Lead­er­ship Qual­i­ties of Prophet Muhammad

M. Bakri Musa

In pen­ning this essayAuthor’s note : The 12th of Rabi al Aww­al, the third month of the Mus­lim cal­en­dar, marks the birth­day of our Prophet Muham­mad(P). This year it falls on Tues­day, April 11th. This event is marked with great fan­fare in many Mus­lim coun­tries, Malaysia includ­ed. Else­where such cel­e­bra­tions are frowned upon. I am ful­ly aware of this con­tro­ver­sy in the Mus­lim world., a trib­ute to our Prophet Muham­mad(P), I am not cel­e­brat­ing” Maulud-ul Nabi as Chris­tians cel­e­brate Christ­mas, rather I am hon­our­ing him by remind­ing myself of the many exem­plary qual­i­ties of this Last Rasul of Allah. 

Allah in His Wis­dom did not choose His Last Mes­sen­ger ran­dom­ly. Long before Allah had cho­sen him, Muham­mad had already demon­strat­ed his noble and ster­ling char­ac­ter. He was Al Amin, the Trust­wor­thy, to his com­mu­ni­ty. In Prophet Muham­mad(P), Allah had an uswatun hasana (“the most beau­ti­ful pat­tern of con­duct”, Surah Al Ahz­ab, 33:21). There are numer­ous Quran­ic vers­es exhort­ing Mus­lims to emu­late this exem­plar of a human being. Exhor­ta­tions from the Holy Book aside, a man whose teach­ings are being fol­lowed by one in five peo­ple on this plan­et deserves attention.

On this Maulud al Nabi, the Prophet’s birth­day, Mus­lims re-live the Seer­ah (the ways and say­ings of the Prophet) to dis­cern their mean­ings. As not­ed by the writer Adil Salahi, the best way for Mus­lims to demon­strate their love for the Prophet(P) is by fol­low­ing his teach­ings, not by singing his praises.

Aping Ver­sus Emulating

Some set a very low bar for them­selves, con­tent with imi­tat­ing the super­fi­cial­i­ties of the man. Thus they are reduced to sport­ing long beards and unshaven faces and wear­ing loose clothes and over­sized tur­bans. That is the extent, noth­ing fur­ther. They are aping, not emu­lat­ing, the prophet.

Oth­ers think they have set a high­er stan­dard by mim­ic­k­ing the prophet in acquir­ing mul­ti­ple wives. They do not emu­late him for his skills in trad­ing, his rev­er­ence for knowl­edge, or his quest for learn­ing. Suf­fice that they could imi­tate the prophet only in that one respect. We do what we can with what we have, so they pious­ly assure them­selves as they indulge in their world­ly lust, all in the name of fol­low­ing the exam­ple of the Holy Prophet of course.

Alas, they are look­ing for lust in all the wrong Seer­ahs !

They con­ve­nient­ly for­get that the prophet remained monog­a­mous for over 25 years with his first wife, Khati­jah. His sub­se­quent mar­riages fol­low­ing her death were expres­sions of his char­i­ty, not lust. Thus his wives includ­ed sin­gle moth­ers and war wid­ows. Oth­er mar­riages were for cement­ing polit­i­cal rela­tion­ships, as was the tra­di­tion then. As a leader with a con­sid­er­able fol­low­ing, he could eas­i­ly have had his groupies, if lust were his intent.

Not sat­is­fied with the lim­i­ta­tions of four wives at a time, and ful­ly aware of the severe penal­ty for adul­tery pre­scribed in the Quran, many Mus­lims ingen­u­ous­ly resort to tem­po­rary mar­riages.” Tem­po­rary as in hours or min­utes, depend­ing on their prowess ! Sur­pris­ing­ly, there are kad­his (reli­gious offi­cials) who would sol­em­nize such mar­riages”, for a fee of course. In my part of the world, such indi­vid­u­als are called pimps.

In their obses­sion with the super­fi­cial­i­ties of the Prophet (P), his well-mean­ing admir­ers miss the essence of the man. This was a man cho­sen by Allah and who eman­ci­pat­ed the Arabs from their Age of Jahiliyah (Igno­rance), and then spread the faith that today is adhered to by over a bil­lion people.

Lead­er­ship Through Per­son­al Exam­ple : Qudhrat Hassanah 

The lead­er­ship qual­i­ties I find most admirable were his humil­i­ty, his recog­ni­tion of tal­ent, and his abil­i­ty to think counter-intu­itive, or out­side the box” as the cur­rent cliché would have it.

When the Prophet received his first rev­e­la­tion, he trem­bled with fear. He was ful­ly aware of the awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty. So fear­ful was he that he could con­fide only to his wife Khati­jah. In an era where females gen­er­al­ly and wives, in par­tic­u­lar, were mere chat­tels of men, that he took her in con­fi­dence was remark­able. It reflect­ed his inner strength and con­fi­dence in judg­ment, regard­less of the pre­vail­ing norms. He trust­ed and respect­ed his wife, a rare trait in that time and place.

It also reflect­ed his deep humil­i­ty. Less­er mor­tals who thought they had been cho­sen by God would undoubt­ed­ly pro­claim that fact loud­ly for the world to hear, à la George Bush, Jr., or Pat Robertson.

True to his humil­i­ty, he preached ini­tial­ly only to his close fam­i­ly and friends. He was ful­ly aware that his mes­sage would lit­er­al­ly turn his soci­ety upside down, trans­form­ing it for the bet­ter. He risked divid­ing his com­mu­ni­ty in the process. He had no desire to destroy his com­mu­ni­ty in order to save it, to use a Viet­nam-era maxim.

Today’s lead­ers would do well to emu­late the Prophet?s appre­ci­a­tion and recog­ni­tion of tal­ent ? mer­i­toc­ra­cy in its pris­tine form. His clos­est com­pan­ions, lat­er to be Caliphs, were tru­ly wor­thy of the appel­la­tion, Rad­hi Allah anHu (May Allah Be Pleased with them).

Rec­og­niz­ing the beau­ti­ful voice of the hith­er­to slave, Bilal, the Prophet made him call the Azzan, a sin­gu­lar hon­our. The Azzan, beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed, gives me goose­bumps ; sim­ply hollered, it grates on the ears.

In the ear­ly days of his mis­sion, to spare his fol­low­ers’ per­se­cu­tion, he arranged for them to migrate to Abyssinia for their safe­ty. That was upper­most in his mind, a true leader. In a piv­otal bat­tle at Taif when he had the ene­my under siege, he could have eas­i­ly anni­hi­lat­ed them espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that they had been bru­tal to him years ear­li­er. Instead, lis­ten­ing to the coun­sel of his lieu­tenant about the fox cor­nered in a hole, he left them alone. You could smoke out the ani­mal and destroy it, or you could leave it alone and it would do you no harm.

The peo­ple of Taif lat­er embraced Islam on their own voli­tion. The Prophet intu­itive­ly rec­og­nized that in fight­ing for your cause, first cre­ate no new adver­saries. A sim­ple les­son, but dif­fi­cult to learn. This is a les­son the world des­per­ate­ly needs to learn in bat­tling terrorism.

The Prophet(P) may have received the bless­ings and rev­e­la­tions from Allah, but he was not above lis­ten­ing to advice from his young subordinates.

In preach­ing, the Prophet was care­ful in ensur­ing that his fol­low­ers mem­o­rized only the divine rev­e­la­tions, not his com­men­taries. He for­bade what would be con­sid­ered today as a per­son­al­i­ty cult. Had he not done so, every Mus­lim home would be adorned with his por­trait, cities named after him, and stat­ues erect­ed in his hon­our. For added mea­sure, Mus­lims would be sport­ing amulets bear­ing his name or like­ness for pro­tec­tion and good luck charms.

The Prophet was no ordi­nary mor­tal, but a mor­tal nonethe­less. At the the­o­log­i­cal lev­el, this means Mus­lims do not believe in the rein­car­na­tion or the sec­ond com­ing. At the prac­ti­cal lev­el, that too has sig­nif­i­cance. While Mus­lims duly and prop­er­ly praise the prophet, we are care­ful not to deify the per­son or attribute per­fec­tion. Per­fec­tion is after all sole­ly the attribute of Allah.

At the per­son­al lev­el, the fact that the Prophet is a mor­tal means that his exem­plary qual­i­ties are with­in the capa­bil­i­ty of every one of us to fol­low. That is the beau­ty of our Prophet(P).

May the bless­ings of Allah be upon him, his fam­i­ly, and his Com­pan­ions as we hon­our him on this spe­cial day of the 12th of Rabi al Awwal.

Repro­duced with the per­mis­sion of the author. The author’s web­site may be accessed at www​.bakrimusa​.com

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