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History and Seerah

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

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Lecture by Shaykh Yasir Qadhi  |  Transcribed by Zara T.

This is Part 2 of the Seerah series, click to read Part 1.

[The following is the video and transcript of Shaykh Yasir Qadhi’s Lectures on seerah. The transcript includes slight modifications for the sake of readability and clarity].

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In our last halaqah, we began talking about the khasaa-is, or the specialties of our Prophet Muhammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) and we mentioned about 15 of them and the fact of the matter is that there are closer to 50 special things that only he was given and no other person was given. Today inshā’Allāh ta’ala we will continue talking about his characteristics and his appearances and his mannerisms. And as I told you last week, the purpose of this is to give you a little bit of a taster of the seerah. A little bit of a summary if you like, a bird’s eye view, so we get the summary of who exactly our Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) was.

And we will begin today by talking about his physical appearance, how he used to look ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). And realize that it is the sunnah of Allāh, it is the custom of Allāh that Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'āla (glorified and exalted be He) sends prophets and messengers with the most perfect characteristics, inner and outer. And the reason He does so is so that mankind has no reason to reject this messenger. Every messenger has come with the most perfect characteristics, the most perfect mannerisms, and also perfect images as well. So the prophets, as a general rule, are all handsome in nature. And they all have beautiful characteristics.  And as we know, the Prophet Yusuf 'alayhi'l-salām (peace be upon him) was given half of all beauty. And some scholars say that half of all beauty means half of all beauty of mankind, and this is the majority opinion. But there is another opinion as well and I’m just mentioning this because to tell you that there is another opinion there, and that is some scholars say that when the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) said half of beauty, he actually meant half of his own beauty. This is one opinion as well. He actually meant that half of his own beauty, because according to this opinion, the Prophet Muhammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) is the most handsome and the most Jamaal of the entire creation, he has the greatest Jamaal of the whole creation. And so they say when he is saying he has been given nisfal husn, or half, (Shatrul Husn is the hadith) half of beauty, some scholars have interpreted this to mean half of his own ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him)’s beauty.

And we have many characteristics that have been described, the physical features of our Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). And some of the more beautiful ones are, for example, Ar-Rubayy’ bint Mu’awwidh one of the sahabbiyaat, when her son asked her, “What was the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) like?” this is later on, after he has passed away and she is now an old lady so people are coming to her eagerly, “Describe the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him).” And so all she could say, and this is reported in At-Tabaraani’s Kabeer and also Al-Bukhari’s book Al-Manaqib, all she could say was, “Oh my dear son, if you were to have seen him, you would have thought that the sun had risen up.” I don’t know how to describe it to you, if you were to have seen him you would have thought that the sun has now risen up, this is the rising sun. And it is amazing that Rubayy’i describes him as a sun, beautiful sun.

Ka’ab ibn Malik describes him as a moon. Ka’ab ibn Malik, another famous companion, he said that whenever the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) was happy, his face would light up as if it was the full moon. And it is beautiful that the sahabah are describing the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) with what they know to be the most beautiful, and that is the sun and the moon. So we have one sahabiyyah, she’s saying he is like the sun shining. Another one is saying he is like the full moon. And one of my favorite introductions, to this whole topic, we’re not actually describing him yet, we’re simply saying how the sahabah could not describe him. They couldn’t describe how handsome he was because it was too much for them. And my favorite tradition, wAllāhi it is a tradition; it almost makes you want to cry when you listen to this. And this is the beautiful tradition of ‘Amr ibn al Aas. ‘Amr ibn al Aas is this sahabi, who used to be of the leaders of the Quraysh who were against Islam. ‘Amr ibn al Aas is of the mala’, he’s of the noble men who rejected Islam. He’s like Abu Sufyaan, he’s like Khalid bin Waleed, this category of people who were noble enemies, they weren’t evil enemies.  What I mean by this is you cannot compare them to Abu Lahab, to Abu Jahal, these are the vulgar enemies. There was a group of people, they opposed Islam, but they didn’t stoop to dirty tactics. And the amazing thing by the way, and we’ll talk about this later on, Allāh guided all of them to Islam and this shows that amongst the kufaar, there are two categories: those who have a good heart and because they had a good heart, Khalid ibn Waleed, Ikrimah the son of Abu Jahl, ‘Amr ibn al Aas, Abu Sufyaan, their hearts, they had a mount of good in them, they had nobility, but they opposed Islam and Allāh guided all of them to Islam because Allāh knew there was good in their hearts, whereas the others, they weren’t like this.

