Love for the Prophet Muhammad: A Key to Countering Islamism and Islamophobia

Non-muslims often struggle to understand Muslims because they fail to grasp the role that the Prophet Muhammad plays in our lives. Failing to realize the breadth of the Prophet’s teachings and the depth of love for the Prophet throughout the Islamic world, many non-Muslims are quick to believe ISIS, the Wahhabis, and other militant groups when they claim that it is they who adhere to the precepts set by the Prophet Muhammad and are thus the true followers of the “prophetic model.”

Yet the understanding of the prophetic model among militant Islamist groups falls far short of what is conveyed by the classical Islamic tradition. Far from being the literalists that some portray them to be, militant Islamists choose to ignore or explain away those teachings that expose their wanton violence for what it is. When non-Muslims fail to recognize this, they succumb to severe miscalculations regarding both ISIS and the nature of Islam. It is thus of the utmost importance to consider what the prophetic model means to the majority of Muslims.

Several years ago, the song that topped the charts in Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Arab world was Sami Yusuf’s “Muallim” (Teacher), a song in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. A few years later, Mesut Kurtis topped the charts with “The Burdah” (The Mantle), whose refrain is “Our Lord, bless and have peace, at all times and forever, upon the beloved who is the best of all creation.” The title and refrain of the latter come from the most widely read poem in the history of Islam, “The Mantle” (al-Burdah), written in thirteenth-century Egypt, and recited to this day by Muslims from Indonesia to Europe, from Senegal to South Africa to the United States and almost everywhere in between.

The Prophet As a Source of Love and Hope

The enduring love of the Prophet Muhammad exhibited in this and thousands of other poems is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Islam. As the German scholar Annemarie Schimmel observes, even Western accounts that display tremendous respect for the Prophet Muhammad “betray nothing of the mystical love that his followers feel for him.” This love endures throughout popular culture among the young and old alike, as evoked in this oft-recited passage of “The Mantle”:

Incomparable, his beauty has no peer — The essence of beauty itself is inseparable from him.

Ascribe to his essence what you wish of honor, Attribute to his exalted status what you will of greatness!

Truly, the Messenger of God’s bounty Cannot be overstated by two lips and a tongue.

If a miracle could equal his magnitude, The mere mention of his name would revive decaying bones.

Covenant from the Prophets by Salma Arastu.

Salma Arastu (salmaarastu.com)

For the majority of Muslims it is this inner spiritual reality that defines the Prophet Muhammad. We understand all of his actions in light of his direct connection to God. But for many non-Muslims, as well as for Muslims entrenched in militant political manifestations of Islamism, it is as if the Prophet’s spiritual nature is veiled by his human nature; his role as a spiritual model and guide is obscured by his role as a statesman and military leader. This misunderstanding is perpetuated in the West by much of the misinformation and disinformation regarding the Prophet that has become ingrained in Western culture for over 1,000 years. As the Cambridge History of Islam observes,

Occidental readers are still not completely free from the prejudices inherited from their medieval ancestors. In the bitterness of the Crusades and other wars against the Saracens, they came to regard the Muslims, and in particular Muhammad, as the incarnation of all that was evil, and the continuing effect of the propaganda of that period has not yet been completely removed from occidental thinking about Islam.

Given this background and a view of the Prophet that is at best “all too human,” from a classical Islamic perspective, the vast majority of Westerners are unable to understand that a...