How to prove Muhammad was a prophet

[Crystal]

I would like to hear some of the proofs as to why Muslims believe Muhammad in particular was a prophet of God. Some people say that Muhammad gained a lot materially from being a prophet - to what extent is this true? If there are hadiths that suggest he didn't gain materially please let me know.

Basically how can Muslims prove Muhammad wasn't doing this for his own good. I'd like to point out that I agree with the concept of God in the quran however, i'd rather when people answer this questions they use examples from the life or Muhammad and not justify it with scientific evidence from the quran because I just want to know if Muhammad's life was in harmony with what he preached.

Thanks =)

[جوري]

The prophet died with his armor pawned to a Jew. If that suggests material wealth!
Read the book the amazing Quran by Dr. Gary Miller. He'll take you in the path you seek stepwise

Best,

[جوري]

Thought this was a good read!


@SWORD of GOD,
Muhammad's Sword

Pope Benedict XVI in the service of George W. Bush

By Uri Avner
(Uri Avnery is an Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom". Welcome to Gush-Shalom, Israeli Peace Bloc)


09/24/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Since the days when Roman emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the emperors and the popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some emperors dismissed or expelled a pope, some popes dismissed or excommunicated an emperor. One of the emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when emperors and popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a worldwide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "clash of civilizations".

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the Prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:


Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.


These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On 29 May 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul), fell to the Turks, putting an end to the empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, Verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant Verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the Prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favourites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

There no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics reconquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "global war on terror" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

[Abdul-Raouf]

Some people say that Muhammad gained a lot materially from being a prophet

To me the above sentence was like if someone had said "USA is not interested in Oil".

Please ask those some.. for valid reference and post in here...if possible. Im curious to know who/which site is spreading.Thanks.

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[Insaanah]

Some people say that Muhammad gained a lot materially from being a prophet - to what extent is this true? If there are hadiths that suggest he didn't gain materially please let me know.

Peace Crystal.

For most of his Prophethood, Prophet Muhmammad (peace be upon him) lived in poverty. Despite this, if anything did come his way, however little, he gave it away to those less fortunate than himself. His family subsisted only on what was necessary. The Quraish of Makkah actually offered him wealth, and anything else he wanted to get him to stop preaching Islam, but he refused.

Some hadeeth:

Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates: I visited Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him), and he was lying on a mat. I sat down and he drew up his lower garment over him and he had nothing (else) over him, and that the mat had left its marks on his sides. I looked with my eyes in the storeroom of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him). I found only a handful of barley equal to one sa' and an equal quantity of the leaves of Mimosa Flava placed in the nook of the cell, and a semi-tanned leather bag hanging (in one side), and I was moved to tears (on seeing this extremely austere living of the Holy Prophet), and he said: Ibn Khattab, what wakes you weep? I said: Apostle of Allah, why should I not shed tears? This mat has left its marks on your sides and I do not see in your storeroom (except these few things) that I have seen; Caesar and Chosroes are leading their lives in plenty whereas you are Allah's Messenger, His chosen one, and that is your store! He said: Ibn Khattab, aren't you satisfied that for us (there should be the prosperity) of the Hereafter, and for them (there should be the prosperity of) this world? I said: Yes. (Saheeh Muslim, Book 009, Number 3507)

Narrated Abu Hazim: I asked Sahl bin Sad, "Did Allah's Apostle ever eat white flour?" Sahl said, "Allah's Apostle never saw white flour since Allah sent him as an Apostle till He took him unto Him." I asked, "Did the people have (use) sieves during the lifetime of Allah's Apostle?" Sahl said, "Allah's Apostle never saw (used) a sieve since Allah sent him as an Apostle until He took him unto Him," I said, "How could you eat barley unsifted?" he said, "We used to grind it and then blow off its husk, and after the husk flew away, we used to prepare the dough (bake) and eat it." (Saheeh Muslim Volume 7, Number 324)

'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) reports: "We the family of Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not light a fire for months in our homes. We sustained ourselves on dates and water". (Tirmidhi Chapter 050, Hadith Number 004 (352).

