The Prophet Muhammad

Islam and the Divine Message

Stephen Burge

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781838606589
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Oriente Medio

I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies Prophets serve as intermediaries between the human and divine worlds, granting them a special status in history across diverse religions and cultures. For Muslims, the Prophet Muhammad (570–632 CE) represents the culmination of the line of monotheistic prophets, including Abraham, Moses and Jesus. In his own lifetime, Muhammad overcame opposition and brought reforms, firmly establishing a thriving community of believers which would become a major world civilisation. Today, the Prophet's life and actions continue to inspire the Muslims worldwide. The Prophet Muhammad presents an illuminating portrait of Muhammad in his capacity as God's messenger and an exemplary figure to Muslims. Revealing the challenges and triumphs of prophecy, Stephen Burge examines how prophets have inspired faith communities' relationship with the Divine, and one another. In doing so, this engaging account elucidates the enduring influence of prophecy and the profound legacy of the Prophet Muhammad.

Chapter 1

Who is a Prophet?

What do we mean when we speak of prophets? Do we think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future and the end of the world, or do we think a prophet is someone who speaks out against injustice and talks truth to power? Is a prophet a mediator between our world and the world beyond ordinary human experience, or is a prophet a hero, leading people to new lands, lives, and experiences? Prophets are often all of these things. However, the concept that characterizes a prophet is change: prophets challenge the status quo, denounce the ills of society, and, through their proclamations, exhort people to change their ways. In short, prophets appear in the world to warn people of the consequences of their inaction, and to offer hope for a better future.

For the millions of Muslims around the world, Muhammad is first and foremost a prophet; he is the Messenger of God through whom God revealed His final word, the Qur’an. Before we can consider who Muhammad was, we must first have a firm handle on who a prophet is. Curiously enough, we will begin our journey through the life of Muhammad not in 7th-century Arabia, but by exploring the very idea of prophets and prophecy. Looking to wider conceptions of prophecy – in both popular and religious contexts – will provide the backdrop to understanding how and why prophecy has shaped communities and civilizations of the past and present, and, in turn, help us to understand the life of Muhammad more deeply.

Prophecy in Popular Thought

Depictions of prophecy in popular thought have captivated audiences for centuries. So much so that one of the most common tropes in literature centres on prophecy in the form of a prediction about someone’s future. In such stories, some figure who is connected to the otherworld – an oracle, a witch, or a shaman – sees a child and predicts that they will do great things. We witness a remarkably ordinary and unassuming character grow into the person they were destined to be, learning new things and gaining teachers and guidance along the way. The protagonist is often blown briefly off-course, they may suffer from a lack of confidence and doubt their future, or they may come up against an obstacle; but in the end they do whatever it is that they have been predicted to do and become the person they were destined to be.

Stories like this are as old as literature and can be found throughout the world – today, they are a mainstay of our cinema screens wherever we may be. They have such wide appeal because they resonate with our human desire to be a hero, and through the story’s hero we can vicariously partake in this adventure. Consider, for example, J. K. Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter series. The plot centres on the prophecy that Harry Potter will defeat the main antagonist, Lord Voldemort. At the start of the series, Harry seems an unlikely character to be the hero: he is nervous, shy, and unconfident. But by the end of the series he has become a leader and figure of hope for all who want to defeat evil. One of the reasons why the Harry Potter series became such a worldwide phenomenon, as well as a hugely successful film franchise, is that the idea of journeying to greatness from an unlikely start is something that appeals to us all.

Figure 1. Poster for the Film Release of The Ten Commandments
Epic dramas such as Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments have widely influenced popular conceptions of prophets; released in 1956, the film dramatizes the biblical story of Moses (left) and his divine mission to free the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Pharaoh (right).

This conception of prophecy may be compared with the motifs of fate and heroism that we find in Greek mythology. The Athenian tragedies of Sophocles, still popularized today, are particularly relevant if we consider the fate of the tragic hero Oedipus. When Oedipus is born, an oracle informs his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, of a prophecy that their child will kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, they send the baby away to die. Unbeknownst to them, a shepherd finds Oedipus and gives him to the King and Queen of Corinth, who then raise him as their own son. When Oedipus grows up, he hears the prophecy of his future, and, thinking it is about his adoptive parents, flees to Thebes in hope of preventing the prophecy’s fulfilment. On his journey he fights and kills an older man, and when he arrives in Thebes, finds the city leaderless and in turmoil. King Laius, who was fleeing to Corinth, had been murdered on the way. Queen Jocasta asks Oedipus to marry her and rule Thebes in Laius’s stead. He does so, but soon afterwards discovers the truth: the man he had met on the road was his father, Laius, and Jocasta is his mother. All of Oedipus’s actions to avoid the fulfilment of the prophecy in fact brought about his inevitable fate. Sophocles makes his audience journey with Oedipus knowing full well that everything he does is bringing the prophecy into reality. Just like watching someone enter a dark forest or a rickety old house in a horror film, we know exactly what is going to happen. We pity our tragic hero all the more because we know that, in spite of his efforts, fate will prevail.

