Al - insaan al - kamil

In modern times if anyone wants to know what is the most common name in the world, he or she will probably be astonished to know the answer; “Mohammad”. I would like to state that it is probably impossible to imagine human history without understanding this personality.

I will discuss in this post from a largely historical viewpoint the influences of Prophet Mohammad in human history and how he is relevant to modern human civilization.

Pre-Mohammad era: Jahiliyah - the Arabian “Dark Age”

When we take a look at the pre-Mohammad Arabia, we will see a region lying between two great empires the Byzantine Roman Empire and the Persian Sassanid Empire. Both the Empires saw this land as a backward region and they never tried to conquer it outright but there are occasions in history where both sides tried to create influence in the region through their Arabian clients. There are two things that can be found in a general Arab: Pride and Bravery. The pre-Mohammad Arabs were very fierce in their pride and were never affected by any foreign cultural influence. They were very proud of their language Arabic. Being situated in a harsh, desert climate they always had to look out for water and other essentials of life and this made their lifestyle nomadic in nature. Fights between different Arab tribes for sources of water were commonplace. The fierce pride among Arabs made sure that sometimes even very trivial issues like grazing of camels on a disputed plot could lead to fierce clashes between tribes, which could continue for centuries. In a society like this one there was always a need for warriors thereby boys were always preferred over girls. Some of the Arabs used to dispose off their girl children in a very brutal way. The inter-tribe, inter-clan and sometimes inter-family conflict was the norm. The Arabs although being brave and fierce fighters always were busy fighting themselves.
Arabs did not follow any particular religion as such. They were mainly nature worshippers; they used to worship many idols of different gods and goddesses and almost every tribe used to have their own god or goddess. Some of them had become Christians and some of them had become Jews. Because the Arabs were always pre-occupied with their present condition in preserving themselves in their harsh climates they never gave too much thought on the concepts like philosophical or religious thought, spirituality or afterlife.
As a result of all these discussed causes the Arabs never played any meaningful role in history prior to Mohammad. Both the Roman as well as the Persian Empires always considered them barbaric savages unworthy of contact.



Arabs: From Barbaric Savages to Enlightened Faithfuls

This was the background before Mohammad came. Now if we look at the Arabs just 100 years after the death of Mohammad, we see a completely different picture. Arabs as a people have changed completely from being nomadic tribes to a world conquering Empire. From being idol-worshippers now they have become devout believers in a monotheistic faith whose great, long march in history is still going on. The two empires the Byzantine Roman and the Persian empires that used to look down upon Arabs with contempt are no longer present. Arabs have not only conquered these two empires but they have also successfully brought their faith upon the people of these two empires.

This Arab success was a real first for the world when a completely nomadic and backward people not only achieved comprehensive military victories over two long established and well advanced civilizations but successfully brought their own faith upon the people of these two empires. This was a permanent and long lasting historical achievement for the Arabs. All these happened because of the teachings and leadership of one man: Mohammad.

There are few precedents in History of a socially, economically, culturally backward people conquering more materially advanced civilizations. For example the Germanic tribes destroyed the Roman Empire and the Mongols conquered China and much of the Muslim Middle East. The Arab conquest is different from these two examples in the sense that unlike the Germans and Mongols, the Arabs successfully converted the population of the defeated empire into their own faith. In case of the Germans and the Mongols they themselves converted to the faith of the defeated people. For example German tribes converted to Christianity and the Mongols converted to Buddhism and Islam. But the Arabs not only held on to their own faith but also brought new people in their faith. Amazing thing is that even after centuries after the Arab conquest the people in Persia (modern Iran) or Byzantine (modern Turkey) are overwhelmingly Muslims, this is the most enduring legacy of the Arab conquests.

