How Relevant is the Prophetic Model Today?

By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam 29 July 2022 Most Muslims Live By Contemporary Morality But Continue To Believe In the Ideal of the Prophetic Model Main Points: 1. Muslim revivalism the world over calls Muslims to emulate the ways of the prophet and his companions. 2. Most Muslims live by a radically different standard today, and would objectively find much wanting in such a prophetic ideal. 3. Aspects of the lives of the prophet and his companions, as written in our religious literature, cannot become a model of emulation today in the times of human rights and gender equality. 4. Muslims need to think whether they want to be pinned down by a religious normativity which would normally not follow. ----- World over, conscientious Muslims have always believed that the prophetic age and the years immediately following it have been the best years of Muslim history. There is a tradition in which the prophet is said to have opined that his age is the best of all times. As we all know, the prophet was followed by what is called the rightly guided caliphs. They were rightly guided in the sense of the being the closest companions of the prophet and hence they learnt Islam and its practices directly from him. Even since Muslims have lost political power in much of the world since the 18th century, it has been a rallying call to return to the days of the prophet and his companions. We are told that during that time, Islam was being practiced in its purest form and Muslims were living their lives as ordained by the religion. This return to the prophetic model and the time of Rashidun Caliphate is not just given by Islamists but has also been internalized by not so political Muslims. At this point, we need to ask a fundamental question: is the prophetic model and the Rashidun caliphate really worthy of emulation and should Muslims be pining for it today? According to our religious literature, the prophet received the multitude of his revelation in Mecca and some in Medina. While there is nothing original in the Meccan revelations, retelling us the tales handed down by Jews and Christians, there is a certain ecumenism which is laudatory. The small portion of Medinan texts changes all that, exhorts Muslims to kill the unbelievers wherever they might be found. Both of these contrasting messages were followed by the prophet: when in Mecca he preached peace but when he became powerful in Medina, he waged wars and took women and children as slaves. We are told that these were defensive wars but that is obviously not true. If the option that is being given is either to convert or pay jizya, then it can hardly be called defensive wars. Moreover, in many instances these were not even wars. More accurately, they should be called raids and Al Tabari lists many of them in his biography of the prophet. Raiding caravans seems to be part of the national sport of the area which continued till the 18th century when even the Ottoman hajj pilgrims were waylaid, abducted for ransom and at times killed by the Arabs. Such raids must be happening even before the prophet and it continued after him; the important thing is that the prophet did precious little to change it. Rather, according to Tabari and others, in participating and leading certain raids, he gave it religious sanction. Is that a model which is worthy of emulation today? No sooner had the prophet left for his heavenly abode, Muslims started reverting back to their ‘pagan’ faiths. It was the first caliph Abu Bakr who brought them into the fold of Islam through the sheer power of his sword. There were instances wherein his army did not even spare the Quran memorizers as they were also killed with other apostates. Muslims tell the whole world that there is no compulsion in religion, but then these Muslims were compelled to be within the fold of Islam by none other than the first caliph of Islam. Is this an act which is worthy of emulation in today’s world which swears by religious diversity and pluralism? Muslim theologians have argued that the first four caliphs were the rightly guided ones. They consequently argue that no one should doubt their intentions and conduct. And yet, Muslim literature records that the third caliph Uthman promoted nepotism by appointing and promoting his kinsmen in important positions. Uthman was killed by fellow Muslims, many of whom were the companions of the prophet. So, if these companions were really the ideal as theologians would want us to believe, how come they ended up killing their own caliph? And not just Uthman, but three out of these four rightly guided caliphs did not die a natural death. They were all killed by their fellow Muslims. If we believe that those nearer to the prophet’s lifetime were better Muslims as compared to today, then what explains this murderous rage within them? What explains the fact that Ali, the last of the rightly guided ones, had to wage a battle of supremacy with the prophet wife? Who got killed in this Battle of Camel? The answer is unfortunate but clear: these two relatives of the prophet ended up killing scores of Muslims just for the sake of their leadership. Are they worthy of emulation? Today’s Muslims seem to be much better as compared to these first generation of Muslims. Certainly, the scourge of extremism plagues a small section of Muslims today, but the large majority wants to co-exist with fellow humans bereft of violence and hatred for the other. No Muslim today is making a living by raiding caravans and seizing booty, selling women and children into slavery. No Muslim today is willing to kill a fellow human simply because he or she might be an unbeliever. And yet, this erroneous idea that earliest Muslims were the best of Muslims continues to this day. The problem is that we do not want to confront our own troubled past. Somehow the whole exercise of Islamic scholarship seems to be to justify whatever happened in the past and put a gloss over inconvenient truths. We live in an age which has an extremely different morality as compared to 7th century Arabia. Most Muslims too live by the standards of contemporary morality which is defined by restitutive law, recognition and inclusion of religious and sexual minorities, gender equality and human rights. And yet, there is a huge reluctance to question the religious ideals and models that we Muslims have made for ourselves. Is there a way forward for the Muslim society without the rejection of such models? ---- A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. URL: https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/prophetic-model-rashidun-caliphate/d/127595 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism