzantium, Salman al-Farisi is, (Persian) alluding to the field of the Persian Empire.Alongside them, a group of men and women who, despite the condition that was imposed on them asserted, risking their lives, their loyalty to Muhammad (PBUH) and faith in the oneness of God.
We must remember that the emergence of Islam coincided with a period when Saudi lived a turning point. The gradual settlement, the conversion of Bedouin societies, nomadic, trade and finance, were some cardinal virtues of the Arab man had difficulty to continue greed andaccumulating. Such a system is likely to increase inequalities and change hierarchies. The very notion and criteria of social prestige are thereby upset. Those at the margins of the system are ever attentive and receptive towards this Prophet who proposed justice, equality, respect for the orphan charity toward abroad.
Abused for undermining the established system and challenged the power of the Meccan hierarchy, the members of the first community of Islam know very early exile. The Negus, king of Abyssinia, will welcome them with hospitality and charity, protect the pure Christian tradition. What a happy meeting, which symbol of tolerance and mutual acceptance!
But the new religion professed by Muhammad soon found an echo in different parts of Arabia. After the persecutions, blockades, threats and torture, the inhabitants of Yathrib, which became Medina (Madinat al-rasul = the city of the Prophet), will welcome Muhammad (PBUH) and his followers in the year 622.
The narrow scope of this article does not allow deep analysis needed to understand the impetus from Madina Arabic Islam in its early days was to universalizing the meeting of the world, cultures and civilizations. This train of party spirituality of Medina, wherever he stops welcome on board together with the men, the virtues and qualities that made her great civilization.
Reflecting on this aspect of the work of Muhammad, Lamartine saw him as this man master in the art of harmony the “creator of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire.” It is the latter that most observers marveled of his prophetic mission. How, indeed, a religion born and evolved in such difficult circumstances could not only spread so quickly, but to create, in addition, a symbiosis in a variety of ocean.
In his look at the history of the world, Nehru expressed this question in these terms: “Surprisingly, the Arab race that seemed for centuries remained in a country without renown, sleepy, having lost its liveliness totally isolated from the world, unaware apparently all that was happening, suddenly awoke, upsetting with vigorous forces the world! “. he conceives as “a wonder of the world in human history” this way “the adventure of Islam and the history of its growth in Asia, Africa and Europe, and with the foundation of a magnificent civilization and a supreme culture. “
This is the man professing Islam as a message offering and fraternity and equality that the merit of such a silent revolution and not the genius of some people because the history of Islam, apart from the problematic Umayyad parenthesis (approximately 661 to 850) is made of diversity and contribution of cultures he went through, despite attempts to ethnicisation and Arabization since Abdul Malik Ibn Marwan.
As recalled Nehru, ” the driving thought that awoke the Arab world and overwhelmed him with self-confidence and the creative force was only Islam prophesied by Muhammad. “ Sheikh Ahmed Tidiane Sy said the during a visit Mecca “If it was not the prophet, messenger of Islam, who knew that civilization distinguished by hospitality to strangers” (lawla-n-nabiyyu rasûlullâhi ma ‘urifat / hadâratun sha’nuhâ- Does takrîmu li-l-ghuraba).
In any case, the metamorphism that led such a society, its historical confinement to conquer much of the world, embracing cultures and civilizations from the Atlantic to the China Sea remains so, an enigma for which some analysts are reluctant to see a simple “natural phenomenon.” But, as noted, the author of Poetic Meditations, utopias are sometimes as “premature truths”
Apart from the rapid and sustained expansion of Islam, it is the continuity of the message of Muhammad (PBUH) (died 632), having already gone through fourteen centuries, that can attract attention. Without going into the controversy of the inimitability of the Quran (i’jaz), one can not stop at the grip and still What would the message of the Prophet in the heart and attitude more one billion people across the globe.
True, the man said illiterate in many sources reached with a thundering momentum to bring his people into the world of books and science. From Baghdad to Isfahan to Samarkand, of Cairouan to Andalusia through the Imperial Fez, Islamic civilization has given the world great enlightened minds.Constant Virgil Gheorghui recalls in the biography of the Prophet of Islam: ” What he was illiterate, revealed the first verses highlight pen, science, education and instruction. If Muhammad was a scholar, revelation, made in the cave of “Hira” would not have caused astonishment “.
To explain the perennial nature and a strong rule in eternity, the message of Muhammad (PBUH), several assumptions were made. But the most explanations provided face the magnitude of the phenomenon and sometimes end up being unintentionally reducing. The nature of the message of Islam, wanting an overview of prophecies that preceded his genius for adaptation and respect for cultural traditions of his advocacy could be advanced as elements that can help clear a runway.
In his distinction between what he calls “human laws” and “laws” divine, Montesquieu (see the Spirit of Laws) although wrongly denying any dynamism of religious norms, leads to a conclusion interesting for our question. He succeeds in the idea that the main force religious laws cometh believed; the power of human laws cometh fears.
The case of black Africa could be cited as an example where Islam has rarely imposed, but has instead substituted and has quickly reshaped cultures without rejecting them. Here is a religion that was born of the Arabian Desert, worn by a man who had everything against him, can earn all continents, focusing on winning hearts the submission of bodies.
The diversity was its strength, social justice, his leitmotif. Around a prophet, a message and a faith she has given the world one of its most brilliant civilizations. The most apologetic authors have quickly reached their limit in the description of its human and moral qualities. Al-Bûsayrî (. XIII s) in its Burdah will merely conclude that he is a man and the best of creatures: fa mablaghul ‘ilmi annahu basharun / wa annahu Khayru khalqi Lahi kullihimi. The great Muqaddam of Tijaniyya, El Seydi Hadji Malick Sy (1855-1922), on the same rhyme (qafiya) and meter (Basit), quickly resorted to the summary by stating that for any qualifying RELATED ITEMS to the nobility of the soul, Muhammad (PBUH) deserves the absolute superlative! : fî kulli wasfin hamîdin Haza af’ala tafdîlin rajâ’ul Baraya yawma muzdahamî
Still, this message is revived in all its dimensions, once freed of prejudice in which both extremes that distort it and wear out, the advocates of essentialism, bear the unfortunate responsibility.
But whatever the tensions, despite the tears and the breakthrough of the animosity of viruses in the world today, we can never deny that this religion calls for dialogue to respect and peaceful coexistence.
No offense to the theorists of the clash of civilizations and the confrontation between a fantasy and a demonized East West, enlightened minds always évertueront to call for dialogue and mutual understanding. The example given by Goethe, in the following quote, by which we conclude, meditation deserves: “I have always had great respect for the religion preached by Muhammad because it is full of wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to contain the power to assimilate the changing phase of existence – power that can make it attractive to any period. I studied this wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the savior of humanity. (…) I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it will be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today. “
