Why do we love the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and why do we send him blessings?

  

In the Quran, God mentions that God and His angels continue to send blessings on Prophet Muhammad (the final Messenger PBUH) and He commanded mankind to also send blessings upon him. It is basically a commandment from God to send abundant blessings on our Prophet (PBUH) day and night. It does not require much time and nor does it take much effort. It merely requires pure intention and 4 little words. “Allah humma salli ala Muhammad” (Arabic for “Oh Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad PBUH”.)

When we send blessings upon our Prophet PBUH, we are actually following an act that God Himself has stated in the Quran that He and His angels do upon Muhammad PBUH continuously. When we ask God to bless our Prophet PBUH, we not only fulfill God’s command but are also administering a God-like quality within us. Since Muhammad PBUH is so beloved to God according to the Quran, Allah rewards us and asks us all to follow Him in His Way. This reward is multiplied by ten times according to the sayings of our Prophet PBUH.

It is not that Prophet Muhammad PBUH needs our blessings as he was free of sin and always obeyed God’s Order and knew that He had earned God’s Divine Pleasure; but the essence behind this beautiful prayer is to build a loving and an unbreakable bond between us and him(PBUH). To know Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and to study his life is part of our faith as Muslims. The Quran repeatedly mentions the he was sent as a ‘mercy to all of creation.’ Muhammad’s (PBUH) mission was solely to make sure that all of creation had believed in the fact that mankind was meant to worship the One Supreme Lord who is the Master of the Universe and Master of The Day of Judgement. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself received revelations over the course of 23 years from God through Angel Gabriel and God had made him memorize His Divine Words into his heart.  These Words are now compiled in a book-form called the ‘Quran’. The Quran is a ‘recitation’ of God’s own Words that God promised He would preserve till the End of Times.

When we send blessings upon Muhammad (PBUH) through asking God, we send him our love and connect with him in order to follow him in his footsteps to please God.  This act of ours is actually our response to his love for his nation. Often people think that this "nation"(mankind) is just for the Muslims alone. This is not the case, Muhammad (PBUH) loved, cried, worried, fought and prayed for the guidance of everyone whom God created. It is unfortunate that not all creation believed in him except for those who we now know who became Muslims (believers). Muslims are those people who surrender their will to Allah (the same One God that all monotheistic religions adhere to). What identifies a Muslim from a Non-Muslim is the Declaration of Faith(Shahada) which is:

“La ila ha illa Allah, Muhammad an Rasool Allah” (There is no God but the One God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.)

There is a saying of our Prophet PBUH that if we were to send one prayer of blessing upon our Prophet PBUH that God will send us blessings equal to 10 times more and raise our ranks and omit 10 of our sins. Why wouldn’t we want to love our teacher and our role model? If Muhammad PBUH spent his entire life to show us the right way we can only benefit by loving him and following him in order to be loved by God. Having faith in God is akin to having faith in Muhammad PBUH and his message. Loving and following our beloved Prophet PBUH is our right and our ticket to success. What are we waiting for? So you may ask how one can attain the love of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH?:

 What do you do when you fall in love? You spend every moment of your days and nights wanting to know about your person, you talk about them, you want to learn about them, you start behaving like them and you start liking what they like and you start hating what they hate. So imagine falling in love with the one that God is pleased with.  Follow God’s command and send blessings upon Muhammad PBUH  and read about his life and try best to follow in his path. Love will follow us and that is a gift from God!

In my own experience I cannot imagine a day without prayer, a day without remembering God, or a day without the fear of losing my connection with Him. I owe my faith, my sanity, my devotion, my prayers to my teacher who taught me how to live in order to win God’s Divine pleasure.  Without Muhammad PBUH mankind would be lost.  He loved us before we even knew him. How self-less is that?

May God bless all of the collective Prophets and may God bless Muhammad PBUH.

“Allah humma salli ala Muhamad”

                                Peace and Blessings be upon him

Hajj: according to the Sunnah (Prophet Muhammad’s way) and the tremendous blessings in it

The biggest take that I have learned from my recent Hajj (Muslim Pilgrimage) experience is not to cut corners in life and to be patient and follow things through in its entirety without missing the essence and blessings of that experience.

Hajj is a journey of a lifetime that our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) took about 1433 years ago. Every single Muslim that performs Hajj is fulfilling the 5^th pillar of Islam and following in his footsteps. However, many people do not realize the importance of Hajj and are not always mindful of sticking as close to the Sunnah (the way of the Prophet pbuh) as possible.

In our experience, many of the scholars amongst us were not fully knowledgeable about the optimal way of performing Hajj and found legal ‘loop holes’ in order to make things easier. These ‘loop holes’ or ‘easy ways out’ don’t necessarily invalidate the Hajj experience but what it does is that it takes the blessings and optimal rewards away from one’s experience. The object of Hajj is to be on our best behavior with humility and patience and to do as our Prophet (pbuh) taught us to do.

Since we had conflicting scholars amongst us in our group we chose to stick close to our sister Alia who had studied the Hajj and had compiled a book consisting of all of the rites for Hajj that only adhered to the exact footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).  Despite the fact that the Sunnah way is a bit more challenging and difficult, somehow miraculously we had noticed that God had opened up our path and made things easier for us. At times it seemed impossible to maneuver with ease whilst amongst 4 million other pilgrims, but truly by the blessings of our Prophet’s (pbuh) teachings and guidance, things became easy and paths opened up.  In addition to the ease that we experienced after the difficulty we were also rewarded with angelic people around us who not only took care of us but also became our friends. We had the pleasure of meeting a direct descendent of our Prophet (pbuh) who was one of our scholars who had lead us in the way our Prophet(pbuh) would have performed Hajj. We had such an amazing experience learning from him that it seemed that the entire experience was to receive the gift of this beautiful soul in our lives. It really does boil down to having that belief in our Teacher (pbuh) and having complete faith in God’s (Allah’s) will.

As Muslims, I feel this is a reminder to not only follow God’s instructions and commandments but to follow them in the way that our Prophet did for the optimal benefits for ourselves. It should be no surprise for us why God Chose Muhammad (pbuh) after all he was His most beloved Messenger.

I really feel that the Muslims and Non-Muslims who do not know or do not follow Prophet Muhammad are at a loss. According to the Quran, Muhammad was sent to us in order to teach us the Oneness of God and this was for all of humanity and for all times. Other Prophets like Moses, Jesus, Joseph, Abraham, Noah and David etc. were all sent to spread God’s message but they were limited only to their own nations. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was sent to guide all of mankind for eternity. He must be studied and he must be followed it can only bring goodness and tremendous blessings.

Gods says in the Quran, chapter 33 verse 56:

Verily, God and His angels bless the Prophet: [hence,] O you who have attained to faith, bless him and give yourselves up [to his guidance] in utter self-surrender!