This Ramadan, MuslimMatters is pleased to host the Institute Of Knowledge‘s daily Ramadan series: Keys to the Divine Compass. Through this series, each day we will spend time connecting with the Qur’an on a deeper, more spiritual, uplifting level.

Previous in the series: Juz 1 Juz 2 Juz 3 Juz 4 Juz 5 Juz 6 Juz 7 Juz 8 Juz 9 Juz 10 Juz 11 Juz 12 Juz 13 Juz 14 Juz 15 Juz 16 Juz 17 Juz 18 Juz 19 Juz 20 Juz 21

Juzʾ 22: Appreciating the Prophet ﷺ

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

Allah ﷻ says:

﴿إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ وَمَلَـٰٓئِكَتَهُۥ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِىِّ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ صَلُّوا۟ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُوا۟ تَسْلِيمًا﴾

“Indeed, Allah and His angels shower His ṣalawat upon the Prophet. O believers! Send salawat upon him, and send your Salām (prayer for protection and peace) to him in abundance.”

We hear this term durūd or ṣalawāt again and again. Sometimes it’s translated as salutations. Sometimes it’s translated as blessings. Sometimes it’s translated as mercy. Sometimes it is translated as honor. But what exactly does this mean? We hear this āyah recited almost every week in the Friday Khuṭbah, but do we know what it really means? Imām Sakhāwī and others mention that the meaning of “Allahumma Ṣallī ʿalā Muḥammad” is:

اللَّهُمَّ عظم مُحَمَّدًا فِي الدُّنْيَا بإعلاء ذكره وَإِظْهَار دينه وإبقاء شَرِيعَته، وَفِي الْآخِرَة بتشفيعه فِي أمته وإجزال أجره ومثوبته وإبداء فَضله للأولين والآخرين بالْمقَام الْمَحْمُود وتقديمه على كَافَّة المقربين بالشهود.

“O Allāh, honor Muhammad in this worldly life by magnifying his remembrance, manifesting his religion, and preserving his sharīʿah (divine law). [Similarly], in the Hereafter, [honor him] by allowing him to intercede for his nation, increasing his reward, as well as showing his virtues to the early and later generations by granting him the praiseworthy station, and his status above all those near to Allah.”

 So when we when we say when we say “Ṣallallahu alayhi wa-sallam” we are asking Allah ﷻ to honor the Prophet ﷺ in this life in the next. By asking Allah ﷻ to do this, we are recognizing that no matter what we do, we cannot repay the blessings and the favors that we received from the Prophet ﷺ. Ibn Taymiyyah says:

أن الله لم يُنعم على أهل الأرض نعمة أعظم من إنعامه بإرساله ﷺ

“Allah ﷻ did not favor the people of the Earth with a blessing greater than the blessing of sending the Prophet ﷺ to us.”

 Allah says describing the Prophet ﷺ and his care and concern for all of us:

﴿لَقَدْ جَآءَكُمْ رَسُولٌۭ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُّمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُم بِٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَءُوفٌۭ رَّحِيمٌ﴾

“There certainly has come to you a messenger from among yourselves. He is concerned by your suffering, anxious for your well-being, and gracious and merciful to the believers.” [9:128]

He didn’t just care about us. He didn’t just care about the believers. Rather he cared for all of humanity, and he was a blessing for all of humanity. As Allah says:

﴿وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَـٰكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةًۭ لِّلْعَـٰلَمِينَ﴾

“We have sent you ˹O Prophet˺ only as a mercy for the all worlds.”

He was a mercy to all the worlds, to all of creation. To the world of humans. To the world of the Jinn. To the world of animals. To the world of plants. To all of creation. The Prophet ﷺ was sent as a mercy, but when we think about this and when we hear these statements, sometimes it’s hard to understand. It sounds great, but how do we internalize that? How do we make durūd or ṣalawāt meaningful so that when we’re saying “Allahumma Ṣallī ʿalā Muḥammad” we truly feel that the Prophet ﷺ is a blessing and is the greatest blessing of all? To do that, we have to learn to love the Prophet ﷺ. We have to learn about his life. We have to learn his Sīrah. 

When it comes to loving the Prophet ﷺ, there are different aspects to that. We love the Prophet ﷺ because that is our obligation as Muslims, but there’s also this natural love that we build towards the Prophet ﷺ as we learn about him, and as we learn how much he sacrificed for us. This natural love then divides up into two categories. Think about the people that you look up to; the people you love; the people you admire. You look up to them for one of two reasons. You love them for one of two reasons. Either you are amazed by what they are doing. You’re amazed at what they’ve accomplished. someone is a CEO of a company and you’re amazed at how they could achieve that. Someone is an athlete and they’ve achieved goals that you could never imagine achieving. So you love them. You look up to them. You try to dress like them. You try to act like them. You try to imitate them. All because you’re amazed by what they’ve achieved. If we look at the Prophet’s ﷺ life, we can see that everything he achieved, everything that he did, and the miracles that appeared throughout his life. That is enough to love him. But that’s not the only thing. 

Sometimes you love people because they are kind to you. They care for you. The Prophet ﷺ also deserves this type of love. We think about people that are significant in our lives: our parents, our teachers, our mentors, or whoever it may be who showed kindness to us. Maybe someone helped us get into college. Someone helped us land our first job. Someone helped us when we were going through a difficult time. You automatically care about that person. You automatically feel an affinity to that person. The Prophet ﷺ sacrificed everything for us. The Prophet ﷺ was from Makkah, one of the greatest cities in Arabia. He was from the tribe of Quraysh, the leading tribe of Makkah. But he sacrificed all of that so that we could be saved in the hereafter; so that we could know our purpose in this life; so that we could know Allah ﷻ. He went through all of those struggles for us. So we all have a duty to love him because of that. 

When we think about durūd or ṣalawāt, when we say “Allahumma Ṣallī ʿalā Muḥammad” we should work on making it meaningful. We should recognize that the Prophet ﷺ was the greatest human being to walk the face of this Earth. We should recognize that the Prophet ﷺ did so much for us. Next time we say “Allahumma Ṣallī ʿalā Muḥammad,” if we do that then it will be that much more meaningful. 

May Allah ﷻ make us from those who actually understand the life of the Prophet ﷺ. May Allah ﷻ make us from those who recognize the status of the Prophet ﷺ. May Allah make us from those who say “Allahumma Ṣallī ʿalā Muḥammad” truly, sincerely, from our hearts.