بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّ حِيْمِ
Allah tells us
in the Holy Quran;
‘Ye
are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right,
forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah’ (3:110)
After Allah sent
124000 Messengers; after He gave so much tangible care and blessings to the
previous nations, He then sent Prophet Muhammad (pboh). And with his coming, we didn’t see any such
visible favours. Of course, generosity
flowed from his personality; but compared to how Allah treated the Israelites,
for example; He did not treat the Muslims like that. The Muslims were subjected to a lot of trials
in the early stage of Islam.
And in spite of
it all, Allah says in His Holy Words, that we are the best of people that
emerge from mankind. Why did Allah say
so, and what is it that makes us the best?
There are many reasons; but today we will just touch a few.
Firstly, one
tangible reason is that Muslims are the only people that have been given a
piece of paradise on earth. No other
nation has this great blessing. Prophet
Muhammad (pboh) is reported to have said “the area between my house and my
minbar is one of the gardens of Paradise”.
Another
important reason is that, Allah created Prophet Muhammad (pboh) very
special. He was invited to the presence of
the Lord on the blessed night of the Mir’aj, and on our behalf; he was able to
witness all of the unseen verities. He
is our witness to those things that you cannot experience through your senses. What are angels, paradise, Hell, Who is
Allah? We cannot get surety of this
through our five senses. But we are sure
about, is that Prophet Muhammad (pboh) was invited to witness all of these; and
because he never told a lie we accept his testimony with full convection. When Moses delivered the message to his
people they use to question him
Allah says;
There is no god but He:
that is the witness of Allah, His angels, and
those endued with knowledge, (3:18)
We know that
Prophet Muhammad (pboh) never told a lie nor said anything out of his personal
desires; so if he says there is no God but Allah; we take it. This is another reason why we are the best of
people. We have been given first-hand
knowledge of the unseen verities through the witness of Prophet (pboh).
Another reason,
is that Prophet Muhammad (pboh) was invited in the presence e of Allah; and he
was given a special blessing that night which we call salaat. Allah gave him a special gift and sent him
back to earth; and continues to bestow this special blessing upon him because
Allah never changes His habit;
The nature
(i.e. the habit and practice) of Allah, is the nature He has bestowed on
mankind. Allah does not change His
habit; that is the Straight Way, but a lot of people cannot understand. (30:30)
So Prophet
Muhammad (pboh) is a real gift to humanity because he is receiving a special
gift from Allah that he distributes to mankind.
This special blessing is received on behalf of human beings and anyone
who attaches themselves to him shares in it, even up to today. No other Messenger was given this special
blessing.
When Allah says
we are the best; this is one of the reasons why. Regardless of the time period; so long you
are one of his followers and engage in darood you continue to get that
special blessings that will coming to you, because of your recitation of the zikr.
Perhaps this is
one of the reasons why he is reported to have said ‘he who reads a single
Durood upon me, Almighty Allah blesses him ten times, ten of his sins are
forgiven, and he is increased ten times in stages’.
Understand that
we are special in the sight of Allah and it is important for us to remain at
our best in this world and in the next.
One way of doing this is to send abundant darood on the Messenger; a
simple formula that has great returns.
May Allah bless
us, guide us and take care of our affairs.
Transcript
of discourse delivered by
Maulana
Dr. Waffie Mohammed