Prophecy in both the stories of Harry Potter and Oedipus is about the inescapable future that awaits the principal character. For Harry, we know that he will grow into the figure who will defeat evil, and for Oedipus, we know that his attempts to avoid the prophecy are futile. The plots of these two stories follow a common set narrative structure: readers know how the story will end, but still enjoy the journey, rejoicing in Harry’s growth and triumphs, and pitying Oedipus as his tragic fate unravels.¹ The charm and allure of these tales of prophecy are rooted in a certainty that remains utterly alien to our ways of being and living. Unlike these characters, we cannot know what victories we will gain or what tragedies we will face. In fact, we do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone in ten years’ time or after death. In the absence of certainty, we find joy and comfort in the prospect of an ordered life – be it through these ideas and stories propagated in popular thought, or, as we will see later in the life of Muhammad, through messages of a divine nature.

Another way of looking at the concept of prophecy in a contemporary context is through individuals who challenge society’s behaviour and urge people to change, warning them of the consequences of their actions. This type of social activism has its roots in religious prophecy, where a prophet was often called to speak truth to power. Social activism can take many different forms, from direct activism and campaigning to its articulation in art and literary works. Charles Dickens, for example, is particularly famous for this in his novels, which raised awareness of the plight of the poor in Victorian England. Similar ‘prophetic’ messages can be heard in environmentalism and the climate change movement today. Ecologists and environmental activists tell us what the world will look like if we continue to live our lives as we do. Yet, many people refuse to accept the validity of the warning and resist changing – indeed, climate change activists have often faced stubborn and ferocious opposition. The aim of both these types of social activism is to encourage people to change their behaviour, and to help present and future generations. When reading Harry Potter or watching a production of Oedipus we may be emotionally drawn into the narrative, but the experience is largely passive as we witness events unfold for our own entertainment. Social activism, however, elicits an active change that we are expected to effectuate. As we turn to prophecy in a religious context, it will become apparent that this paradigm of challenge, change, and response is a fundamental component of prophecy. While elements of popular and religious understandings of prophecy overlap – such as speaking out against the ills of society and predicting future catastrophes – prophecy in religion is distinguished by its relationship with the Divine. As may be expected, the idea that prophets impart a specifically divine message changes the central emphases and purposes of prophecy.

The Role of Prophets in Religion

Prophets in religion appear in many different forms: some are hero-like revolutionaries who change the world around them; some are teachers, offering their followers a new way of living their lives; some are mystics, opening the world of the unseen to their disciples; and some are outsiders, critiquing the world and the injustices that they see. What unites all these types of prophets is a mission to bring about positive change in people’s lives, their communities, and the world as a whole. Significantly, prophets in religion are divinely inspired and therefore have an important message to deliver to the people: the message of God.

In their role as message-givers prophets are primarily teachers. Prophets are often enigmatic and captivating teachers who employ various methods to deliver their message, such as the use of parables. Religious teachings from spiritual guides similarly use allegorical tales to help people understand the nature of faith and spirituality. For example, in the Jatakas, an early Buddhist collection of stories and fables narrating the previous births of the Buddha, we see various parables employed to teach lessons. One such example is the parable concerning a mango tree where the Buddha advises a local king that his mangoes have lost their sweetness due to the tree’s proximity to bitter fruit.² The moral of the story is that the people and things we surround ourselves with affect who we are; if we keep company with those who are miserly or rude, we may very well become miserly and rude ourselves. This brief example demonstrates how religious teachers incorporate philosophical meaning into seemingly simply parables, which is a recurring feature of prophetic teaching. A prophet wants people to change how they behave and to develop a deeper relationship with the divine, or here, a deeper philosophical understanding of existence. In order for people to hear their message, prophets make their ethical framework as accessible as possible. They do not engage in deep theological or philosophical discussions on the nature of ethics, but instead they narrate stories. Traditionally, prophet-teachers may also introduce a code of conduct or law that their followers can live by. This law may be divinely instituted and specific, as we find in Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, or it may be a more general ethical code, as is the case in Buddhism and Christianity. Regardless of the extent of the codification of these rules, the prophet-teacher establishes the law and practice of the community and conducts that code in their own life. Both forms of teaching – establishing a law and conveying didactic stories – can be seen in the way prophets interact with their communities.

Figure 2. Mughal Portrait of a Prophet
A painting from late 18th- to early 19th-century India that depicts a prophet identified as Lot. The portrait incorporates an illustrative halo to signify Lot’s prophetic status. While a common feature in religious art, the representation of a halo did not appear in Islamic art until the late classical period and typically took the form of a flame-halo, as opposed to a circular halo (pictured here) more common in Buddhist and Christian art.

However, the nature of the world sometimes requires a more direct approach in the form of a strong leader. The Bible includes a number of heroic prophets and leaders to this effect.³ There is Moses, who challenges the authority of the Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free, leading his people out of Egypt and defeating the Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. There is Samson, the strong muscular man who is seemingly invincible, but when his lover, Delilah, discovers that his...