"In the Footsteps of the Prophet" by Tariq Ramadan

Every rendition of the seerah leaves me feeling the same. I'm finally finishing up Tariq Ramadan's book "In the Footsteps of the Prophet." Easy to read and interpret, Dr. Ramadan highlights the seerah and spells out lessons that we can learn from the Prophet (saw)'s example. It's so refreshing to see not just the events that took place in the Prophet (saw)'s life, but his reactions to them and the profound wisdom behind his actions.

I haven't finished it yet and the deeper I get into the book, the more difficult it gets for me to finish. I remember the end of Dr. Jackson's seerah, feeling like there was this tremendous weight on our shoulders as Muslims to uphold the example of the Prophet, to implement the Message he brought to us in our lives... and most of all, to do all of this without his help and guidance. To lose someone who has such supreme love for you is always difficult in life... and it still strikes me whenever I hear these hadith of the Prophet which showcase his care and compassion for his Ummah.

A couple of lengthy highlights from the book are below. I definitely recommend the read as an introduction to seerah. However, I think it's important to note that whenever anyone is trying to teach lessons from a story, we should bear in mind that there may be alternate interpretations of the same story as well. In the meantime, I'll continue to crawl through these last few pages, inshaAllah...

"One day, the Companion Hanzalah al-Usaydi met Abu Bakr and confessed to him that he was convinced of his own deep hypocrisy because he felt divided between contradictory feelings: in the Prophet's presence, he almost saw paradise and hell, but when he was away from him, his wife and children and daily affairs caused him to forget. Abu Baker in his turn admitted that he experienced similar tensions. They both went to the Prophet to question him about the seemingly dismal state of their spirituality. Hanzalah explained the nature of his doubts, and Muhammad answered: "By He who holds my soul in His hands, if you were able to remain the [spiritual] state in which you are when in my company, and remember God permanently, the angels would shake your hands in your beds and along your paths. But it is not so, Hanzalah: there is a time for this [devotion, remembrance] and a time for that [rest, amusement]." Their situations had nothing to do with hypocrisy; it was merely the reality of human nature, which remembers and forgets, and which needs to remember precisely because it forgets because human beings are not angels." [Page 112]

"The Prophet held one of his Companions, called Abu Lubabah, in great esteem, so much so that he had left him in charge of Medina when he left for the first Badr expedition. Some time later, a young orphan came to Muhammad to complain that Abu Lubabah had taken from him a palm tree that had long been his. The Prophet summoned Abu Lubabah and asked him to explain. Investigations showed that the palm tree did belong to Abu Lubabah, and the Prophet judged in the latter's favor, greatly disappointing the young orphan, who thereby lost his most precious belonging. Muhammad privately asked Abu Lubabah, justice having now been rendered, to give the tree to the young orphan, for whom it was so important. Abu Lubabah adamantly refused: he had gone to such lengths to assert his right of ownership that to concede to this request was inconceivable. This obsession veiled his heart and compassion. Revelation was to recall, on both the individual and collective levels, the singular nature of the spiritual elevation that makes it possible to reach beyond the consciousness of justice, that demands right, to the excellence of the heart, that offers forgiveness or gives people more than their due: "God commands justice and excellence."

It was not a question of giving up one's right (and Abu Lubabah had been justified in requiring it to be acknowledge); rather, it involved learning to sometimes reach beyond, for the sake of those reasons of the heart that teach the mind to forgive, to let go, and to give from oneself and from one's belongings, moved by shared humanity or love. The Prophet was saddened by the reaction of his Companion, whom he held in great esteem: he realized that Abu Lubabah's almost blind attachment to one of Islam's recommendations, justice, prevented him from reaching the superior level of justness of the heart: excellence, generosity, giving. Eventually, another Companion, Thabit ibn Dahdanah, who witnessed the scene, offered Abu Lubabah an entire orchard in exchange for that single palm tree, which he then gave away to the young orphan. Muhammad rejoiced that outcome and did not resent Abu Lubabah's attitude.