Why Muhammad ﷺ Is Great
By Zaid Shakir | 2026-01-16T05:55:18.172418+00:00 | Topic: Seerah
Why Muhammad Is Great
Khutbah by Imam Zaid Shakir
Opening: The Khutbah Introduction
Indeed, all praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, seek His help, ask for His forgiveness, seek guidance from Him, and turn in repentance to Him. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils within ourselves and from the wickedness of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, there is none to misguide, and whomever He misguides, there is none to guide. 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 have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims."
"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."
(Sahih Muslim 867)
"To proceed: Verily, the truest speech is the Book of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The worst of affairs are those that are newly invented, and every innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire."
"Praise be to Allah, who has guided us to this; and we would not have been guided if Allah had not guided us."
"Praise be to Allah, who has sent down upon His servant the Book and has not made therein any crookedness."
"Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds."
All praise is due to Allah who has blessed us with Islam, who has blessed us to be followers of Muhammad ﷺ.
The Name Muhammad: Understanding Its True Essence
As we all know, the name Muhammad is in the news, and I say the name Muhammad because the name does not necessarily capture the essence of our Prophet ﷺ. We all know, unfortunately, there are many people named
Muhammad who are not righteous people. The fact that they carry that noble, honorable name is no reflection on our Prophet ﷺ.
I say this, brothers and sisters, to say when someone draws some offensive picture and says that this image represents Muhammad, it doesn't represent our Prophet ﷺ. It represents a figment of the artist or the filmmaker's imagination.
Historical Recognition of Muhammad's Greatness
Our Prophet ﷺ is considered, not by us Muslims—he is by us, those of us who are Muslims—the greatest human being to ever walk on the surface of this planet. But this opinion, this belief that we believe to be factual, is shared by many Westerners who aren't Muslims. Many Westerners, when they make a list of the greatest personalities in human history, at the top of the list is our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
History has recorded the greatness of our Prophet ﷺ. And why? Why does history acknowledge Muhammad ﷺ as the greatest human being to ever live?
The Transformation of a People: From Idolatry to Monotheism
Single-handedly, he changed the entire orientation of his people. When Jesus came to the world—'Isa, peace be upon him—he came to a people who were already familiar with monotheism because they were in the heartland of the Jewish people in present-day Palestine. So some Jews believed he was the Messiah. He said, "Think not," as recorded in the Bible, "think not that I have come but to the lost sheep of Israel." Some Jews rejected him and some accepted him.
So there are the Nazarene Christians who are Jews who accepted the prophecy of Jesus. There are the Ebionite Christians, and there are theories that propose that Waraqa bin Nawfal was an Ebionite Christian who accepted Jesus, but they still adhered to the Jewish law. And for this reason, when some say, "How could Waraqa bin Nawfal, who the Prophet went to—Khadijah رضي الله عنها brought the Prophet ﷺ to Waraqa to affirm that he indeed had received revelation from Almighty God—but when Imam Bukhari and others record that Waraqa read the Hebrew scriptures, some people say, 'If you are Christian, shouldn't you have been reading Aramaic or shouldn't you have been reading Greek?'"
But some propose that the Ebionite Christians migrated into the Hijaz—this is a historical fact—and even some of our scholars record their existence there as late as 300 years after our Prophet ﷺ. And so they read the Hebrew scripture and they observed the Jewish law, but they accepted 'Isa, peace be upon him, as the Messiah.
In any case, 'Isa, peace be upon him, came into the heartland of the Jewish people. So it would have been very easy for them to accept his message because there was a continuity between his message and the message of Musa, peace be upon him. There was a continuity between the message of Moses and the message of Jesus. Even today, most Christians, they have the Old Testament and they have the New Testament, the New Testament being a continuation of the Old Testament.
Muhammad's Unique Challenge: Breaking the Chains of Idolatry
Muhammad ﷺ was sent into a sea of idolatry, a sea of idolatry where there is no recognizable connection between the polytheism of his people and the monotheism that he is preaching. In spite of that, in 23 years, he totally reoriented his people. And he made them not just into monotheists, but he instilled the seed of monotheism so deeply within their souls that they floated out of the Arabian Peninsula and they took that message within 100 years from the Pyrenees in the West to the wall of China in the East.
