About This Lesson
The best example in every part of life
Sayed Saleh Qazwini opens the course with the Qur’anic statement that the Messenger of Allah is the best example for believers. He describes the Prophet (pbuh&hf) as successful in every part of his life: in his family, in his business before his mission, as a commander, and as a head of state who united people. Within 23 years the whole Arabian Peninsula had come to Islam. Before Islam, he explains, the Arabs had no state and no civilization. Tribes raided one another, the strong overpowered the weak, women were oppressed, and some people buried their own daughters. The Prophet (pbuh&hf) brought a religion and with it a civilization and a dignity that the neighbouring Roman and Persian empires had never given the Arabs.
Showing the true face of Islam
Sayed Qazwini argues that Muslims, especially those living in predominantly non-Muslim societies, should not confine Islam to their homes and mosques. The Prophet (pbuh&hf) is the best picture of Islam that can be shown to the world. Many accounts attributed to him over 1,400 years need to be re-examined rather than accepted just because they appear in an old book, and he gives the common claim that the Prophet married a nine-year-old as an example. He then quotes non-Muslim writers. Michael Hart ranked the Prophet (pbuh&hf) first in his book of the hundred most influential people in history, explaining that
he was supremely successful in both realms, in the spiritual realm and the material realm
Sayed Qazwini adds that Gandhi credited the spread of Islam to the Prophet’s simplicity, honesty and trust in God, not to force.
Why study the sirah
Sayed Qazwini gives three reasons. First, every community studies its own heritage, and through the Prophet’s life Muslims learn where their faith and community came from. The same knowledge helps non-Muslims understand Muslims. Second, the Qur’an alone does not explain how to pray, fast, give zakat or perform Hajj. These details come from the sunnah, which explains and interprets the Qur’an. Third, people need real role models, and the Prophet (pbuh&hf) shows how to deal with family, neighbours and even enemies. He explains that the word sirah comes from the idea of movement. The Prophet’s life moved through poverty and power, hardship and ease, and he remained the same person throughout.
The sources: Qur’an, hadith and the early works
Muslims agree that the Qur’an has been preserved unchanged, but they differ over hadith and over how the Prophet’s life is told. Because hadith shape how the Qur’an is understood, the Qur’an has to be read through authentic narrations. Sayed Qazwini gives two examples. The first is the verses about a man who frowned when a blind man came to him, which some commentators apply to the Prophet (pbuh&hf) and others do not. The second is the verse saying God found him “astray” and guided him. In the understanding of the Ahl al-Bayt (p), that verse means he was like a hidden treasure that people had not yet found. He then distinguishes the kinds of literature: hadith (which, in the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, includes the words of the Imams (p)), maghazi (accounts of the battles), sirah (the broader biography), and akhbar (historical reports from companions and others).
How politics shaped the record
Sayed Qazwini explains that Muslims disagree today even about something as simple as how the Prophet (pbuh&hf) held his hands in prayer, and traces this to events around and after his death. He describes reports that people were told not to write down everything the Prophet said, and that the Prophet (pbuh&hf) insisted that everything he said was revelation. After his death, he says, the narration of hadith was restricted, and he adds that he is not judging anyone’s intentions. Writing hadith down was not ordered until the time of the Umayyad caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, about 90 years after the Hijra. Under Muawiya, narrations about the virtues of Imam Ali (p) and the Ahl al-Bayt (p) were suppressed, and later the Zubayrid and Abbasid governments each shifted the narrative. He surveys the earliest surviving works of sirah, including those of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari, and urges students to read them without accepting everything they contain.
Shia scholars, he explains, have no separate sirah genre of their own. They rely on the Qur’an and the hadith of the Ahl al-Bayt (p), and they accept reports from other sources when those reports are corroborated and show no sign of a political agenda. The next lesson turns to the Prophet’s family and forefathers, and to the belief that they were monotheists.
- 00:00 Introduction: the best example for humanity
- 04:05 Arabia before Islam
- 09:12 Showing the true face of Islam to the world
- 13:21 Michael Hart, Gandhi and non-Muslim views
- 17:30 Why study the sirah: heritage and Islamic law
- 24:42 A true role model, and what sirah means
- 27:45 Verifying reports: the Qur’an as first source
- 38:14 Hadith, maghazi, sirah and akhbar
- 44:21 The restriction on recording hadith
- 52:31 Early sirah works and the Shia approach
This lesson is part of The Life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh&hf), a weekly course with Sayed Saleh Qazwini.