Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.
Many haters of God’s revelations, after they hear that Muhammad was allowed to have more than four wives, while the other people were not, will immediately probably say something like, “See! Muhammad was serving his own interests. He was inventing these things in whatever way it suited him.” Well, let’s see how much it suited him. Let’s start from the beginning. He received his first revelation in the year 610, and about three years later, he made it public, and here is what he had to go through as a consequence: He was famously ridiculed by Abu Lahab, by his own uncle, at that public event. By this time, three of Muhammad’s daughters were already married to the people who opposed him. The tribal leaders pressured Muhammad’s sons in law to divorce his daughters by promising them many other younger women. Two of them did divorce Muhammad’s daughter, so now Muhammad had to provide for his two divorced daughters, which during those times had no perspective in life. They were mostly seen as a burden during those times, because they did not work to provide for themselves. The situation of the other daughter remained just as worse. She stayed with the tribe of disbelievers, because her husband did not divorce her. So, Muhammad was in conflict with the family who were holding his daughter, and this continued even after Muhammad migrated to Medina, and after the battles and so on. This whole time, one of his daughter stayed with the group of disbelievers. Imagine how terrible that must have felt. Having to fight with the people who are holding your daughter. If Muhammad cared about what suited him and his family, he would certainly stop fighting them. By the way, all of these three daughters died before Muhammad. So, what a great family life Muhammad had after he declared to be God’s messenger. Three humiliated and dead daughters. Also, two of his sons died. One was 4 years old, and the other was 2 years old. Anyway, back to the early days, when Muhammad went public with the Quran. They tried to intimidate him, threaten him, marginalize him, isolate him, to pressure him to stop preaching. He gave permission to a very small group of early supporters to escape to Ethiopia, even though this did not suit him, since he was left even more isolated like this. He gave permission to the others, but he himself did not go to Ethiopia. In 616, a public boycott was declared to anyone who had anything to do with Muhammad. No trade was allowed with them, and this happened in a desert community where trading was pretty much the main way to survive. Then, tribal protection was removed from him, which meant that if anyone killed him, they would not be held accountable. He went to Taif, which is about 50 miles to the east of Mecca, to hopefully find refuge there, and preach to those people, but they threw stones at him, and he returned with many wounds. When he returned, the situation got worse. The Meccans planned to kill him, so God authorized him to escape. When he escaped, he lost everything. His wife had already died, his daughters were not with him, he had to leave his house behind, his camels were already eaten to survive during the three years when trade had been prohibited for him. So, at this point Muhammad had nothing. Abu Bakr came to his rescue with his own two camels. They escaped together riding Abu-Bakr’s camels. They were almost caught when they hid in a cave, on their way to Medina, and they traveled through the hard road by the sea, not the easy established road. Then in Medina, he did not live an easy life either. To restore justice, he was responsible for organizing about 90 battles, and he actively participated in about half of them, especially in the earlier ones, the more dangerous ones, when they were few and outnumbered. Each battle would typically take about one week of gathering funds, one week of preparation and buying weapons, one week of standoff without starting the fighting to see whether the enemy might decide to give up, and during this time they had to stay outside in hot summers, sleep outside in cold nights, to hopefully avoid bloodshed, and then the battle would start which would typically last the whole day, and then about one week of cleaning up. Imagine having to do this about 40 times in your life, while you have pressure and spies, and poverty back home. It’s like spending four years of your life sleeping outside in the rough, without bathrooms, and under constant anxiety that the enemy might surprise you. So, no one can tell me that it suited Muhammad to preach the Quran. No one can tell me that he was serving his own interests. Almost all his life was preoccupied with hardship as a consequence of that, and he knew from the beginning that he would encounter resistance. He was not naïve, but he did what he had to do, because it was the right thing. Even the earlier prophets had to go through similar things. It did not suite any other prophet to declare that they were prophets, except for Solomon, because he was already a king, but even in his case, it was David who declared to the people that Solomon is a prophet. So, even Solomon did not have a motive to lie about that. So all the prophets expected resistance, and none of them gave up. Abraham, Moses, went through much harder times than Muhammad. David was forced to fight against the guy whom he was not allowed to kill. Saul was the king, and he had lost his way, and David refused to kill him because Saul had been chosen a king by God, and David lived pretty much all his life hiding in the mountains where he would neither lose, neither was he allowed to win. He was wanted by Saul’s solders. He was forced to invent the iron body armor, so that they could not kill him easily. How about Joseph in prison? Zecheriah was beheaded. John beheaded. Jesus, the perfect example of a sacrificial life, and then Muhammad had to go through a little bit of everything. So, none of the prophets had any motive to lie that they were prophets. They gained nothing from it. A few of them did enjoy life in the last year of their life maybe, and that was only because they had fought in battles earlier, and only as an example to show us that ultimately the believers win. And that is what the disbelievers mention. On average, the prophets had a hard striving life for about 99 years, and enjoyed it only in the last year, and that is the only thing that the disbelievers like to mention. The last year of their life, when they were old anyway. So, if anyone of us is going through some difficulty because we insist to strive in the cause of God, just remember that it has been done before, at a greater extent. In our case, what could our difficulties be? Maybe some career difficulties because we do not wish to use all the devilish and illegal tricks which our colleagues might use. You know, taking credit for work which they did not do, frequently renegotiating salaries, and things like that. Maybe we might get married later, because the competition is unfair these days, with all the sinful competition which is going on around? They don’t care how many people they hurt along the way, and how many false promises they give, and how much they pretend, and how much they lie, as long as they finally get what they were looking for. Maybe we might have children 20 years later or maybe 30 years later, but compare that to Abraham and Zachariah who had children about 80 years later. Maybe we might miss some family joys, and so on, because the disbelievers might either want you to behave badly or not be part of those joys? Maybe we might have to lose a job, because sometimes the job market is just too sinful to continue, but compare that with prophet Job who lost his whole family, and his whole wealth, all at once. Maybe we might have to pay rent, because our parents did not plan correctly. They were concerned about themselves, to get married as early as possible, have children as early as possible, but they did not think about whether their children would have sufficient material support. So maybe, instead of owning our houses, we might have to pay rent for small apartments, but compare that to David who was homeless for the first part of his life. He was forced to stay homeless. He went straight from Homeless to king. He slept rough in the mountains and the caves of the mountains, and his only entertainment during that time was listening to bird songs, herding sheep, and looking at the mountains, so much so that God decided to let the mountains and the birds join David in worshiping God. Imagine that. Living among the birds so much, that God feels sorry for you, and lets the birds talk to you, and lets you understand them. It sounds interesting when I say it, but if we experienced it, we would all quit. Most people quit after 2 or 3 days in a camping trip, and let alone several years alone in the mountains. No bed, no bathroom, no shower, no clean clothes, no snacks, no chocolate, no drinks in bottles, no internet, none of that stuff. Just watching the sun rise and set, and the birds flying around for several years. The morning and evening views were probably nice, but the rest of the day was too hot and uneventful, and the rest of the night was too cold and boring. So, it did not suit David to be on God’s side, and it did not suit Muhammad to be on God’s side. Muhammad was not serving his own interests when he declared that he was a prophet. He was serving God’s interests. This is why God frequently calls Muhammad, and the rest of the prophets, “His servants”, “God’s servants”, because they were not serving themselves. They were serving God.
By: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director