Loving The Prophet

Imam Zaid Shakir

Opening Praise and Testimony

All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, seek His help and forgiveness, seek His guidance and repent to Him. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of ourselves and from the wickedness of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, there is none to misguide him, and whomever He misguides, there is none to guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone without any partners, and I bear witness that our master Muhammad is His servant and messenger.

"O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims [in submission to Him]."

O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will [then] amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great attainment.

Thereafter, the truest of speech is the Book of Allah and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad ﷺ, and the worst of affairs are novelties, and every novelty is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

All praise is [due] to Allah, who has guided us to this, and we would not have been guided if Allah had not guided us. [All] praise to Allah, who has sent down upon His Servant the Book and has not made therein any deviance.

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. All praise is due to Allah, who has guided us to this way and we would not have been able to guide ourselves had not Allah chosen to guide us.

The Month of Rabi' al-Awwal

Alhamdulillah, we're in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal and as we all know this is the month that witnessed the coming of Rasulullah ﷺ into this physical world, alam al-shahada as they say. It behooves us to take this time as we should take all time, but especially during this time, to reflect on our Prophet ﷺ, to reflect on his significance, to reflect on what he should mean to us, to reflect on our responsibility to our children.

Teaching Our Children Love of the Prophet

It is said: (عَلِّمُوا أَوْلَادَكُمْ حُبَّ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ - "Teach your children the love of the Messenger of Allah.") But as the Arabs say: (فَاقِدُ الشَّيْءِ لَا يُعْطِيهِ - "One who lacks something cannot extend it to someone else.") If we ourselves lack in the depths of our heart a true love for the Messenger of Allah, how can we extend that to our children? So we might say we love the Messenger of Allah, I love the Messenger of Allah, but when it comes to actualizing that love, when it comes to being able to really feel that love, when it comes to being able to describe that love to others, we find ourselves sometimes coming up short.

So in this khutbah I want to mention inshallah ta'ala some of the things that if Allah so wills will help us to enhance our love for the Messenger of Allah.

First: Learning of His Physical Beauty

One of the things that generates love is physical beauty. Some of us we met our spouses and they ask how did you meet? I just, oh, I looked up and there she was, it was love at first sight, right? We say that it was love at first sight, she was so beautiful that I just fell in love with her. So if we don't know the physical beauty of the Messenger of Allah, the beauty that inspired many of his companions to say they never saw anyone or anything more beautiful than the Messenger of Allah, he was more beautiful, his face was more beautiful and radiant than the full moon that we saw last night. A clear cloudless night we saw the beauty of the full moon that mesmerizes us, we stand back and we stare at it and we're in awe and something comes over us that we can't really describe. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ inspired a greater feeling than that feeling because of his physical beauty.

So it is incumbent upon us to study his shama'il, what were his physical characteristics, to know about his hair, to know about how in many aspects of his physical being he represented the middle course that Islam itself represents:

"And thus We have made you a middle nation that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you."

So if we're witnesses being a moderate middle nation and he's a witness for the people, then he also represents that moderate course. So his beautiful black hair, it wasn't straight and it wasn't totally curly, it was wavy between those two extremes. His physical stature, he was taller than the average person but he was shorter than a tall person. Likewise his complexion as it's described. So he represented that moderation in his totality that enhanced his beauty. And we could go on in that regard but we have to study that. If we don't know and can't begin to describe even to ourselves his physical beauty, how can that be a source of love? But when we come to understand the physical beauty, then we begin to love the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

Second: The Beauty of His Character

We also, one of the things that endears us is the beauty of character, the beauty, beautiful character. And no one's character was more beautiful than the Messenger of Allah. Some people again, let's go back to the analogy of the man and woman, they meet and someone asks the sister, you know your husband, he's not, you know, this sister who's asking, she's caught up in all the physicality, he doesn't have the biggest muscles, he's not the tallest person, he's kind of average, why did you marry him? Because I know you got proposed to by this brother who used to play in the NFL and you got proposed to by this brother who was on the cover of GQ magazine and this brother, why did you marry him? And the sister says, wallahi I've never met anyone whose character was more beautiful than this brother.

(Tirmidhi hadith 1084)

"If one comes to you and he has good deen and good character then marry him, marry him off to your daughter."

And I never saw anyone who was more gentle, anyone who was more honest, anyone who was more faithful, anyone who was kinder to the children. We come to the masjid, I just watch how this brother interacted with the little children, it reminded me of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ who would take time to rub the heads of the children, who would play with Hassan and Hussein, who would let the children race to him and then bowl him

over and he'd fall on the ground and they're crawling all over him ﷺ, who let a little girl grab his hand and run through the streets and alleys of Medina with him and he never let, pulled his hand away until she pulled her hand away ﷺ.

That brother reminded me of the Messenger of Allah, that's why I married him ﷺ. So character:

(Bukhari hadith 6)

"The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the most generous of people."

(Bukhari hadith 2908)

"The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the most courageous of people."

