SHAMIM A SIDDIQI presents Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) as Model Da’ee Ilallah in a manner that can lead the Muslims, particularly Islamic leadership, to reassess their position and examine what and where they lack.
Since the beginning of human race, Allah the Exalted, in His Infinite Mercy, had been sending Messenger after Messenger in a continuous chain for the guidance of mankind as to how to act, live and behave on earth as His vicegerent. Each Messenger had the same mission for his people as under:
* Be obedient to your Creator and Sustainer in every walk of life;
* Be Trusties not masters – what He has created and harnessed within and around you, all are a trust [Amanah] in your hands for you to satisfy your inherent needs and urges as their custodians, not masters;
* Feel always accountable to Him – while using these bounties and favours of God on earth, expecting to be rewarded with eternal pleasure of Jannah (Paradise) for good deeds or to be punished with His eternal displeasure and thrown in the Hellfire for evil/bad deeds; and
* Follow always the life-pattern of the Messenger of the time – till you breathe your last.
This is the essence of Allah’s Deen, and all the Messengers of Allah, from Adam to Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to them) conveyed the same message to the people of their time and their followers followed it after their departure from this world till the next Messenger came to earth for the guidance of mankind.
The mission entrusted to each of them was to establish His Deen and not to deviate from it. It is categorically emphasised in Verse 13 of Surah 42, Al-Shura: Un Aqimuddeen wa la Tatafarraqu Feeh –“Establish the Deen and be not divided therein.”
All the Messengers of Allah tried their best to accomplish their mission of life. They all made extraordinary, tireless efforts in communicating and explaining the mission and its complexities and Hikmah, and purified the character of the people who joined their mission. However, some succeeded partially while some others couldn’t due to stiff opposition of the vested interests of the time; and only a few could succeed in establishing the Deen of Allah on earth as a political entity of their time. Among the successful ones are Prophet Dawood and Prophet Solomon [May Allah be pleased with them] who established Torah, the Divine Guidance of their time but unfortunately the Jewish people are treating them as Kings.
Only Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him), the last and the final Messenger of this series, established the Deen of Allah in the Arabian Peninsula in its entirety during his lifetime and paved the way for its establishment in the rest of the then known world within the next 80 years of his departure from this world. His model is perfect in all respects and we should study it in detail as how he did it and delivered justice, peace and security to human abode. He set a perfect model for us to follow in order to quench our natural thirst for getting justice, peace and solution to our centuries old burning problems. Equally, his is the only model that is available to us in its minutest detail on the pages of history whereas the life pattern of other Prophets of Allah is lying somewhat in obscurity or in brief only.
THE PERFECT MODEL
About five hundred years after the departure of Jesus, according to his prophecy, Prophet Muhammad Ibne Abdullah appeared in Makkah in Quraish in 570 AC. It was the time when humanity had no Guidance and all the previous Books of Guidance stood either lost or mutilated by their followers. Humanity was grappling in gloom and darkness. There were no human rights, no court of justice. It was a tribal society and bloodshed with injustices was prevailing all around. Europe was grappling in dark ages and people were treated like serfdoms while Muhammad Ibne Abdullah was thinking in the Cave of Hira how to get the situation corrected and deliver justice to mankind.
In the year 610 AC, archangel Gabriel came from the Lord of this cosmos and addressed Muhammad: “Read and read in the name of thy Sustainer” and revealed the first Wahi covering the first five Verse of Surah Al-A’alaq. Thus, Allah appointed Muhammad Ibne Abdullah His last and final Messenger as no Prophet came after him nor will ever come.
After the gap of a few months, the second Wahi came and addressed the Prophet: “O thou enveloped in thy cloak; Arise and Warn! And glorify Thy Lord. Thy raiment purify. Pollution shun. Never ever feel contented that enough has been done. And have patience for the sake of thy Lord” [Al-Muddathir Verses 1 to 7]
It was a clear command from his Lord to get up and struggle hard for glorifying and establishing His authority with all cares, concerns and precautions that this mission demands. To fulfil this mission, the Prophet needed three things – his lifelong pursuits confirm it:
1. The Guidance – the blueprint as what to do and how to do to get His authority and Deen established on self, family and in the human society;
2. Human Resources – The requisite Team of dedicated and committed workers to get the Deen of Allah established on this earth;
3. The Land – where to establish the Deen.
Now let us see how it was all managed and arranged by Allah the Exalted and the individual efforts of the Prophet and his beloved companions [his teammates].
Guidance – the Blueprint: It came directly from Allah the Exalted in bits and pieces as and when needed, and was completed in 23 years to serve the various needs and situations that the Blessed Prophet faced throughout this period while struggling hard in a continuous process towards the Iqamah of His Deen.
Building the Team of his committed workers: This job was undertaken by the Prophet himself. Before his appointment as the Messenger of Allah he had a lot of concern for the state of his people, but when he became the Messenger of Allah, he concentrated solely on the correction of humans as they were [and are] the epicentre of all corruption; and if they are corrected, all will be set right. He started to meet his people on person to person basis, invited them to the Deen of Allah based on the four fundamental points of Islam viz. Tawheed, Amanah, Accountability and the Model of the Prophet. Those who accepted his Dawah, became the integral part of his Jamaa’h, the Islamic Movement of the time. He polished and purified their character, behaviour, attitude and the concept of life and inspired them to do the same job of Dawah on the pattern he was doing. We call these Islamic workers the reverend team of Sahabah (may Allah be pleased with them), the beloved companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him).
