A Mercy Misunderstood
Some people find it problematic that, at times, the Prophet ﷺ seems to have stepped outside of his tolerant and forgiving norm. Although analyzing each of these “violent incidents” would be worthwhile, it is also beyond the scope of this particular study. We have just illustrated that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was undoubtedly inclined to gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy as defaults. However, his mercy did not interfere with his obedience to God, nor the justice that God enjoins. His commitment to mercy was, above all else, a means of devotion to God, and an avenue by which he earned His mercy and pleasure. For that reason, we find the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr (ra) weeping from the fear of God: for instance, when He revealed verses after Badr criticizing their decision to “compassionately spare” the captives. Certainly, this should not be understood to mean that Allah is anti-mercy, for He is the Most Merciful. But it does mean that He is not limited by His mercy. In other words, He knows better that limitless and unconditional mercy is incompatible with other noble values such as justice, and that it does not serve the best interests of humanity. From that perspective, we can begin to understand why the Prophet ﷺ sanctioned the execution of some people, and tactically fought others, though he may have wished that this could have been avoided.[120]
Many times, we as humans—even with good intentions—fail to strike the perfect balance between competing values, and this is just one reason why Allah revealed definitive guidance to help us regulate and contextualize these values. In the Quran, Allah says, “And when the fright had left Abraham and the good tidings reached him, he began to argue with us concerning the People of Lot. Indeed, Abraham was forbearing, grieving (i.e., hurt by human suffering), and [frequently] returning [to Allah]” [Hood (11): 74-75]. Here, God praises Abraham (as) as being someone who grieved for human suffering, but also as someone who resigned himself to God’s decisions. This was the prophetic balance that Allah wished to inculcate in the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through these verses. He did not want His final Prophet to be as heartless as those around him, but neither did He want him ﷺ to adopt a passivity that would result in the merciless becoming brazen and taking advantage of any apparent weakness. The Prophet ﷺ’s execution of Abu ‘Izza (the Poet) after Uhud, after releasing him the previous year without ransom at Badr, is one example of that. He ﷺ may have wished to forgive him again, for he did forgive others repeatedly, but instead said, “By Allah, you will not strut in Mecca saying, ‘I deceived Muhammad twice.’”[121]
Without an external reference point to mediate these values (i.e., divine revelation), the world has disagreed on the boundaries of mercy and justice. Some gravitate to an impractical and utopian extreme, where no forcefulness whatsoever is justified, refusing the reality that some people will never be as “ethically conscious” as them and will continue transgressing against others unless they are forcefully stopped. Some gravitate to another extreme, using brutality and terror as means to their “righteous” ends. The majority orbits in the ambiguous middle, each presenting a claim about where a virtue like mercy ends and where another like justice begins. Just as a rusted coin will not be polished by a gentle scrub, some souls require a degree of “harshness” to remedy them. And just as surgical amputation is generally avoided, but is sometimes a necessary last resort to save a life, sometimes mercy is embodied in sacrificing some lives to save many more.
Through this study, we hope that the framing of the Prophet ﷺ’s career as being one fueled by pride, hate, or vengeance has been debunked. As the French historian Louis Sedillot puts it,
It is such a distortion of historical facts when some writers accuse Prophet Muhammad of cruelty…They forget that he spared no effort in eliminating the inherited desire for revenge between Arabs; despite the fact that revenge was highly esteemed in Arabia, like fencing was in Europe. They do not read the Quranic verse by which the Prophet broke the horrible habit of burying new-born girls alive. They never think of the pardon he granted to his worst enemies after the Conquest of Mecca. Neither do they consider the mercy he showed to many tribes during war. Do they not know that he never misused his power in fulfilling the desire for cruelty? If any of his Companions committed anything wrong, he would stop them and correct them. It is well known that he refused the opinion of his close Companion, Omar bin al-Khattab, on killing the prisoners of war. When the time came to punish Banu Quraydha, he left the judgment to Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh who used to be their ally and was well acquainted with rabbinic law. He also forgave Hamza’s killer and never refused any request for kindness and forgiveness.[122]
Elsewhere, he writes about the Quran,
It takes man out of the darkness of his weaknesses and elevates him to the light of ethical highness…Those who call Islam a barbarous religion are people who are deprived of consciousness because they close their eyes to the clear and lucid verses of the Quran and they do not study how the Quran eliminated the disgraceful acts that lasted for centuries.[123]
With that, we hope and pray that these seventy incidents, paraphrased for the sake of conciseness, serve as a reminder of who the Prophet ﷺ really was: a man of mercy and moral greatness who sought not the praise of this world, but its betterment through his example. May God’s endless peace and blessings be upon him, his family, his companions, and those that follow in their blessed path.