The biggest changes that Prophet Mohammad brought are in the Arab mindset and Arab attitude. Let us discuss these changes that are probably most critical to the creation of historical Arab character. As we have seen before Arabs did not have any specific faith , they used to worship different idols and they did use to spend a lot of their energy in infighting. With the coming of Islam, Prophet Mohammad was successful in uniting almost all Arabs under a single faith which is in political terms even by today’s standards is a significant achievement. Because the Arabs were united under Islam now they could focus their energies in much serious issues.
In pre-Mohammad Arab society, the fate of the socially and economically weak was to be trampled under the boot of the mighty and powerful. Now with the coming of Islamic concepts such as afterlife (Akhirat), Judgment day (Qayamat) the Arabs came to believe that those who oppress the weak in the life will be tremendously punished in hell after death. This made a huge impact on Arabic mindset. The powerful tribal chieftains were forced to treat their subjects with compassion since they believed that if they do not treat their subjects with justice and mercy they could end up being tortured in hell for eternity.
The Islamic institution of Almsgiving (Zakat) came in as a godsend blessing to the weak, poor, sick, needy and especially to the orphans. Zakat was crucial for the survival and upbringing of the orphans in the society as the frequent internal wars among Arabs were creating a steady and ever growing army of untimely orphans in the Arab society. Even before Mohammad there were Arab traditions in giving charity to the poor but the difference between those pre-Mohammad Arab practises and Zakat is that since Zakat is a mandatory religious duty for all Muslims so from now onwards whenever an affluent Arab was doing some charity work for the poor he did not feel that he was doing favours to the needy instead he considered it as if it was his normal day-to-day social duty.

Another important change that came to traditional Arab attitude was to the Arabian identity. Arabs were always used to identify themselves in terms of their tribes and clans and families. Islam created a completely different sort of identity for the Arabs. For a Muslim the highest level of loyalty lies with that of Allah and every other identity is inferior to this identity. From being divided in numerous tribes, the Arabs were brought together into a single community. All the Arabs from different feuding tribes, from different backgrounds and different social positions came together under the banner of Islam. All these people came and worked together since they believed that they were brothers in the same faith and they were worshipping the same true God.

Islam was very simple and easy to understand. Prophet Mohammad talked about a faith where there were no priests, no hierarchies, no special privileges, no castes, no sacrifices, and no lavish ceremonies. In Islam every common man or woman comes directly into a covenant with Allah. There is a direct relationship between Allah and the individual. No intermediatory, no medium and no idols are required in Islam. All the existing tribal loyalties, all false gods, all distortions were swept away by the tide of Islam. Mohammad created a unified community from the people who had not a single common thing among them. Some of Mohammad’s companions included people as different as Bilal the Ethiopian, Solman the Persian, Suhaib the Roman and Abdullah ibn Salam the Jew. Mohammad spoke about creating a unified community of all the Muslims regardless of their background, ethnicity, culture or social status. This concept of such community is called Ummah.
The creation of this community meant that Islam was always getting a large pool of committed people who were ready to sacrifice everything for their faith and belief. It was a great advantage that Muslims held over other non-Muslim Arabian tribes who were still bound by their ancient tribal loyalties. When it came to difficult situations like war and persecution the Muslims always showed much more vigour than their non-

Another important aspect of Islam was in the warfare scenarios of the Arabs. Muslims always thought they were fighting for Allah whenever there was a battle whereas other non-Muslim Arabs fought for their tribal chiefs. This ensured that Muslims were always better disciplined, more united, better organized and more zealous in fighting than their fellow pagan Arab counterparts. Muslims believed that they were going to heaven if they died on the battlefield. This meant whenever fighting they could always fight with that much more vigour, zeal and ferocity. Mohammad himself showed all the inspiring leadership skills during these wars. He always led from the front. He was ready to share the same fate that of his followers. Moreover he was always compassionate towards the defeated enemy who had surrendered. This can be seen when he forgave the whole Meccan leadership (who were his sworn enemies) after he had conquered Mecca. This was a unique experience for the Arabs since they were not used to seeing the victor forgiving the vanquished. Undoubtedly this led to rapid spread of Islam throughout the wider Middle East.