Commetary: The reason of not lighting fires is, because there was nothing to cook. The 'ulama have written that water is mentioned because there were not enough dates, and without water the stomach could not be filled. First a few dates were eaten, thereafter an amount of water was drunk to fill the stomach. In another hadith it is stated 'Two full months would pass and the hilaal for the third month would be observed, and no circumstances warranted that a fire be lit in the houses of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) for cooking'. In a hadith it is stated: 'One month passed, then another month passed, there was no such occasion where a fire was lit in any of the houses of Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)'. 'Urwah Radiyallahu 'Anhu asked his aunt Sayyiditina 'Aayeshah Radiyallahu 'Anha, 'O Aunt, on what did you sustain yourself? She replied: 'Dates and water. There were a few neighbours of Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) from among the Ansaar who owned some animals that gave milk. If one of them sent some milk as a present, then we too would partake of it'. In a hadith it is stated: 'Once for one and half months continuously, no fire was lit in the house of Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) for illumination or other purposes'.

See this link for a bit more info: http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/wa...bricate_islam_

[Abz2000]

When he and his followers were being harassed and persecuted in Makkah,
Leaders of other powerful tribes offered refuge to him and his followers,
One mN is reported to have said: "if I had this young man from quraish, could eat up the Arabs with him",
He offered refuge and full support on condition that he prophet (pbuh) agreed to hand over power to them after he passed away,
The prophet pbuh is reported to have said:
"verily he earth belongs to Almighty God, He gives it to whom He pleases of His servants".
With his the man is reported to have said: "are we to present our necks to the Arabs for Ou and then see power go somewhere else?"
With that the deal was cut off.
Anyone looking out for himself would readily accept such an offer since he would be gone anyway,

Also the prophecies of future events are being fulfilled today and past today

[Crystal]

Insanah thanks that is the type of direction I was interested in. I came across various obviously anti Islamic things (I do like to look at two sides!) basically saying that Muhammad gained a lot of wealth from being a prophet in his later years that is why I was interested in some hadiths to argue against this so thank you for your reply to that.
If anyone else has other hadiths in relation to Muhammad's poverty I would be interested.

Another side question is there anything that indicates the year (unless stated) of a hadith or at least the period it was said in as I know Muslims can tell which verses of the quran were revealed in the Meccan or Medina period.

p.s. thanks bluebell for the book suggestion.

[Insaanah]

Another side question is there anything that indicates the year (unless stated) of a hadith or at least the period it was said in as I know Muslims can tell which verses of the quran were revealed in the Meccan or Medina period.

The person who is narrating it, the people and the events mentioned in the hadeeth can all be indications of the period it was said in. There may be other indications too that I don't know about. And sometimes we may not be able to tell the time period without consulting someone knowledgable or well-versed in the hadeeth.

The first hadeeth mentioned above, narrated by Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) was between the end of the fifth and the end of the seventh years of the hijra (the hijri calendar began with the prophet's migration to Madinah) so five to seven years after that (bearing in mind he spent the last ten years of his life there and died there). So three to five years before his death. The hadeeth above is part of a longer hadeeth in which an incident about his wives is mentioned, and certain verses of the Qur'an were also revealed on that occasion. I'm sure experts might be able to pinpoint it more precisely within those five to seven years.

And Allah knows best in all matters.

Peace.

[Perseveranze]

Asalaamu Alaikum,

Regarding wealth there's a few things i'd like to add to what the above people have said;

1. He was already fairly wealthy due to his wife Khadija(ra). He could've lived a very comfortable life with all the worldy things he may have wanted.

2. During his early years of prophethood, he was offered immense wealth and power over Mecca. The Quraish did this as a last resort to make him stop preaching, this was when he said the famous line; "O my uncle! by God if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left on condition that I abandon this course, until God has made me victorious, or I perish therein, I would not abandon it."

3. When he died, he died poor that even his own wives had nothing to support them. So what happened was, that the Caliphate said he would support the Prophet(pbuh)'s wives.

Some hadith -

Abu Hurairah, with other Muslims, suffered from hunger when the Muslims were poor in Medina.

