Aspects of Mercy of Prophet Muhammad pdf

Aspects of Mercy of Prophet Muhammad

ASPECTS OF MERCY OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD

Book’s Prologue

The ancient past has a beauty that attracts the souls of human beings, a beauty that is no less than that of the contemporary present, although the preoccupation of humanity with the present has almost made it forget its past whose rich pages are in great abundance.

I do not think that anyone would turn away or renounce this discourse, seeing, as I do, that humanity is exhausted, despite the means of comfort and security available to it.

 It has gone astray, despite the innumerable and countless technological devices afforded to it, has lost its orientation and has involved itself in countless disputes, the differences between its individuals by far outnumbering those that they have in common.

Contemporary humanity is urgently invited to search in all directions so that it may, hopefully, find a way that would help it and lead it to the world of love, mutual mercy and tolerance.

I believe that it turns to the past, when its great figures who have passed away existed and belong to all humanity.

 The successive generations are entitled to become acquainted with the story of their lives and to adopt from the sciences all that can be applied, in the hope that they would unite them for the purpose of clamping down on the factors of division, and spread mutual mercy and unification.

Otherwise, why should humanity preserve the biography and history of such personalities, if it cannot benefit from them?

People, all people, love factual news; they interact with touching situations and respond to humane events that activate the impulses of good and dispel those of evil.

Many are those who deliver lectures or participate in seminars that deal with such topics, with a view to expounding them to people and to embellishing them in their eyes so that they may find their way to their hearts.

They do this because they are driven by their feeling of duty to them and by their desire to discharge their trust.

How many are those among them whose writings are cherished by the readers thereof, who are fascinated by the reverberations of the contents of their writings?

 I say this, in full appreciation of all of them, but I have no definite answer to my question.

However, I do believe that Dr. Sarah Adam, professor of sociology and the ethics of philosophy, qualifies to be included among them.

 I have listened to a series of nine consecutive lectures delivered by her, which were outstanding and beneficial. Hence, what she said is worth listening to and deserves to be recorded for others to read.

Dr. Sarah has chosen to talk on the great figures of humanity, whose outstanding lives are a source of great benefit to the present generation, as they represent living examples to those who have translated theoretical virtues into living practice, that is easy to understand and apply.

But despite the tremendous efforts and research, history provided her with scanty information concerning the past great figures.

This constituted a real obstacle she had to face. For how can people emulate and follow on the footsteps of the unknown?

There was an exception, though, of a great generosity of history which provided her with ample information concerning the merciful Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

She has discovered that addressing the biography of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is fraught with delicate matters that are beyond the scope of this work.

Thus, when she examined an exhaustive description that is closely associated with the sayings and actions of the Prophet (pbuh) under all sorts of circumstances, she found that this description was that of mercy, in all its aspects and manifestations.

 So, when she decided to lecture on him, she confined her attention to that attribute, after making an indispensable introduction.

In her nine lectures, she presented stories and events in the life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which may not be new for many categories of people, who have seen in them sporadic, independent stories and events.

What is new and useful, however, is that she managed to uncover their other aspect, when she collected them in a remarkable pattern and solemn procession, through which she put forward a theory of prophethood and ethics, characterized by an integral structure and balanced orientation, in which the attribute of mercy was the cornerstone.

I sympathized with her and was impressed by her great energy and enthusiasm in her quest for true and correct information, which she adduced in support of her statements, to the exclusion of any other information.

Such an approach prompts me to say: “The lectures of Dr. Sarah Adam derive from genuine sources that were transmitted from one generation to another, who received them and accepted them.

Thus, she drew on such sources and leaned on them in her presentation and analysis, although I discovered certain minor matters in her reporting of events, by adding a word or substituting one word for another in certain contexts, solely for the purpose of clarification. There is nothing wrong in that, in my view.

I wished she had not burdened the text with footnotes and multiple references and confined herself to just one or two, even if the text or story occurred in several sources.

 I also noticed that she did not stick to the titles of her lectures, because she considered them one integral series. This prompted her to give them casual titles.

I have often heard her say that she tries hard to distance herself in her lectures from scientific and scholarly debates and arguments.

She seeks to make her lectures more like discussions in a family atmosphere: just realistic lectures, deriving their realism from the real happenings she narrates and simple events she reports deriving their simplicity from the simplicity of the maker of these events, namely, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Herein lies true greatness, as she sees it.

They are nine lectures in which Dr. Adam went through gardens of delight, portraying the Prophet’s life.

In them, she combined, in scrupulous harmony, a bouquet in which there is, in every flower, a manifestation of the mercy of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), a bouquet which she presented as a gift to humanity, accompanied by a small card wherein is written the Prophet’s saying: “I am but a mercy granted to all humanity.”

The foregoing is a mere point of view of mine; the reader may have a different view after attending these lectures as a guest.

I do not wish to reveal the beautiful contents of these lectures, nor to provide a summary thereof, lest I should deprive the reader of the element of surprise and beauty of the unravelling of this great story.

I find that I am prompted to be brief, as the reader, just like myself, is bored by waiting in expectation.

There remains, however, one sentence to say to the dear reader: “Dr. Sarah is talking to you: on the manifestations of mercy towards human beings emanating from the person of Muhammad, may Allah’s mercy and blessings be upon him.” Prof. Dr. Zaid Omar Al-Ais