Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
Imagine the scenario. A directive has come to spread a message to the whole world. Not from the well funded Pentagon or the halls of power in Europe or cash rich China but in a desert in war torn and impoversihed corner of the world. The material resources that will be given for the project amount a to a budget of virtually zero and you have two decades to achieve your objective. Your mission will be judged a success if your message outlives you and continues until the end of time!
Well that sounds quite daunting even though you may be able to scrape the money together to get a viral advert on You Tube perhaps. But you decide to start locally first and you have been working hard for around 10 years when you have managed to get the attention of the local businessmen and politicians in your city. They have come round for dinner. If you can convince them this will be a major boost to your efforts and you look at the calender and you realise you have eaten almost half of your allocated time. Dinner starts and concludes and now your are about to give your after dinner speech, the crunch moment.
Just as you start to get into your flow one of the few very poor supporters of your mission gate crashes the party and turns up at the table and pulls you by the hand and asks if you have anythng new to teach! Eveyone’s attention is diverted to the poor man and you can see the signs of concern on the businessman wearing their expensive suits as to whether the poor man might give them scabies or some disease! The politicians are wondering why you have allowed that man in their presence.
You might feel dissapointed, perhaps angry you might even say something to keep your poor supporter quiet as this is not the best moment to be interrupted. However you decide to carry on and ignore him by turning away with a look of displeasure on your face and turn your attention back to your guests. Just then your mobile phone rings, it’s not the normal number you give out but the special number that only the source who gave you the mission knows.
You can’t refuse to answer, you pick up the phone and listen. In very severe terms you are told to tell everyone what you did was wrong. Your mission has to pay attention first to the people supporting you rather than the rich businessmen and politicians who are just not interested or think they are far too important. You are ordered to tell everyone this message and the phone goes dead. You tell everyone this new message and the businessmen and politicians stare back at you as if you have gone mad and leave in disgust as they don’t think they have been treated as royalty and have been made equal to the poor!
Your mission lies in ruins how will you proceed now?
Well the scenario is imaginary but it is here to paint a picture of the situation that confronted the Prophet Muhammad (S) when he was addressing the nobles and notables of his tribe in Makkah. His thirteen years in Makkah of labouring hard and trying to convince people that Islam was correct was not bearing much fruit. But now he had a golden opportunity to convince tribal leaders who in turn could convince all their tribesmen to join Islam! But just as the Prophet Muhammad (S) is engaged in trying to convince them Ibn Umm Maktoum a blind convert and companion of his comes and interrupts him. The Prophet (S) frowns and turns away from his companion. This is not the best moment to be interrupted! The frown and turn is hardly noticed by anyone but the All Seeing God sends down immedite guidance and a lesson. The All Wise God and master planner of the spread of Islam rebukes his Messenger by reveling the 80th surah of the Quran, surah Abasa.
Pause for a moment and think about this event. For any reflective studier of history this event is a miracle for the effect clearly should have scuppered the mission of Islam that Muhammad (S) was trying to bring about. Such critcism of his behaviour in such a public manner at such a critical juncture would be virtually suicidal in terms of the mission. If Muhammad (S) was a false prophet, a man chasing the reigns of power alone, then he would never have rebuked himself in such a manner at such a critical time. Look at the slow ‘sorry’ through gritted teeth that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair gave well after the events have passed that led to the multitude of deaths in Iraq. It is not in the nature of a politician or ruler to rebuke themselves so openly at crticial junctures in their reigns of power. Politicians believe that power slips through your hands, so throwing it away with such acts of humility is not political acumen but political suicide. Yet in the events that are captured by this Surah Prophet Muhammad (S) has effectively taken what little influence he had and thrown with an emphatic throw to the ground. A politician or a prophet? For a truly unbiased person a study of the life history of Prophet Muhammad (S) will only lead to the conclusion that this man was a true Prophet of God and not a politician interested in power and self-adulation.
The outcome of the Prophetic mission within close to a decade of this event was an unprecedented success completely at odds with what one should have predicted. The unbiased reader will never ceased to be astounded by the phenomenal success of the mission of Prophet Muhammad’s (S). The combination of the lack of resources and ability to turn the negative into the positive defies any human explanation. What explanation can a fair reader of history give except that he is forced to the conclusion that this mission is not under human direction but under the watchful gaze and guidance of God.
Filed under: Dawah, difference between a politician and prophet, Mission impossible, politicans, politicians v prophets, surah abasa - a historical miracle, Tony Blair testament to the truth of Muhammad (S)