When I was afflicted with severe hunger, I would go to a companion of the Prophet and asked him about an ayah of the Qur'an and (stay with him) learning it so that he would take me with him to his house and give food. One day, my hunger became so severe that I placed a stone on my stomach. I then sat down in the path of the companions. Abu Bakr passed by and I asked him about an ayah of the Book of God. I only asked him so that he would invite me but he didn't. Then Umar ibn al-Khattab passed by me and I asked him about an ayah but he also did not invite me. Then the Messenger of Allah passed by and realized that I was hungry and said: "Abu Hurairah!" "At your command" I replied and followed him until we entered his house. He found a bowl of milk and asked his family: "From where did you get this?" "Someone sent it to you" they replied. He then said to me: "O Abu Hurairah, go to the Ahl as-Suffah and invite them." Abu Hurairah did as he was told and they all drank from the milk. Abu Hurairah then spent one year and ten months with Muhammad in Medina, before the Prophet's death on 8 June 632 in Medina.

Here's some nice lectures based on hadiths -







There are so many evidences such as;

'A'isha reported that "The Prophet was constantly guarded by the believers till God revealed the Quranic verse: 'The Lord will protect you from (the harm of) mankind.'( ) The Prophet then went out to the people and told them: do not guard me anymore; God has offered me His protection."( ) Al-Albani, Al-Silsilah Al-Sahihah, Hadeeth no. 2489.

This happened in Medina when the jews were out to kill him. ^

If you would like some further intellectual proofs, then i'd suggest you read this -

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45767644/Muhammad-Pbuh (You can skip to page 69 to read about the intellectual proofs of prophethood, it summarises a few of many).

This is also an excellent read - http://www.scribd.com/doc/73679473/The-Amazing-Quran

It should also be noted, that even western academic scholars don't believe he was "making things up" -

Only a profound belief in himself and his mission explains Muhammad's readiness to endure hardship and persecution during the Meccan period when from a secular point of view there was no prospect of success. Without sincerity how could he have won the allegiance and even devotion of men of strong and upright character like Abu-Bakr and 'Umar ? ... There is thus a strong case for holding that Muhammad was sincere. If in some respects he was mistaken, his mistakes were not due to deliberate lying or imposture ....the important point is that the message was not the product of Muhammad's conscious mind. He believed that he could easily distinguish between his own thinking and these revelations. His sincerity in this belief must be accepted by the modern historian, for this alone makes credible the development of a great religion. - William Montgomery Watt

Rudi Paret agrees, writing that "Muhammad was not a deceptor," and Welch also holds that "the really powerful factor in Muhammad’s life and the essential clue to his extraordinary success was his unshakable belief from beginning to end that he had been called by God. A conviction such as this, which, once firmly established, does not admit of the slightest doubt, exercises an incalculable influence on others. The certainty with which he came forward as the executor of God’s will gave his words and ordinances an authority that proved finally compelling."

[Crystal]

Thank you Perserveranze for the comprehensive reply - if Muhammad was originally fairly comfortable what happened to this wealth?

Another concern I have is how alike Muhammad's life is to the quran - I do feel the quran is the scripture I believe the most in but I need to be sure that the person who the message was revealed to was actually following the message. So I have the following question in relation to Muhammad's marriages:

I understand that Muslims are supposed to treat all their wives equally so why is it that I have come across hadiths where Muhammad puts Aisha above his other wives/women in general? For example in Sahih Muslim Book 92 Number 330: Narrated Anas: The Prophet said, "The superiority of 'Aisha to other women is like the superiority of Tharid to other kinds of food . "

Another thing is that I have read things like if a man does decide to take more than one wife then he should be able to financially provide for them all equally. Since it appears to be that Muhammad was living in poverty why did he marry so many women if he couldn't provide for them?

[Abz2000]

Allah promised to provide for him:

Enjoin prayer on thy people, and be constant therein. We ask thee not to provide sustenance: We provide it for thee.
But the (fruit of) the Hereafter is for righteousness.
Quran 20:132

when he would get lots of gold or silver, he would give it in charity after putting aside for his debts etc, then continue as normal,
when salman al-farisi came to him, he said "free yourself O Salman", salman came and told him that him master wanted such and such amount of gold and such and such number of palm trees.
one day the prophet pbuh called him over gave him a piece of gold the size of an egg and told the companions to help provide miniature palm trees, the companions pooled together the total amount and the prophet (pbuh) instructed him to dig the holes and not plant them but call him when done, he then went and planted every single one himself and every single one survived - an almost impossible ratio of survival rates.

I have come across hadiths where Muhammad puts Aisha above his other wives/women in general?

love is something we cannot help,
i as a father have a deep love for my firstborn son over te other three even though we are expected to treat them equally,
affection and equal treatment are not the same, one is beyond our control, the other isn't