On the day of Hunayn when Bani Hawazin they met the Muslims with a shower of, a hailstorm of arrows, and all of them particularly the newly converted ones after the conquest of Mecca, they turned and they fled in the face of that hailstorm of arrows. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was advancing with his mule and he said:

(Bukhari hadith 2930, Muslim hadith 1776)

"I am the Prophet, that's no lie, I am the son of Abdul Muttalib."

And so it's only befitting of a prophet that he would be the most courageous of people because he's the example the others have to follow ﷺ. So we know his character, it engineers love for him. If we know his beauty, it leads to love for him ﷺ.

Third: Reflecting on His Sacrifices

If we know what he sacrificed, we love people who sacrifice for us. We love people who sacrifice for us. Go back to the married couple, it was love at first sight for him, she fell in love with his beautiful character, and now they're getting old, they're advancing in years and he starts to get thoughts, you know my wife, it was love at first sight but now I look at her and I don't get excited and he starts, shaitan starts playing with him. And then he remembers the sacrifices that she made for him, how she was there for him when no one was there, how she held down the house and took care of the children while he worked his way through medical school, how she took a part time job to help him pay off his debts, the sacrifices that she made for him. And he said to himself I will never leave this lady because he reflects on what she means to him, the sacrifices that she made so that he could be the man that he is today.

And when we reflect on the sacrifices that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and what he suffered for us, see his companions tortured when he's weak and has very few followers and his enemies are torturing the family of Yasir and they murdered, the first martyred, Sumayya رضي الله عنها and the only thing he can say is:

(Mustadrak al-Hakim hadith 5637)

"Be patient oh family of Yasir, your promise indeed is Jannah."

And seeing that suffering, Bilal and others tormented and enduring that for our sake, sending his message, his followers to Habesha twice so that this message will live on for our sake, having himself to go to present himself to the tribes to try to generate support for his mission, being humiliated in Ta'if for our sake, watching his beloved wife who had given all of her wealth to support his mission passing away while they're barricaded and blockaded outside of the city of Mecca in the wilderness for our sake, having to uproot and watch his companions uproot and have to leave their homeland, the beloved valleys, the dry climate and go to, have to migrate to Yathrib and suffering the swamps from the malaria and the fevers from the mosquitoes in the swamps

and the humidity that they weren't accustomed to and coming down with sickness and many of them perishing, to witness that.

To see his beloved uncle assassinated then his liver gorged out of his body, to see his beautiful youth like Mus'ab bin Umair who was one of the wealthiest, most sought after young men in Mecca, the best perfume, the best clothing, to see him killed and then not have anything even to cover his body. If they covered his lower extremities the upper extremities would be exposed and vice versa. And he suffered that for our sake ﷺ.

The Result of Reflecting on His Life

And when we reflect on that we begin to love the Messenger of Allah. And when we combine the beauty and we combine the character and we combine the sacrifices, how can we not love the Messenger of Allah ﷺ? May Allah ta'ala bless us to delve deeply into these aspects of his life, his character, his being, to take the time so that we can love the Messenger of Allah and those who have children can convey that love to their children, so that that light that was lit by his love in our hearts will shine on after our passing, it will shine on through our children and through our students and it will live on in the world and the prophetic legacy that has been described as a luminous lamp will continue to shine and light the way for a troubled, confused and lost humanity.

O Prophet, indeed We have sent you as a witness and a bringer of good tidings and a warner. And one who invites to Allah, by His permission, and an illuminating lamp.

May Allah bless us to take from that light and to pass it on.

I say this statement of mine, and I ask Allah for forgiveness for me and for you and for all the believing men and women, so seek His forgiveness.

Second Khutbah

Fourth: His Deep Pain for Our Difficulties

Another thing we can mention in terms of our love for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is to reflect on how deeply he was pained by any difficulty we suffer. How deep he was pained by those from his ummah who didn't respond to his call. The entire humanity after his being deputed to the prophetic office is his ummah, Ummatul Da'wah. All of us who have responded were Ummatul Ijabah. But the wider ummah, the wider humanity is his ummah.

And Allah سبحانه وتعالى says concerning that ummah and concerning us:

"There has come to you a messenger from amongst yourselves."

The Prophet's Choice: Servant, Not King

The Prophet ﷺ, and this is out of his love for us, the angel Israfil came to him and offered him a choice. In a wider hadith, we just mentioned the choice: (أَنَبِيٌّ مَلِكٌ أَوْ نَبِيٌّ عَبْدٌ - "A prophet king or a prophet servant?") You can be a prophet king. If he chose to be a prophet king, it means he would be aloof from us. We would be called on to serve him ﷺ. He would have entourages that we would have to pass through to even reach him. But he chose to be a prophet servant.

And Jibreel encouraged him. (فَقَالَ ثَلَاثًا صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: بَلْ نَبِيًّا عَبْدًا، نَبِيًّا عَبْدًا، نَبِيًّا عَبْدًا - "I will be a prophet servant") which meant he had to serve his family. He had to be amongst his people. He had to be a reflection of them. He didn't dress to a higher standard than them. He didn't eat to a higher standard than them.

Someone brought him once a fancy loaf on a beautiful plate and a beautiful pillow to recline on. He took the loaf off the plate and he pushed the pillow away and he sat on the ground and he said: (إِنَّمَا أَنَا