Through his Dawah efforts and those of his companions, especially that of Abu Bakr Siddiq, he got 124 Islamic workers from Makkah as listed by Ibne Hisham in his Seerah book and through the magnificent Dawah efforts of Musa’b bin Umair 63 from the tribes of Aus and 173 from Khazraj of Madinah. Out of this total strength that he gathered together in the first 15 years of his Prophethood, he mustered 310 in the Battle of Badr and prayed to Allah: O Allah! Your promised help must come, if not, You will not be worshipped [La Tabud]
Thus, he built his team of devoted, dedicated and committed brothers and sisters whose immense sacrifice of time, talents, life and resources paved the way towards establishing the Deen of Allah. This team provided the Caliphs, the Generals, the Jurists, the Governors, the Administrators, the foot soldiers and all that the Islamic State needed to fulfil its obligations efficiently and effectively.
Land: The Blessed Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) was constantly in search of land to establish the Deen of Allah and make it the headquarters of the Islamic Movement. He first sent his 74 most talented Sahabah to migrate to Ethiopia with a letter to its Emperor. He became Muslim and permitted the Muslims to live in peace but to the nasty game played by Quraish, the courtyard people opposed it. Later on, after the death of Abu Talib and Khadijah in the tenth year of Prophethood, the Prophet himself went to Taif with Zaid bin Harith. But due to the opposition of the tribal chiefs of Taif, the mission could not succeed and he returned to Makkah under the protection of an idolater Mutam bin Adi. Later on, Allah the Exalted prepared the ground in Madinah after the Second Aqabah Pledge in 622 AC. Muslims migrated to Madinah which became the headquarters of the Islamic Movement and that of the Islamic State.
However, the Quraish did not like the concentration of Muslims in Madinah. They attacked the City state of Madinah time and again. The Battle of Badr took place, then Uhud followed by Trenches. The Quraish could not defeat the Muslims. The Blessed Prophet went for Umrah next year and the Treaty of Hudaibiyah took place in the sixth of Hijra, offering a peace for 10 years. However, the Quraish could not hold the treaty and violated the terms. The Prophet attacked Makkah in the eight year and conquered it very peacefully for Islam. Taif also was annexed in the same year.
In the ninth year delegates from all parts of Arabian Peninsula came to Madinah and entered into the fold of Islam in multitudes. By the tenth year Islam became dominant throughout the Arabian Peninsula and the Prophet invited the rulers of his contemporary world to the fold of Allah and the initial skirmishes started occurring both against Iran and Roman Empires in the last two years of his Prophethood.
The domination of Islamic Civilization and Culture continued for about 1200 years afterwards and the last Khilafah of the Ottoman dynasty was terminated by Mustapha Kamal Pasha of Turkey in March 1923. However, the perfect model of the Prophet in all respects is before us, challenging us to follow it meticulously to get the desired results in the context of modern world. But the Ummah, unfortunately, is not following it in its totality but shopping here and there, especially in the context of Dawah Ilallah. As such, it could not succeed in establishing the desired Islamic State anywhere in this world.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Now we have the Guidance intact in its most original form and 57 Muslim countries where Muslims are in majority but not the trustworthy leadership and the Team of Da’ees on the pattern the Blessed Prophet built his team of Da’ees to manage, control and run the affairs of the Muslim Ummah. Since the time the Khilafah was terminated, Islamic Movements in the Muslim world surfaced in the twenties and the thirties of the last century. They have the vision and the programme to re-establish the Khilafah and the Islamic state but are bogged down with innumerable national and community problems of the time of colonial era and the legacies of foreign rules. As such, they could not succeed in accomplishing their goal due to constant interference of foreign powers in their internal affairs and the ruthless behaviour of local autocratic/despotic rulers of the Muslim world. In consequence, they are withering away and gradually drifting away from their goal as so far they could not build the team of trustworthy leadership and that of Da’ees in proportion, 2-3% to their national population anywhere in the Muslim world. Equally, they could not so far reach out to the grassroots level in their respective countries.
They have the programme, the agenda but not the trustworthy leadership to attain it as the priority number one as was that of the Blessed Prophet. He achieved his Goal of Iqamatuddeen within 23 years in spite of extraordinary opposition both from inside and outside the Arabian Peninsula. Islamic Movements will have to assess their whole efforts, re-set their priorities, re-arrange their strategies and evaluate the quantum of their efforts as to whether it is sustained or erratic or lopsided.
Alhamdulillah, we have the most perfect model of Dawah Ilallah, the most inspiring character of the Blessed Prophet and the most accomplished Da’ee that the human society could ever produced to follow his footprints in the field of Dawah. The Islamic Movements of our time have to build Islamic leadership on the lines our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) did in old Jahiliyah. The nature of modern Jahiliyah and its chemistry are the same as that of old one. Only it needs a will and the hands that could hurl the Haq over the head of Batil and crush it and Batil is there to go. The Islamic Movements are only to produce those trustworthy hands, the leadership that could do so as Allah commands in Verse 18 of Surah Al-Ambiyah: “Nay. But We hurl the Truth against the false and it does break its head and lo! It vanishes.” Will they all take care of it and reap the harvest that is completely ripe to fall at their feet?
Can our Islamic Movements undertake it as their fastest mission now onward and get this onerous job perfected soonest, lest it should become too late?
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