WESTERN IMAGE OF MUHAMMAD (PBUH) AS A PROPHET.

AuthorKhan, Saeed Sharafat
  1. Introduction

    Western prejudice against Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) is anchored in misapprehension and misrepresentation. In the West, it is possible to believe a lie more readily than a hard fact. The church perceived Islam as a great threat and Muhammad as an enemy. Western institutions represented Prophet Muhammad on the basis of partial understanding. In European writings, Prophet Muhammad was portrayed as a man of profound moral faults. English writers, poets, churchmen, statesmen, historians, biographers, philosophers, and Orientalists similarly had sought to attribute to Islam, and especially to its Prophet, fanatical and disgraceful, even demonic personality.

  2. Christian tradition in understanding Muhammad

    Over the course of time, an obstinately unfair and consistently negative Christian outlook had persisted regarding the European perception of Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh). He was considered to be an anti-Christ sorcerer with a giant devil power which gave him a fabulous capacity to invent miraculous wonders. Consequently, the image of the Messenger Muhammad has fully been distorted in the English culture. He has been portrayed as an imposter, a false prophet and a malicious person. Muhammad (Pbuh) is represented in the West as an alien. For instance, the Prophet's personal life has been referred to as a Roman priest. Piers Plowman was a work of great popularity during the English Medieval period written by the fanatic churchman, William Langland (1330-1386) (Matar 1988: 226). He recalled an old false Christian story about the Prophet (Pbuh). It is claimed that the Prophet (peace be on him) had been a Christian priest before he became a heretic. The image of Muhammad (Pbuh) in Piers Plowman is of a cardinal fled from Rome after he had failed to become a pope; in Arabia, he revolted against Christianity in order to become the Prophet of a new dogma. The Westerners' lack of accurate knowledge about Islam appears in their literary attempts to represent some forms of Muslim religious rituals.

    Most European writings of the Middle Ages attack Islam and Muhammad (Pbuh). They explained hostile attitudes claiming that Islam is opposed to the course taken by the West against an alternative system based on three principles, namely egalitarianism, peaceful coexistence and justice. For instance, Thomas Warton maintains that "Muhammad is grouped with such figures as Herod, Judas and Pilate, all of whom Skelton consigns to Hell" (Aljubouri 1972: 182). R. W. Southern says: 'It had come simultaneously of Medieval ones to allure a pure invention, which has no written sources' (1978: 30). Samuel C. Chew holds that wrong information in England contained palpable errors and misrepresentation (1937: 387 and 396).

    The growing evangelical image of the Prophet was well-established in the Medieval attitude. R. W. Southern (1978) reports that among the widely spread legends in Medieval Europe about the Prophet was that he was a great sorcerer with a devil power which gave him capacity for inventing wonders obtained through sorcery and deception to destroy the Church (Southern 1978: 12). As a result of misunderstanding the Western Church sent crusades to the East. Three crusades were launched for restoring Jerusalem and the wooden cross from the hands of Muslims. The English were enrolled in the Christian armies. King Richard I (1157-1199) led the Third Crusade from England to Acre, Palestine (Aljubouri 1972: 120). The Crusades (1095-1270) left an enduring and poisonous legacy. Many myths about Prophet Muhammad had been established owing to this historical conflict between Europe and Islamic world.

    Western misrepresentation of Prophet Muhammad's relations with Christian and Jewish tribes in Arabia is unfair. For many Westerners, Prophet Muhammad designed Islam, which is for them a stock of false accounts and deliberate distortion of truths, a religion of coercion, moral decadence, and violence with hostility and debauchery.

    The change of the representation of the Islam is a construction of consciousness and research. Western scholarly attitude towards the Prophet focuses on the Prophet as a person without any minor reference to the purpose, aim and time of revelation. Simon Ockley, a Westerner, in his book, The history of the Saracens; comprising the lives of Mohammed and his successors, to the death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph (vol I: 1708 and vol II: 1718), represents Prophet Muhammad on the basis of biased studies. The distortions about Prophet Muhammad's relation with Christian and Jewish tribes were widespread.