Changing the tide of human history

Till the time of Mohammad the most influential and popular idea in the world was certain Christian concept of Original Sin. This concept used to think that all the human beings are born sinners and they are destined to doom unless they convert to Christianity. The basis of this concept begins with the incident in Bible where Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were expelled from the Garden of Eden. This concept draws the conclusion that all the human beings are sinners of the crime committed by Adam and Eve since all the human beings are children of Adam and Eve. A human being can only be cleared from this sin if he/she converts to Christianity.
Mohammad’s idea challenged this concept in a formidable way. Mohammad taught a completely different thing. According to his teachings, there is no original sin. Adam and Eve did commit the crime of eating forbidden fruit and they were equally guilty of it.
(Note: Christian tradition has always blamed Eve more for this sin whereas the Quran says both Adam and Eve are equally guilty) But since both of them repented to Allah Allah forgave their crimes. And so all the newborn babies are innocent and logically in no ways the crimes of a man/woman can transmit to his/her progeny.
Mohammad’s ideas and teaching against Original Sin were so liberating since it completely frees a man/woman from thinking that he/she is a sinner from his/her birth. This was the reason that gradually even the great Christian communities in the Middle East (some of whom dates back from the time of Jesus) embraced Islam, one after another. Mohammad actually wiped the concept of Original Sin out from the innocent mind of humanity.

Prophet Mohammad always presented himself as the last in the line of the biblical prophets. He always taught the core of biblical teachings. He created a great precedent in setting how to do religious discourse or religious debate. He taught that in a religious debate a man must be humble and respectful of his opponent’s faith and he should never condemn/criticise the faith of his opponent. One of the amazing legacies of this idea of Mohammad is that whenever there is a religious debate between Muslim and non-Muslims say Christians, Christians invariably will criticise and condemn the very character of Mohammad whereas the Muslims invariably praise and show respect to the character of Jesus. This is a great legacy that Muslims should be proud of. There is no doubt that this is a direct result of Mohammad showing the way himself in his religious debate with non-Muslims.

The Islam that Mohammad preached is indeed the religion of peace but this peace is not the peace of timid and submissive. Indeed it is very clear from the Prophet’s example that one should do his/her utmost to attain peace but peace is only for the brave, just and righteous. Weak and submissive can neither attain nor maintain peace. You cannot attain peace with your enemy when your enemy is arrogant and bullying while you yourself is weak and begging for mercy. Indeed this is a thing should be learned and followed by today’s people.

Another important teaching of Mohammad was to perform Justice in all conditions in all circumstances. One interesting example is that two men came to Mohammad for Justice, one of them was a Muslim another one was a Jew. Now Mohammad listened to the viewpoint of both of them and decided in the favour of the Jew. The Jew was so astonished that he immediately embraced Islam. Indeed this tells us about how just Mohammad was as a Jurist. One of the prime tasks of any Islamic state is to provide equal justice and rule of law to all of it’s citizens, whatever their backgrounds may be.

If one has to summarize the character of Mohammad one has to say that here was a man who preached those ideas what he deeply believed. Mohammad could easily have led a very comfortable, family life like other wealthy men of his tribe but he did not. He had an idea that he thought would eventually make the way his people live better and he persisted with his ideas throughout his life against all odds. He had to face a lot of problems: his own tribe wanted to kill him, many of his close followers were brutally tortured and murdered, the Jews and Christians whom he thought as “fellow children of Abraham” rejected him because he was an Arab. But in spite of all this he never flinched from what he believed in. Indeed such was his conviction and faith. This is something that any people can and should learn from Mohammad that if one has believed in certain idea he should persist with it and should not desist from it even if the whole world could be up against him.
An idea can survive as long as people can easily identify with it. The most compelling reason of the success of Islam is that it is very easy for one to identify himself with.
If anyone asks a Pakistani or an Iranian or an Egyptian or a Malaysian or a Turk who he most likes and loves, the answer will be “Mohammad”. Indeed this is the most enduring legacy of Mohammad that even after more than 1400 years after his death a great number of people still identify themselves with his ideas, teachings and beliefs. Indeed one has to say that if one wants to know who is the most influential man in history, the answer is: Mohammad.