This alone, this alone would merit our Prophet ﷺ as the architect of one of the greatest religious, social, and cultural transformations in the history of humanity, if not the single most impressive social transformation in the history of humanity. This is not the work of a madman or a lunatic. This is not the work of an imposter.
The Spread of Islamic Civilization: A Universal Knowledge-Based Culture
And this greatness doesn't stop there. Having instilled the fire of monotheism, of tawhid, into the hearts of his believers—his followers, rather—they then took it to the far corners of the known world at that time and created one of the greatest civilizations in history.
Some will argue: Was it the greatest in terms of its intellectual output? Was it the greatest in terms of its geographical reach? Was it the greatest in terms along this or that or the other lines? We say it is the greatest because every civilization is confined to a geographical or a racial or ethnic boundary.
Egyptian civilization only appeared in Egypt. Hindu civilization only appeared in India. The civilizations of the Sumerians or the Chaldeans or the Phoenicians only appeared in those geographical regions. What makes the civilization of Islam unique? It is based on knowledge. It is a knowledge-based civilization, and because it is a knowledge-based civilization, it transcends geography, it transcends race and ethnicity. And any people who adorn themselves and unify themselves—and this is what Islam does to people with Islam—then they have the opportunity to share in the civilizing project of Islam.
The Arab-Islamic Flowering: From Spain to Baghdad
When it came to the Arabs, you saw the flowering of an Arab Muslim Islamic civilization in the heartlands of the Muslim world, but also in far-away Andalusia. With the entry of 'Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil into Spain, the remnants of the Umayyad dynasty were revived, and some of the greatest marvels such as Madinat al-Zahra and Cordoba itself—Cordoba, and on the outskirts of Cordoba, Madinat Zahra, one of the greatest architectural wonders of the ancient world—appeared. And great cities like Baghdad appeared, and Fustat, which will become Cairo, appeared, and Dimashq—Damascus—with the great Umayyad Masjid appeared.
The Persian and Turkish Contributions to Islamic Civilization
Our Source of Strength: Allah Alone
But it's alright. It's alright, because we don't need the First Amendment. We don't need the government. We don't need the UN. We need Allah, and Allah, Almighty God, tells us:
"Leave them to eat and enjoy themselves and let hope distract them, for they are going to know."
And Allah says in a Hadith Qudsi:
(Sahih al-Bukhari 6502)
"Whoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, I have declared war upon him."
The Legacy of Modern Equality: Genocide and Ecocide
I didn't finish, so: The Muslims had Shari'ah and the minorities had sustainability. The environment had sustainability. Now we have equality and liberty and human rights, but we also have genocide and ecocide.
German rights, equality didn't stop the genocide in Bosnia. It didn't stop the genocide in Rwanda. The Declaration of Independence and the principle of God-given rights: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." It didn't give the equality to the native people of this land who were wiped out.
This is the legacy of modernity. It's a legacy of hypocrisy. It's a legacy of genocide. And those who are advancing these provocations against the Muslims, they're endeavoring to continue that legacy. They want to continue the world moving. They want to create this boogeyman that they can point to: "See, these people are a bunch of crazy, wild lunatics. That's why we have to bomb them. That's why we have to occupy their lands."
And it's not mentioned: take their resources.
Our Response: Dignity, Faith, and Disconnection from the Noise
Brothers and sisters, don't give them any excuse. Don't give them any pretext. Maintain your dignity. Maintain your worldview. Maintain your love of the Prophet. And turn off the news.
I was listening to a recording by one of our great contemporary scholars, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad—he's from Great Britain—he says, "What is it about Muslims that you log on to BBC World every morning so you can feel bad about yourself? 'Oh, what did blow up today? Oh, here it goes again.'"
Turn it off. Unplug from it and plug into your Quran. Plug into your awrad. Plug into your adhkar. Plug into the sirah of the Prophet. Involve yourself in positive work that builds up your self-esteem, that gives you satisfaction and contentment in your heart. Share this message with your neighbors. Share it from a position of positiveness, positive energy, a positive outlook.
