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_-_From_Savages_to_Saints_001.jpg) The next aspect that caught me eye—and this again was something
that non-Muslims were mentioning in their works—was the effect that the Quran
had on the generation of the Prophet. May the mercy and blessings of God be
upon him, and afterwards.
It is clear that the Arabs at the time of the Prophet
were wont to drink, make merry and engage in tribal battles. They were known to
sometimes kill their female babies. However, one finds that in a short span of
close to twenty years a movement that started with just one man was able, due
to the grace of God and the miraculous effect of the Quran, to change almost
all of the Arabs and non-Arabs in the Arabian peninsula and bind them together
into a brotherhood of faith and mercy which was so strong that if any one part
of this brotherhood was in anguish, the whole brotherhood would be affected
negatively. At that time, one could find two people who were from previously
antagonistic tribes sharing their wealth and willing to give up their lives for
each other. Indeed, one was willing to split half of his wealth and divorce one
of his wives for the sake of his new brother who was from a “foreign” tribe.
Perhaps one of the best descriptions of the change that
took place among the Muslims can be seen in the famous statement of the
Companion Jafar ibn Abu Talib who was asked by the Negus of Abyssinia about the
mission of the Messenger. He told him,
O king, we were an ignorant people, worshipping idols,
eating carrion and indulging in sexual pleasures. We ridiculed our neighbors, a
brother oppressed his brother, and the strong devoured the weak. At this time a
man rose among us, who had already been known to be truthful, noble and honest.
This man called us to Islam. And he taught us to give up worshipping stones, to
speak the truth, to refrain from bloodshed, and not to defraud the orphans of
their property. He taught us to provide comfort to our neighbors and not to
bring a slander against chaste women. He enjoined upon us to offer prayers,
observe fasts and give alms. We followed him, gave up polytheism and idolatry
and refrained from all evil deeds. It is for this new way that our people have
become hostile to us and compel us to return to our old misguided life.
That generation, in turn, took the message to the rest
of the world. They were clearly a people who were taken from darkness into
light and to the straight path of God. When asked by the Emperor of Persia what
brought the Muslims to their lands, two different Companions answered in
similar terms: “God has sent us to take whoever wishes from the servitude of
mankind to the servitude of God and from the tightness of this world to its
expanse and from the injustice of the ways of life [in this world] to the
justice of Islam.”
During the lifetime of the Prophet, may the mercy and
blessings of God be upon him, one can see how these people were turned into a
pious generation, fearing God and hoping for God’s reward. Even when they, as
humans, slipped and committed sins, they eagerly repented and turned to God for
His forgiveness. They would much rather face a severe penalty in this life,
such as death, than face God with their sins on their hands. This can be seen
in the cases of Maaiz ibn Maalik al-Aslami and the woman called al-Ghaamidiyah.
Both of them came to the Prophet to admit that they had committed adultery and
each asked the Prophet for the worldly retribution to erase their sins. In the
case of al-Ghaamidiyah, the Prophet asked her to go back after her confession
and to return to the Prophet after she had given birth. She came back with her
child in her arms and asked the Prophet to purify her from her sins. The
Prophet then asked her to return after she had weaned the child. Then she
returned after some time and told the Prophet that the child was no longer in
need of her breastfeeding. She once again asked for her expiation from her sin.
Then, finally, the Prophet implemented the legal retribution as an expiation
for her sin of adultery. The Prophet then praised her act of repentance.
The effect of this change in the Companions continued
long after the death of the Prophet. Note the following accounts of the
Companions as they sought to spread the message of Islam to the rest of the
world:
The sterling character and qualities of the Muslim
soldiers were once praised by a Roman officer in these words: “At night you
will find them prayerful; during the day you will find them fasting. They keep
their promises, order good deeds, suppress evil and maintain complete equality
among themselves.”
Another testified thus: “They are horsemen by day and ascetics by night.
They pay for what they eat in territories under their occupation. They are
first to salute when they arrive at a place and are valiant fighters who just
wipe out the enemy.”
A third said: “During the night it seems that they do
not belong to this world and have no other business than to pray, and during
the day, when one sees them mounted on their horses, one feels that they have
been doing nothing else all their lives. They are great archers and great
lancers, yet they are so devoutly religious and remember God so much and so
often that one can hardly hear talk about anything else in their company.”
The benefits of the civilization developed upon the
teachings of the Quran went well beyond the Muslim lands. Many are familiar
with the Muslims’ influence on Europe and how Islamic influences eventually led
to the Renaissance. The author of A History of the Intellectual Development
of Europe, John Draper wrote, “Four years after the death of Justinian,
A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised
the greatest influence upon the human race.”This work was quite an eye opener for me at the
time of my conversion to Islam. Draper, writing in the 19th century,
was very disappointed and seemingly angered that Muslims continually failed to
receive their proper accolades for all that they contributed to European
society and civilization. For instance, he writes "To these Saracens
we are indebted for many of our personal comforts. Religiously cleanly, it
was not possible for them to clothe, according to the fashion of the
natives of Europe, in a garment unchanged till it dropped to pieces of itself, a
loathsome mass of vermin, stench and rags... They taught us the use of the oft-changed and
oft-washed under-garment of linen and cotton, which still
passes among ladies under its old Arabic name...”
Many scholars have recognized the importance of Islam
and the Quran’s teachings for the betterment of humanity. The famous intellect
George Bernard Shaw once stated,
“I have
always held the religion of Muhammad in high
estimation because of its wonderful vitality… I have prophecied about
the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable tomorrow as it is beginning
to be acceptable to the Europe of today. Mediaeval ecclesiastics, either through
ignorance or bigotry, painted
Muhammadanism in the darkest colours. They were, in fact, trained to hate both
the man Muhammad and his religion. To them Muhammad was anti-Christ. I have
studied him, the wonderful man, and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ
he must be called the saviour of Humanity.
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