So ‘Amr ibn al Aas is of those who converted to Islam very late and he only had the opportunity to be a sahabi, basically for a few years, two years or so, or a little bit more than two. And later on in his life, and he lived a life of political career, he lived a life of grandeur and majesty, he became the wazeer of Muawiyyah, he lived a grand life. ‘Amr ibn al Aas later on would say that there was nothing that was sweeter to me, more beloved to me, than to stare at the face of the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). Now I want you to pause here. This is not how a man talks usually, right? There was nothing more beloved to me than to stare at the face of another person…that is not how a man talks. But the beauty of the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) is so overpowering, his Jamaal, his noor is so great that ‘Amr ibn al Aas is saying there was nothing that I got more peace from, more serenity from, there was nothing sweeter than to simply look at the face of the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). And he said, “And I could never get enough of looking at him.” I never got tired of looking at him. And yet, were you to ask me how he looked, I couldn’t describe him. Why? He said, “Because along with this desire to stare at him, there was also this awe, this reverence that I had, that couldn’t allow me to just stare directly at him. I’d have to lower my face.” In other words, there are two emotions, if you like, there’s two powers if you like, I don’t like being metaphysical, but there’s two types of types of powers emanating from the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). The first of them, he’s attracting ‘Amr’s vision to him. And the second is that awe, that overpowering-ness that ‘Amr cannot stare directly. This is Rasul Allāh ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) how can you stare at him? You have to sit with dignity. You have to sit with, what we call in Arabic, hayba and waqaar. You show a type of dignity in front of the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). And therefore he’s saying even though I loved to stare, I couldn’t stare. And because of this I’m always battling between these two emotions. I really cannot do justice in describing the Prophet ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him). It’s a beautiful hadith that shows us, and this is coming from somebody, he is a nobleman of the Quraysh and yet this is how humbled he was just by the appearance, just by the shakal if you like, just by the soorah of the prophet Muhammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him).

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Sh. Dr. Yasir Qadhi is someone that believes that one's life should be judged by more than just academic degrees and scholastic accomplishments. Friends and foe alike acknowledge that one of his main weaknesses is ice-cream, which he seems to enjoy with a rather sinister passion. The highlight of his day is twirling his little girl (a.k.a. "my little princess") round and round in the air and watching her squeal with joy. A few tid-bits from his mundane life: Sh. Yasir has a Bachelors in Hadith and a Masters in Theology from Islamic University of Madinah, and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Yale University. He is an instructor and Dean of Academic Affairs at AlMaghrib, and the Resident Scholar of the Memphis Islamic Center.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Melanie

    January 13, 2014 at 4:30 PM

    This was so beautiful, Jazaka Allah Khayr .

    *Name has been changed to comply with our Comments Policy*

  2. Omar

    January 13, 2014 at 9:53 PM

    MashaAllah, may Allah reward all who made this possible. Will the entire series be transcribed in the coming future?

  3. Muahammad

    January 14, 2014 at 12:58 AM

    Alhamdulillah, May He Guide us through amen.

  4. Mustapha Othman

    January 14, 2014 at 1:55 AM

    Jazzakallahu Khair !

  5. Bint Mohamed

    January 14, 2014 at 8:24 AM

    Shaykh, i absolutely love your lectures. Jazakallah khayr and may Allah swt bless you and all those connected with making this possible with the best in this world and in akhirah. Ameen.

  6. Riz Khan

    January 14, 2014 at 11:00 AM

    Jazakallah Khair ! This article is like a great gift at the event of Mawlid. Mashallah great work by brother Shaykh Yasir Qadhi. May Allah bless him. There are festivities. The people are sending sweet dishes to each other. This article is like a sweet dish.

    George Bernard Shaw – The Genuine Islam Vol.No.8, 1936
    “I believe if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring much needed peace and happiness.
    I have studied him – the man and in my opinion is far from being an anti–Christ. He must be called the Savior of Humanity.
    I have prophesied about the faith of Mohammad that it would be acceptable the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.”

  7. Maimon

    January 22, 2014 at 1:10 PM

    JazakiAllahu khyra for this beautiful lecture by shaykh … N for making this video into an article form mash Allah … R u guys goin to make the next lecture into an article form ??? .. I am really looking forward to it . This is very helpful . Alhumdulilah

    • Hena Zuberi

      January 22, 2014 at 7:23 PM

      wa alaykummassalam,
      Yes inshaAllah we plan on having the whole series of lectures by Sh. Yasir and by Sh. Abdul Nasir Jangda transcribed and posted.

      • Maryam

        January 3, 2015 at 7:03 PM

        Jazakallah khair…. Thank you sooooo much for transcribing these lectures. It took me hours to write down just one of his lecture by hand. You have made it so easy for me now. May Allah reward you immensely for helping out. :))))))))))))))))

  8. Pingback: Seerah Series | Part 3: Why Study Seerah, and the Pre-Islamic Arabia | Dr. Yasir Qadhi | MuslimMatters.org

  9. Umm ZAKAriyya

    March 23, 2014 at 4:33 PM

    This made my heart cry . How dearly our rasool (S.A.W) loved us and cared for us !.. Certainly , He is the Rahma of Allah send to us . Alhamdulillah . And how fortunate we are to be of his ummah .

    If the rasool is so kind and merciful , how merciful is his Rabb! Allahu Akbar .
    May Allah grant him The Maqaamam Mahmood in Jannah and the waseelah and fadheelah. Ameen .

  10. Safwan

    February 7, 2015 at 12:56 PM

    Jazak’Allah Khair for this.

    For anyone wanting more transcribed notes for the seerah lectures, please visit https://www.scribd.com/safwan9khan.

    I have (as of writing) completed notes for all the lectures up to lecture 61. The remaining will be complete within the next two months inshaAllah. Please share with others if you find them beneficial.

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