Allah's Defense of His Prophet
This is our Prophet. Allah has undertaken his defense. He told the early people, the early community:
"Leave Me to deal with the deniers, those who possess wealth and affluence."
"They're scheming and planning. I have a plan. Lead them for a while. Give them respite for a little while."
Allah will take care of this.
Allah tells us about His Prophet, Allah elevated his mention. This is another sign of his incomparable greatness: No other name is on the tongue of some human being somewhere on the face of this earth every second that this earth is in existence. Once his religion was established, every second, as the sun goes around and the prayer time from Fajr to Dhuhr to 'Asr to Maghrib to 'Isha, and as the nawafil pass, and as people during the times who didn't pray at the beginning of the time pray in the middle or the latter part of the time and they make their iqamah, every second of existence someone is saying the name of Muhammad.
The Lord who has elevated his remembrance, the Lord who has placed his remembrance on the tongue of a human being every second of this world's existence—you think He cannot defend His Prophet? Do you think He cannot defend His Prophet?
Living a Dignified Life in the Face of Psychological Warfare
Brothers and sisters, live a dignified life. Work to strengthen your faith, because one of the psychological aspects of these psychological warfare tactics—I'm not saying they're emanating from the government, but this film is a psychological warfare tactic. It's designed to achieve political results.
One of those results is to take away the aspect where the Republicans can't attack President Obama—this is not a commercial for Obama—and that's on national security. Because Obama could say, "I feel..." But now they say, "Look, your policy is a disaster. Look, the Muslims are up in arms. They're burning our embassies. What kind of success have you had when you went to Cairo and you reached out to them with the open hand and they're responding with an iron fist? We need someone in the White House who can undertake the proper policy in the Muslim world."
That's one aspect of it—and to do that, to rile up the Muslims: "See, that's what you're dealing with."
Another aspect is to keep a climate of tension between the Muslim world and the Western world that will support this ongoing war that has been launched, the endless war, the war on terror that has no end because it has no geographical boundaries, it has no well-defined strategic objectives. It's against some amorphous, ill-defined concept, and the only way to keep it going is to say, "You see, we're dealing with a bunch of terrorists. It's the nature of their religion."
This is psychological warfare.
Don't Let Them Break Your Spirit
And another aspect of that psychological warfare is to beat down the Muslims and to make the Muslims doubt the integrity of their religion. And it's working. You see Muslims in this country in massive depression: "Here we go again. How can I go to work today? Every time you turn on the television, it's another crisis."
That's how they want you to think. And that's why we say: Unplug. Disconnect. And get into your Quran. Read the sirah of your Prophet. Learn about him. Read their history, not only the history of the Muslims, the history of others, so you can see the impact of Islam on the global stage.
The Final Greatness: Cultural Diversity Within Unity
And the final greatness of Islamic civilization: No other civilization was able to do this, including today's Western civilization. It has managed to establish its hegemony, but it hasn't managed to assimilate the best qualities of the people, so it's crushing.
So you see people all over the world wearing blue jeans. All over the world, if they're not eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken, they wish they could—even in Mecca. All over the world, you see Western cultural norms imposed on people.
The genius of Islamic civilization: It was able to take the best from the previous civilizations—the best from the Greeks, the best from the Romans, the best from the Persians, the best from the Indians, the best from the Chinese, the best from the Asians—and meld it all into one harmonious, integrated unit that respected cultural diversity.
You see, so everyone—even those people—what are they wearing? They're wearing blue jeans and T-shirts by and large. But when Islam spread, people in Malaysia and Indonesia don't dress like people in Africa. Africa has the grand boubou. People in Kurdistan don't dress like people in Bangladesh. People in Bangladesh, current to present-day Bangladesh, don't dress like people in Muslim Spain when Islam was there. How they dress, their foods are different. There's no equivalent of the Big Mac in Islamic civilization. They all have their unique foods, their unique cultures.
This is Islam, brothers and sisters. This is the genius of Islam.