Exemplifying Islamic Values: Unveiling the Legacy of Prophet Muhammad
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the most extraordinary model of values excellence in every dimension of life. He is considered the ‘living Qur’an’, the embodiment of God’s teachings in his behaviour and words. Hazrat Aisha (R.A), the wife of the Prophet (PBUH), was asked about Prophet (PBUH)’s character, she answered:
Allah, Most Glorious, speaks highly of him, in many verses of the Qur’an:
If you are wondering what his criteria was for excellence, here’s what he had to say:
Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) character shows us the true power of living your values! Character is the total result of your ability to live your values. His life is the greatest success formula for what happens when you decide what is important in your life. Once you are clear about that, you can easily be certain about living by the Divine values and acting upon them.
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shows us how the power of living your Islamic values gives exceptional capabilities to help you achieve success in all life domains.
As with every universally admired and respected person in history, they had a success formula: they demonstrated the power of living according to their values in extraordinary ways. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) illustrated extraordinary skills in living the highest of human values and virtues in every dimension of human life. The Prophet’s life and actions show us what is humanly possible in living one’s Islamic values.
This Islamic values excellence created, within his 23 years of prophethood, high levels of human development and civilisation in a whole nation, which had been one of the most uncivilised and uneducated in history. Witnessing the standards of his high values practice was enough to change a whole nation and the world!
The values the Prophet (PBUH) taught us and embodied stem from the 99 names and qualities of Allah, including humility, steadfastness, bravery, gentleness, flexibility, and many more that can be sourced from authentic Islamic books.
Thousands of narrations (hadiths) illustrate such values he embodied, such as treating others with perfect mercy, forgiveness, compassion, patience, love, respect and more. His courage and dedication to his mission, his unswerving faith in God, The Exalted, even during dark periods, amid opposing forces, threats and hardships, is unparalleled by anyone in history.
One of his values that has always had a powerful impact on my life, was his ability to be unconditionally merciful no matter what challenge he met. There are many stories of people who opposed his message of goodness and belief in one God, trying every attempt to insult, harm, assassinate, abuse him and his family and companions. Yet never once was he anything short of unconditional mercy, patience and wisdom towards them.
Yet, he led an extremely busy life!
He was a prophet, father, husband, educator, governor, military commander, teacher in every field of life and more. However, his highest role and honour was being a servant of Allah (SWT), living and acting for God’s pleasure first and foremost. This was his number one value and key, which opened unlimited resources (spiritual, emotional, and intellectual) for excelling and succeeding in everything he did in his life. In sum, the great role-model for all humanity to aspire to be, think and act like and my number one goal for you to achieve with my book, Transformed by Values!
I encourage you to read scholarly based biographies of his life and character in depth to support this goal!
The life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a window for humanity to witness the depth and beauty of values at their peak and see the perfection of living values.
Excerpt from my book, chapter 1, Transformed by Values
Written by Cynthia Aisha Meguid
Well-Being – Author, Educator, Consultant & Coach