    Some Christians believe that Islam is the enemy. One of the common allegations against Prophet Muhammad is that he was an impostor, who was to satisfy his ambition and lust propagated religious teachings which he himself knew to be false. Such insincerity makes the development of Islam incomprehensible. This point was first vigorously made over a hundred years ago by Thomas Carlyle in his lectures, 'On Heroes', and it has since been increasingly accepted by scholars. There is, thus, a strong case to hold that Muhammad was sincere. If, in some respects, he was mistaken, his mistakes were not due to deliberate lying or imposture (Watt 1961: 229).

    Many Orientalists, such as Sir William Muir in his The life of Mahomet (1859), allege that Islam is based on Christian tradition. They understood monotheistic influence on Islam was due to the presence of Christians and Jews in Makkah. They also suggested that there was a monotheist informant from one of those religions. However, at a different stage, they also suggested that what the Prophet received from his informant 'would be factual knowledge' but the 'meaning and interpretation of the facts' came to him 'by the usual process of revelation'. They suggested that the gradual growth in accuracy of the Qur'an's narration, pertinent to biblical stories, is evidence that Prophet Muhammad got these stories from an informant. They alleged that the Qur'an replicated contemporary errors that were originally found in the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

    The inaccurate approach of the Christian Orientalists was refuted by modern writers. The Prophet was only 12 years old when he met Baheera (a Christian monk) for a very short period of time on the way to Syria. Such a brief meeting would not have been sufficient to discuss religious doctrines. It is illogical to assume that a young boy could discuss religious doctrines and scriptural prophecy about the coming of the Messenger, at this tender age. The Orientalists acknowledged a part of this meeting, but they fail to acknowledge the other aspects, which speak about:

    * Baheera's knowledge concerning the prophecy in the Scriptures regarding the coming of the new prophet,

    * Baheera's recognition of the sign of Prophethood in Muhammad,

    * Baheera's advice to Abu Talib to take the boy home.

    When confronted with the above information, William Muir (a Scottish Orientalist, 1819-1905) even tried to explain it as a mistake or as a forgery of the monk. In order to downplay the importance of Baheera's recognition of the sign of Prophethood, Muir wrote a footnote saying that the report is full of absurdities. But, later, realizing his recklessness, he omitted the footnote in subsequent editions without altering the main text. It is common knowledge that a trade caravan travelling in the harsh desert would concentrate their trade in populated areas only and avoid wandering into deserted habitations and ruined townships or empty church assemblies, just for the sightseeing pleasure of a young boy. Yet Muir suggests that the caravan passed near Petra, Jerash, Ammon and other ruined cities and that these sights influenced the young Muhammad. In Makkah, there were only a few Christians of humble social and intellectual status, being either slaves or petty retailers, mostly immigrants. Only one or two original residents of Makkah such as 'Uthmaan bin Al-Huwayrith and Waraqah bin Nawfal had become Christians, the former out of personal or political considerations, and the latter as a result of his search for better faith. The Makkan community had some second-hand knowledge of these two religions of Judaism and Christianity.

    The question is, would a person of the stature, knowledge and intelligence of Prophet Muhammad, proceed to propound a new religion and challenge the credibility of both the prevailing systems of Judaism and Christianity only on the basis of hearsay and superficial knowledge of them, as suggested by Orientalists?

    The Orientalists are not consistent in their allegation that:

    * The Prophet was ambitious and therefore careful enough to avoid the political implications of embracing either Judaism or Christianity.

    * He was careless enough to institute a new religion based on information picked up from bazaar gossips and Jewish storytellers at wine shops.

    * Monotheistic Judeo-Christian Influence.

    * It is naive to say that Islam is a blend of second-hand information about Judaism and Christianity with an inkling of Arab elements in it. It is absurd to suggest that the Prophet was cognizant of the two religious systems.

    * The concept of Prophethood, the memory of Ibraaheem (Abraham) as a prophet and founder of the Ka'bah, which the Arabs universally cherished, as well as the rites of Hajj (pilgrimage to the Ka'bah) instituted by Ibraaheem were unquestionably from before the time of Jews and Christians. Pre-Islamic Arabs, independent of any Jewish or Christian influence, knew the concept of Allaah as the supreme God. The teachings of Ibraaheem found haven in Arabia long before the arrival of Judaism or Christianity and the Arabs were already acquainted with the word 'Haneef as the worshipper of One God.

    * The Prophet accused the contemporary Arabs, Jews and Christians of having deviated from the original teachings of their prophets and of having degenerated into polytheism. He also rejected what they claimed to be the teachings of...

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