The Prophet and current issues
In a troubled and confused world, it is vital to remember the guide of Muslims, who teaches us how to behave. The abuses of all kinds that we are witnessing would not have reached such a degree of gravity if the lessons of the Prophet were retained. In all the languages of the world, when the word “Prophet” is written or pronounced, everyone immediately knows that it is the prophet of Islam, without even needing to add his name. : Mohammad.
Unrecognized model of life
He is the universal figure of the Envoy, understood as herald, warner and educator. He claimed nothing else. He lived and acted within the framework of this mission, crossing all borders, to teach everyone how to adore the Creator of the worlds and to live together. For Islam, he brought together the quintessence of the qualities of all the envoys, his brothers and his predecessors, from Noah to Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
Today, certain “Muslims” – an often manipulated minority – are the first to harm the image of the Prophet, through their lack of culture, their archaism and their irrational behavior. These rigorists close themselves off and contribute to misinformation and Islamophobia.
In the West, even if his “genius” is rather recognized by scholars, the Prophet is unknown. On both sides, in the East and in the West, there is forgetfulness and intolerance, while the current fundamental challenge is to live together, according to the beautiful prophetic model, beyond differences and divergences.
The vision of the Prophet, a model of life for Muslims and which testifies to a singular sense of humanity, welcomes and at the same time respects the right to be different. The Koran specifies that the Prophet is: “Mercy for the worlds”! All the work of information and training consists in demonstrating how the issue of living together is at the heart of the Prophet’s mission.
In the concrete world, the first concern of the Prophet was to awaken consciences to the principle of the One God, origin of life, and to respect human dignity by giving priority to human fraternity. And therefore to forge living together on the basis of clear, secular and open spiritual orientations.
This approach, which should structure the mentality of the Muslim, is called into question both by the extremists, who betray his thought, and by those who refuse any idea of religion, or approach it in a reductive way. The concept of living together through universal fraternity is the guiding thread of the action of the Prophet, whose horizon was enlightened by the commitment to make the revealed religion triumph, founded on the axiom of an ethic which aims at the empowerment of the human.
Believing comes from mystery, intuition, interiority; in this sense, the Prophet aims to respect freedom of conscience, to reactivate these qualities in everyone and consequently to open up the possibilities of living together. For fifteen centuries, the Prophet has represented a repressed question for Europe.
This question is reduced to controversies, which do not date from the history of the 20th century. The difficulty is twofold: on the one hand, the fundamentalists are at odds with regard to the middle way, the golden mean, and on the other, materialist and historicist thought is powerless in the face of the subject of the balanced, individual model of life. and collective, advocated by the Prophet. Some confuse, others separate, whereas it is necessary to articulate and combine faith and reason, the one and the multiple, the old and the new. The Prophet tells us how to find the measure. When humanity needs to remember its lessons, it is caricatured by one and the other, or lost sight of by a world subjected to the merchants of the temple, or disturbed by those who refute any idea of the temple.
However, the Prophet is a historical personality, very real, who changed the face of the world and challenged consciences. Today, when Islam/West relations are intense and problematic, polemics and rigorism, on the one hand, and Islamophobia and xenophobia, on the other, are resurfacing. The imaginary prevails over the objective vision. Muslims are not exempt from criticism and to correct themselves, need precisely to remember the Prophet in order to live their time and project themselves into the future.
Dual difficulty. Rigorists freeze and distort the past. And what prevails in the materialist spirit is the desacralization of everything, the incidence that the negation of the principle of prophecy would be the basis of emancipation and “true” civilization. The modernist vision considers that the first cause and the end belong to another order than the Divine and that the concept of material progress should not be brought into play.
The prophetic model, of an open, balanced and total spirituality, is immediately excluded, without trying to understand its singularity. Modernity is presented as what comes to replace the so-called mythical or religious function (which conceives the world as a given system, ordered and animated by the Divine) by the logical function (which places the human endowed with reason at the center). While nothing fundamentally opposes faith and scientific logic.
It is difficult, in this context, to “speak” of the Prophet who educates and prepares for the afterlife. What appears as the model of a counter-example, especially since the ignorance maintained on this subject is profound. It is a problem rich in lessons that the refusal of some in the West to fully integrate the Muslim religion, the third monotheistic branch, into common history.
And it is a failure for Muslim elites of our time not to have been able to interpret and translate their founding references according to evolution in order to roll back ignorance and prejudice. The denigration of some, the apology of others, the two extremisms, arouse a dialogue of the deaf. Reassuring, explaining, interpreting who the Prophet is, a model for all Muslim citizens and beyond, for our times, all times, is an emergency.
Central point, he was the “sure man”, of confidence, of given word, molded by mercy. He never judged, condemned or assaulted anyone. He said that we have neither to be afraid nor to be afraid. No one should fear the Muslim. On the contrary, his word, his house, his land, his mosque must be a refuge, a safe place, for all. The Prophet, considered as el amine, the sure man, the man of trust based his practice on respect for all creation and kindness.
He called for making the mosque a place of Muslim and human brotherhood. Place of praise, prostration and prayer as peaceful adoration, but also a place of knowledge and culture. What counts is the interiority of the heart and the common good. Hence the prophetic saying hadith which states the idea that the heart of the man of truth contains the divine, which the whole Earth could not do.
To rise by fasting, by sharing, by praying, without ostentation, by cultivating oneself without seeking to shine, and forgiving those who offend us, without weakness, is the basis of faith. Alluding to the deniers who attacked him, the Prophet said “My God, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”. Extremists on all sides pour into hatred, fear and rejection, often out of ignorance. Unjustifiable drifts.
Let’s give food for thought, let’s keep our focus on the meaning of openness, righteousness, and rectitude. We will not be distracted from the pious and just conduct, from the thoughtful and magnanimous faith, initiated by the Prophet. More than ever, we need to be inspired by the leadership of the Seal of Envoys, to face the challenges of our time by assuming our responsibilities.