https://yaqeeninstitute.org/mohammad-elshinawy/how-the-prophet-muhammad-rose-abo
Some people find it problematic that, at times, the Prophet ﷺ seems to have stepped outside of his tolerant and forgiving norm. Although analyzing each of these “violent incidents” would be worthwhile, it is also beyond the scope of this particular study. We have just illustrated that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was undoubtedly inclined to gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy as defaults. However, his mercy did not interfere with his obedience to God, nor the justice that God enjoins. His commitment to mercy was, above all else, a means of devotion to God, and an avenue by which he earned His mercy and pleasure. For that reason, we find the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr (ra) weeping from the fear of God: for instance, when He revealed verses after Badr criticizing their decision to “compassionately spare” the captives. Certainly, this should not be understood to mean that Allah is anti-mercy, for He is the Most Merciful. But it does mean that He is not limited by His mercy. In other words, He knows better that limitless and unconditional mercy is incompatible with other noble values such as justice, and that it does not serve the best interests of humanity. From that perspective, we can begin to understand why the Prophet ﷺ sanctioned the execution of some people, and tactically fought others, though he may have wished that this could have been avoided.[120]
Many times, we as humans—even with good intentions—fail to strike the perfect balance between competing values, and this is just one reason why Allah revealed definitive guidance to help us regulate and contextualize these values. In the Quran, Allah says, “And when the fright had left Abraham and the good tidings reached him, he began to argue with us concerning the People of Lot. Indeed, Abraham was forbearing, grieving (i.e., hurt by human suffering), and [frequently] returning [to Allah]” [Hood (11): 74-75]. Here, God praises Abraham (as) as being someone who grieved for human suffering, but also as someone who resigned himself to God’s decisions. This was the prophetic balance that Allah wished to inculcate in the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through these verses. He did not want His final Prophet to be as heartless as those around him, but neither did He want him ﷺ to adopt a passivity that would result in the merciless becoming brazen and taking advantage of any apparent weakness. The Prophet ﷺ’s execution of Abu ‘Izza (the Poet) after Uhud, after releasing him the previous year without ransom at Badr, is one example of that. He ﷺ may have wished to forgive him again, for he did forgive others repeatedly, but instead said, “By Allah, you will not strut in Mecca saying, ‘I deceived Muhammad twice.’”[121]
Without an external reference point to mediate these values (i.e., divine revelation), the world has disagreed on the boundaries of mercy and justice. Some gravitate to an impractical and utopian extreme, where no forcefulness whatsoever is justified, refusing the reality that some people will never be as “ethically conscious” as them and will continue transgressing against others unless they are forcefully stopped. Some gravitate to another extreme, using brutality and terror as means to their “righteous” ends. The majority orbits in the ambiguous middle, each presenting a claim about where a virtue like mercy ends and where another like justice begins. Just as a rusted coin will not be polished by a gentle scrub, some souls require a degree of “harshness” to remedy them. And just as surgical amputation is generally avoided, but is sometimes a necessary last resort to save a life, sometimes mercy is embodied in sacrificing some lives to save many more.
Through this study, we hope that the framing of the Prophet ﷺ’s career as being one fueled by pride, hate, or vengeance has been debunked. As the French historian Louis Sedillot puts it,
It is such a distortion of historical facts when some writers accuse Prophet Muhammad of cruelty…They forget that he spared no effort in eliminating the inherited desire for revenge between Arabs; despite the fact that revenge was highly esteemed in Arabia, like fencing was in Europe. They do not read the Quranic verse by which the Prophet broke the horrible habit of burying new-born girls alive. They never think of the pardon he granted to his worst enemies after the Conquest of Mecca. Neither do they consider the mercy he showed to many tribes during war. Do they not know that he never misused his power in fulfilling the desire for cruelty? If any of his Companions committed anything wrong, he would stop them and correct them. It is well known that he refused the opinion of his close Companion, Omar bin al-Khattab, on killing the prisoners of war. When the time came to punish Banu Quraydha, he left the judgment to Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh who used to be their ally and was well acquainted with rabbinic law. He also forgave Hamza’s killer and never refused any request for kindness and forgiveness.[122]
Elsewhere, he writes about the Quran,
It takes man out of the darkness of his weaknesses and elevates him to the light of ethical highness…Those who call Islam a barbarous religion are people who are deprived of consciousness because they close their eyes to the clear and lucid verses of the Quran and they do not study how the Quran eliminated the disgraceful acts that lasted for centuries.[123]
With that, we hope and pray that these seventy incidents, paraphrased for the sake of conciseness, serve as a reminder of who the Prophet ﷺ really was: a man of mercy and moral greatness who sought not the praise of this world, but its betterment through his example. May God’s endless peace and blessings be upon him, his family, his companions, and those that follow in their blessed path.
https://yaqeeninstitute.org/mohammad-elshinawy/how-the-prophet-muhammad-rose-abo
