Seerah Series | Part 2: Specialties of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) | Shaykh Yasir Qadhi

And Anas ibn Malik is saying, for ten years I never heard the word “uff” come from his mouth. That is the perfection of his manners. And there’s a beautiful narration as well, later on, that, “Once the Prophet sent me on a chore to do and on the way, I saw some kids playing so I started playing with them.” Now imagine the Prophet told him, “Go tell somebody something, go do this and that.” Anas is a kid at the end of the day, you know. He’s seven years old at the end of the day, right. So he’s going to do the chore, he finds some kids playing, “And I completely forgot about the chore.” And then the Prophet came out in search, whatever the chore was, it’s not happening. So the person…maybe he called somebody, it’s not happening. So he’s searching, what happened? And he finds Anas playing with the street children there, right. And so, “Somebody held onto my ears and picked me up and I turned around and it was the Prophet smiling at me.” It’s like playing with him….not even getting irritated at him, right. And subḥānAllāh where do we stand when it comes to our own families and how easy, and I’m just as guilty as the rest of you, how easy it is to get irritated and get angry. But again, he is our role model .

And even when people showed him the utmost contempt and the utmost disrespect, he maintained his dignity and his composure. Once a group of yahood came and they wanted to mock him. And they said, winking at one another, “As saamu ‘alaykum.” Not “asalam”… “as saam.” And “as saam” means “May death be upon you, may a curse be upon you.” They’re changing it, right. And they’re winking at one another. And so the Prophet maintained his composure, he said, “Wa ‘alaykum.” A’ishah got so angry that from behind the curtain she screamed out, “May you be cursed and may Allāh ‘azza wajjal cause you to perish. How dare you say this to the Prophet .” To which the Prophet rebuked A’ishah and said, “Calm down Oh A’ishah…don’t you know that whatever is gentle is beautiful? And whenever gentleness is in something, it makes it beautiful. And whenever harshness is in something, it makes it ugly.” So after they left, she said, “Ya Rasul Allāh, how could you have controlled your temper?  They came and they cursed you and they said as saamu ‘alaykum.” So he responded, “Didn’t you hear my response? Wa ‘alaykum, back to you. That’s what I said ‘back to you.’” But he maintained his dignity and his composure. He didn’t stoop to their level by doing what they did…yes you want to do this, okay, back to you as well.

And as for his bravery , Ali ibn abi Talib says, and we’re going to talk about this in the Battle of Badr, this relates to the Battle of Badr, that when the fighting would become severe, we would seek refuge around the Prophet . When the fighting would become severe, we would seek refuge around the Prophet .

And Anas ibn Malik said that once in Madinah, in the middle of the night, the people heard a loud commotion, a loud sound coming and they didn’t know what it was. So timidly, they came outside their houses wondering what this noise is, is an enemy attacking? Is there some type of beast out on the loose? What is happening? And they found that the Prophet had already gone in the direction of the sound alone and he found the horse of Abu Talha and he simply rode it without a saddle. That’s manliness, without a saddle! And he’s galloping towards the sound and he had his sword around his neck, because he’s galloping without a saddle. And he’s coming back to the people of Madinah saying, you have nothing to fear, I have checked it out, you have nothing to fear. Anas ibn Malik is narrating one incident, right. What does that show us of the bravery? That he hears the sound, he’s the first person to go jump on a horse without even the saddle, takes his sword and then he’s running back to the people of Madinah: I’ve checked it out, nothing to fear, whatever it was, it wasn’t anything for them to be worried about. This is the bravery of the Prophet .

As for his generosity, the Prophet would never refuse any request. He would never refuse any asking of him. And that is why one of the sahabiyaat said that it was possible for any little girl to go to the hand of the Prophet and ask him to do something for her. Little girl needed some help, maybe to carry something and she would have no fear to go and ask the Prophet to help her out. And it is once narrated that the Prophet was wearing a garment that had holes in it. It was not appropriate that the Prophet is wearing a garment like this. So one of the sahabah gifted him a very beautiful, a very good garment and he went home and he wore that garment and he came outside. One of the sahabah immediately said Ya Rasul Allāh, can you give me this garment as a gift? So the Prophet turned to him and said na’am, yes. He went back home, he wore the same clothes that he had just took off. He had literally been wearing it for one minute and he came back wearing the tattered garment and he gave him the new one. After a while he went back inside his house. All of the sahabah, they jumped on this other one, “How could you have asked the Prophet ?” Look at what they said, “You knew that he would never turn down a request.” Look at how they rebuked him, “You knew that he wouldn’t say no to you. How could you do this?”

So he said, “Before you get angry at me, I’m not doing this to wear. I want to use this as my kaffan to show the generosity of the Prophet in front of Allāh . I want to use this as my cloth to be buried in. That’s why I did it.” So he had his own reason for doing that. I mean no doubt perhaps it was better to leave it for the Prophet but he had his own reason, “I want this to be worn around me, that in the qabr this is what I want to be wearing and so I asked him to give it to me.”