Your duty to Rasul ﷺ

Your Duty to the Prophet ﷺ

If we think of love of the Prophet ﷺ, the first duty we have towards the Prophet ﷺ is to be the shield of the Prophet ﷺ. After the Battle of Uhud, there was a woman from the Ansar of Medina whose husband and her brothers and her sons — all of them were slain and killed in the Battle of Uhud. Not a single one of them was left. She was left alone.

She comes to the battlefield and she asks, "What happened to Muhammad ﷺ?" They say to her:

"He's fine." "Don't you want to know about your husband? Your brother? Your sons?" She says, "No, I'm not interested." She says:

"I want to see him with my own eyes. I will not feel content until I see him." And when she comes and she sees him, and they say, "Here he is. He's fine. He's okay." She says — and this is the word, the sentence to remember:

"Every harm, every injury, every loss other than you is a tolerable loss. I can tolerate it. But I cannot tolerate an attack on you, Ya Muhammad ﷺ."

The Intellectual Defense of the Prophet ﷺ

The attacks on the character of the Prophet ﷺ should make us examine ourselves. Where is the intellectual defense of the Prophet ﷺ? By learning all of the misconceptions people level against him — that he was a womanizer, that he was a barbarian, that he was X and Y and Z. Learn those arguments and be ready to defend him.

Embodying His Character with Non-Muslims

The second duty is to have an impeccable character — especially when dealing with people who are non-Muslims. All of us interact with non-Muslims. We interact with them in the workplace. We interact with them as neighbors. We interact with them as colleagues, as friends, as acquaintances. But how often do we go out of our way to show kindness to them? How often do we go out of our way to show them a glimpse of the beauty of our character? When was the last time we had tea with them? When was the last time we bought them coffee? When was the last time we showed gentleness, kindness, genuine character? When was the last time we stood up for someone who had been done injustice to?

And then when they are surprised at this, we say to them, "This is something I learned from Muhammad ﷺ."

A Critical Moment in History

Realize that if we don't step up now at this juncture in history, we will go down as the people who watched his character get assassinated — and we let his character get burnt, put on buildings, mocked, turned into comics, laughed at. And we stood there watching. And our lives continued running on the hamster wheel, competing in the rat race, until we fall off and somebody takes our place.