Shafaqna English- In these essays, Dr. Ali Shariati presents Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a transformative leader whose life embodied justice, compassion, and social change, offering a fresh perspective that goes beyond conventional historical narratives.
The Prophet’s (PBUH) Training
One of the characteristics of the Prophet was that he was from among common men. (Though this is an improper term, a more suitable term does not exist.) He was absolutely and purely illiterate. What is training or education? To train means to mould and fashion a personality. What are the factors that are effective in training a human being?
In my view, there are five factors that participate in the formation of an individual: First, it is the mother who shapes the first dimensions of the personality of a child. Second, the father. Third, ideology, educational institutions, and culture. Fourth: Civilization. Fifth: Essentially, the spirit of the period in which you live. Take yourself as an example. You were brought up by your mother. The next training you received was from your father. The third kind of training was educational, whatever you have studied. The fourth factor of your training is that you are from Tehran. The fifth factor is that you are living in the twentieth century. If you lived in Tehran at the time of Nasiruddin Shah, you would have shared four factors with the present Tehrani, but your age would be different. These are the five factors.
The Prophet of Islam did not enjoy any of these five factors effective in molding an individual’s personality. His father died before he was born. (This factor is absent.) Secondly, immediately after his birth, he was separated from his mother and taken to the desert to be nursed. He remained there for two years. He should have been brought back to his mother after that period, but on account of a plague, before his mother could embrace him, he was again taken back to the desert. The plague prevented him from being brought up by his mother. Until the age of five, he neither saw his father nor his mother. At the age of five, he was returned to his mother. The mother, who had lost her husband and who was her only child, for the first time took him under her care and intended to take him to Madinah so that he could visit his uncles, her father, and her family. (The mother of the Prophet belonged to the tribe of Banu Najjar of Madinah) But his mother died on the way to Madinah, and the child, Muhammad, was left alone in the middle of the desert.
The third factor is civilization, and the Prophet was born among the crudest of the nomadic people of the age. The Arabian Peninsula was also a peninsula from both the cultural as well as the geographical points of view. Geographically, it is a peninsula, a piece of land surrounded by water on three sides, but paradoxically not a single drop of water fell on this desert. A dry island. Culturally, it is also a peninsula. On one side, Greek civilization; Palestine on the other; on this side, Iran and Iraq; and India lies on that side. All these civilizations surrounded it, but none of the signs of the surrounding cultures ever penetrated it. Thus, the Prophet grew up in a virgin desert land, bereft of culture and civilization, and was brought up in a virtual cultural vacuum.
The fifth factor, time, was under the domination of the Roman culture, Alexandrian culture, and Iranian culture. Time was controlled by these cultures. No age or time existed during the seventh century A.D. in the Arabian Peninsula. It is true that now we are living in the twentieth century, but actually we do not live in the twentieth century. Even today, there are Bedouin tribes who do not wear clothes. If you look at their calendar. you will believe that they belong to the twentieth century, but the twentieth century does not exist for them. They live in the twentieth century B.C.!
You can see that the Prophet was an individual who was not influenced in the slightest manner by any one of the five factors that play an active role in the training and raising of an individual. He grew up as a completely free being, independent of any influences. It is on account of this that he had an immense capacity to understand and accept new concepts, meanings, and values that humanity could not have comprehended. It is for this very reason that he was able to defeat and demolish all the old values and cultures, all the systems of education and training, all the beliefs, and all that was sacred to them. Had he had the opportunity of being trained under any system, he would have been influenced by the existing values of the time.
According to these facts, the Prophet’s being illiterate is an indication of the purity of his being. Age, family, history, culture, and moral molding- none of these had the slightest role in his development. For this reason, he could easily comprehend the concepts that were completely unprecedented and revolutionary. A philosopher who studies philosophy in Alexandria, Athens, or Hamadan could never have such an immense capability.
Power in Weakness
There are really many peculiarities in the Prophet’s life. In the seventh year of his migration, he went to Makkah and declared: “We wish to circumambulate around the Ka’bah as other Arabs do. We also wish to perform the ritual.” They did not allow him to enter Makkah and bluntly said: “Go away; we shall not let you do it”. He returned frustrated and disappointed. How can a person who cannot exercise a right which is granted to an Arab Bedouin, and is so weak in his own country, come back and write to the superpowers of that age: the Iranian and Roman emperors? He wrote to them: “In the name of Allah. Surrender to me, otherwise, what will come to you will be of your own doing.” What a tone and a manner! What a great bully! Well, Brother! With what strength? Just now you were turned back by Abu Sufyan and were forced to stop at the gate of Makkah, and you were so helpless that you had to comply and turn back, as you had no other choice. And now that you have been turned back, on what authority do you write a letter? And in such a manner! It seems that he possesses the strength of a mountain. Otherwise, how could it be possible? He is not deranged. He is a sensible, reasonable man. He has calculated all the pros and cons, and he knows very well that the emperor Khusrow and Parviz do not need to send a company of soldiers to arrest him. He could have easily asked one of his slaves in Yemen to go and arrest that Arab! And that’s what Khusrow did. He did not even send some of his soldiers to Madinah in order to bring him. He asks Bazan, his protege in Yemen, “Go and see what type of a dreamer is he who behaves so nonsensically and wrote a letter to me asking me to surrender to him.” He could have sent four persons to arrest him, and that would have been enough!
In spite of the existence of such a great power in the world and realizing his own weakness, he issues warnings to all the great powers on earth. In the seventh year of the Hijrah, he wrote and dispatched these letters. (Significantly, he wrote these letters in the seventh year of the Hijrah.)
Part of series: The Visage of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) by Dr. Ali Shariati