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
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