Seerah Series | Part 1: Specialties of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) | Shaykh Yasir Qadhi

Of the specialties that our Prophet has been given, and no other prophet has been given, and we will spend, inshaAllāh, 2 or 3 weeks discussing this one specialty, is the night journey of Al Isra wal Mi’raaj. No other prophet has had the privilege of undertaking this journey. Even when Allāh ‘azza wa jall spoke with one of the greatest prophets, and that is Musa , it was the divine speech that was given to Musa while Musa was on earth. Musa was on Tuur is Sainaa (Mount Sinai) and Allāh spoke with him. As for our Prophet , the only human being to have been called up to the presence of Allāh ‘azza wa jall. No other human being has ever been called up to the presence of Allāh. And the Prophet undertook a journey that no other makhlooq as far as we know ever undertook. And he went up to a maqaam that Jibreel told him, “My permission stops here, you must go alone,” even Jibreel said my visa, whatever you want to call it, this is where it ends. I can’t go any further. And so our Prophet went up “fa kaana qaaba kawsayniya awadna” according to an interpretation and this we’ll talk about inshaAllāh in more detail in the journey of al israa wal mi’raaj but this is definitely one of the greatest blessings that our Prophet was given.

Of his specialties that he was given is that he is the leader of all of humanity and he himself told us this in a hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, “ana sayyidu waladee Adama.” I am the sayyid, the sayyid here means…sayyid…saada yasuudu means the one who is in charge of. The one who is the representative, the one who is the leader.  Ana sayyidu waladee Adam – I am the sayyid of the children of Adam. And what does sayyid here mean? Many meanings.

First and foremost, he is the master, meaning, what does it mean sayyid master here? Meaning he is the perfection of humanity. And he deserves to be the leader of humanity and he will be the leader of humanity on the Day of Judgment. So the sayyid here has multiple meanings, and he is all of these meanings. So the Prophet is the sayyid of the Day of Judgment.

Of the blessings that are unique to him is that the Prophet will be the very first human being to be resurrected on the Day of Judgment as we said..hadith in Sahih Bukhari tells us this. The first grave to open up when the second trumpet is blown, there are two trumpets, right. “Thumma nufikha fee hee ukhraa”. The trumpet will be blown twice. The second trumpet will be when the graves will be opening up. So when the graves are opening up, the Prophet said the first grave that will crack open will be mine. The Prophet will be the first human being and that also explains his name Al Haashir. And he will also be the first human being to be clothed on the Day of Judgment.

Of the specialties that he has been given is that he will be given the largest hawd, and hawd is a pool that our Prophet has been promised. We talked about this when we talked about tafseer of Sūrat’l-Kawthar. And this is a pool, a hawd which is square in shape. He has told us it is square in shape. And it is so large that one side of it, one of these squares, it is as if it is from Makkah to San’aa, which is half of the Arabian Peninsula. From Makkah to San’aa, this is just one side of it. Multiply that by four, you get the perimeter. And I described the kawthar and the hawd in a previous lecture, inshaAllāh ta‘āla you can go back to that. Of his specialty is the kawthar. He has been given the main tributary, the main river of jannah, and all the rivers of jannah split from that. It is as if one can say, it is as if the people of jannah will drink water from the gift of the Prophet . Because it is al kawthar and al kawthar is “inna ‘atayna kal kawthar”. So the people of jannah’s water is all a gift for, and coming from, and given to our Prophet Muhammad .

Of his specialties is he will be the first to cross over the siraat and he will be the one guiding his ummah to jannah and he will be the first to knock on the doors of jannah and he will be the first human being to ever enter jannah after our father Adam has left it and he will be the one in whose name the gates of jannah will be opened. When he knocks on the door and the angel in charge of the gate will say, “Who is it?” and he will say, “Muhammad . The angel will say, “To you I have been commanded to open,” meaning I can’t open for anybody else. You are the one I have to open for and so when his name is uttered, it is his name that will be the permission to open up the gates of jannah. And therefore as he told us, the very first footstep to be entering into jannah will be the right foot of our Prophet Muhammad and then his ummah will be the first ummah even though we are the last ummah chronologically. But because we are his ummah and because we are his followers, Allāh will bless us and Allāh will gift us and Allāh will honor us, not because of us but because of him.  And we will be asked to enter along with him so we will be the first ummah to enter jannah even though we are the last ummah chronologically and this is of his specialties.

And the final specialty we’ll mention, and there is so much more to be said but time is of the essence here, the final specialty that will be mentioned is that Allāh has blessed him with the highest level of jannah. It is a level that is the pinnacle of al firdaws al ‘ala. It is an entire level. Some scholars have said that jannah, you can look at it kind of like a pyramid in that the higher up you go, the fewer the people, right? The higher up you go, the fewer the people. So jannah will be more populated at the lower levels and there will be no crowding in jannah alḥamdulillāh. But nonetheless it will be more populated in the lower levels, and the higher up you go, fewer and fewer people will be able to get to those levels. And there will come a point and there will come a level that is an entire level of jannah, and that is meant for only one person. The whole darajah, the whole plain of that field of jannah is only meant for one person and it is the pinnacle of al firdaws al ‘ala and it is immediately underneath the throne of Allāh and this is called Al Fadheelah. This is called Al Fadheelah. This darajah is called Al Fadheelah. And the Prophet said that this fadheelah is a manzeela fil jannah. It is a level of jannah that Allāh has chosen for only one of His servants. For only one of his servants. And then he said, modestly, that fa arjuu..I hope, that akuuna anahu. That I am that person. And this is out of his modesty. Wa illa, there is no other human being that is qualified to be of that place. And so he simply said: I hope, I pray that I am the person that that is destined for and that is why he wanted us to pray that Allāh gives him this waseelah  and fadheelah and that is why every time the adhan is called, what do we say? Allāhuma rabba hadhihida’watid taamah was salaatil qaa-ima aati Muhammadan al waseelata wal fadheelah. That is the darajah of jannah, right? Wab’athu. So aati is for after the Day of Judgment. You give him after the Day of Judgment, we give him al waseela wal fadheelah. That is al waseela wal fadheela. Wab’athu. And resurrect him. On the Day of Judgment “maqaamam Mahmoudani lladhi wa’ata.”

So the maqaam al Mahmoud is on the Day of Judgment. We explained what that is, and that is: all of humanity will be praising him and all of humanity will be sending their salaat and salam upon him-even those who rejected him in this world, even those who cursed him and ridiculed him and mocked him and drew diagrams against him, WAllāhi on that day they will be praising him and sending salawaat and salam upon him, because they have to because it is maqaamam al Mahmoud. So all of humanity will be praising him on the Day of Judgment, on maqaam al Mahmoud, and in the akhirah he will be given al waseelah and al fadheelah and that is why we make duaa to Allāh to give him all of these levels and characteristics and these are simply some of the khasaa-is, some of the specialities of our Prophet and unfortunately there’s only a few minutes left so there’s no point beginning the next section which is about his characteristics and how he looked and his mannerisms and his lifestyle. InshaAllāh ta’ala we will be talking about that next Wednesday bi’idhnillahi ta’ala.