How Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, Changed the World
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
The World Before and After Prophet Muhammad,
Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, came into this world in the 7th Century. He changed that world, from the way it was to pretty much the way it is today.
That means a lot of the things that you see in the world today, and you think they are all good, and you like them, chances are many of them are traceable to the teachings and legacy of Prophet, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
What I am about to say here is not an expression of my faith as a Muslim, but a simple statement of empirical truth. That means anyone anywhere can take any of what I am saying here and subject it to a Truth-Test of their own.
By that I mean they can go and do their own independent research and decide if what I am saying is true or not.
So all you need to do is to see the world the way it was before Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and compare that world to the way it became after Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. The change is attributable in large part to Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his teachings.
So, here is a simple enumeration of some of the ways in which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, changed the world.
After reading every point or argument I make, ask yourself whether what I am saying is true or not true.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam,
Gave the World the Gift of Reading
That is right. In the world before Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, reading generally used to be the prerogative of the royal family; of the families of the nobles and aristocrats; and of the clerical and priestly classes.
Others were often discouraged or even prevented from learning to read and write. In some instances, they were punished. That is how the world was before Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
That situation changed completely after Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. The very first word that he brought from God in the Qur’an commanded everyone everywhere, male as well as female, to read.
“Read! Iqra’,” said the Qur’an to the world, in the middle of the 7th Century, and the world never looked back. Today, in the 21st Century, learning to read and write is one of the most pressing and popular priorities throughout the world, no matter what one’s race, religion, class, age or gender.
So, the gift of universal male-female literacy, across races and classes, is one of the most profound ways in which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, changed the world.
Female Liberation
Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, gave women their freedom and dignity.
Before Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, women everywhere were in bondage.
Europeans wondered if women had a soul. They called women the Instrument of the Devil and Gateway to Hell.
They denied women the right to inherit their parents’ or husbands’ property.
In Arabia, fathers buried their own daughters alive.
The Qur’an put an end to all this nonsense. It promulgated the principle of male-female parity in reward and punishment – worldly and other-worldly. And it made women partners of males in the inheritance process.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, thus gave women their liberty and dignity.
Qur’an, the book that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, brought from God, does not have a chapter called “Arabs,” even though the desert-dwelling Arabs were its first addressees and the Qur’an was revealed in their language – Arabic.
Nor does the Qur’an have a chapter called “The Men,” even though the whole world sang the praises of men all the time, and even though our own language until yesterday, through the 1970s, and even through the 1980s, shall we say, continued to be male-centric and male-gendered.
And yet, the Qur’an has a chapter called “The Women” – Annisaa’ – going back 1400 years.
Annisaa’ or “The Women” is the fourth chapter of the Qur’an and it is also one of the longest chapters of the Qur’an.
This is the kind of glorious revolution that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, brought about in the status of women in the world.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, Set Humanity Free
Before Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, humanity was in chains.
The world belonged to the kings and to the rich. And ordinary human beings were their property.
The broad mass of humanity was called serfs, riffraff, villains, peasants and everything else. Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, set human beings free and gave them the most honored title of “The People.”
America ought to be proud, and rightly so, for having used in her Constitution the words “We the People.” That expression, the People, is a direct throwback to the Qur’an.
I am providing below the words of the Constitution of the United States of America. But I want to know if anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, American or otherwise, ever wondered how supremely suffused these words are with the spirit of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, from the middle of the 7th Century.
So, here is the Constitution of the United States:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” (I have let the original spelling stand in the quote).
Which part of this paragraph is not a direct throwback to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam?
Did anyone ever wonder where America got her Golden Fleece from? From the Qur’an of course, from the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, from where else?
Just go and check: the Qur’an uses the word Annaas over 200 times to connote the concept of “The People.”
