Was Muhammad (pbuh) Merciful?                                                                                              
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Contents
U
A Note on the Translation
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4
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In the Name of God the Compassionate and Most Merciful
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Whose Guidance and
Help I Ever Seek and Invoke
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9
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Preface
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9
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Introduction
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11
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1. Refuting the Charge of the Sword
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13
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2. West
ern Scholars and the Study of Muhammad's Character (pbuh)
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18
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3. The Effects of Heredity and the Environment on the Greatness of the Prophet
(pbuh)
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24
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4. The Secret of Muhammad's Greatness (pbuh)
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26
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5. Are Muhammad (pbuh) and Jesus (pbuh) Enemies?
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28
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6. Cou
ld the Prophet be Considered a Prophet before his Divine Call?
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29
Chapter Two
 ................................................................................
32
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1. Muhammad and Zaid bin Harithah
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2. Muhammad and Rebuilding the Ka'ba by Quraish
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36
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3. Enemies Vouch for Muhammad
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37
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4. Friends Vouch for Muhammad
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37
Chapter Three
 .............................................................................
39
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Introducing Muhammad (pbuh)
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1. His Attributes (pbuh)
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2. His Complexions (pbuh)
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40
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3. His Dress (pbuh)
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4. The Environment He (pbuh) Inhabited
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Chapter Four
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46
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Aspects of Mercy for Human Beings in the Character of the Prophet Muhammad
(pbuh) After the Divine Call
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46
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-The School of Mercy
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-The Road to Mercy in Mu
hammad's School
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48
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-The Source of Mercy in the School of Muhammad (pbuh)
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49
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-General Mercy
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-The Society of Mercy
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52
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-Kinds of Mercy in the School of Muhammad (pbuh)
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56
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1. His Mercy in Deali
ng with People
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2. His Mercy in Acts of Worship
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3. His Mercy with the Elderly
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67
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4. His Mercy with Fathers and Mothers
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5. His Mercy with Children
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6. His Mercy with Kith and Kin
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7. His Mercy with Friends
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79
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8. His Mercy with Neighbours
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81
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9. H
is Mercy with Slaves and Servants
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10. His Mercy with Orphans
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89
Was Muhammad (pbuh) Merciful?                                                                                              
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11. His Mercy with the Weak, the Poor, the Sick, the Needy an
d the Calamity
Stricken
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92
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12. His Mercy in the Face of Death
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101
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13. His Mercy with Women
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14. His Mercy in Administering Punishments
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15. His Mercy with People of Other Faiths
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 116
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16.
His Mercy with his Enemies
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122
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17. His Mercy with the Human Mind
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130
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18. His Mercy with Animals
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132
Works Cited
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139
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-Primary Sources
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139
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Reference Works
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Was Muhammad (pbuh) Merciful?                                                                                              
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4
A Note on the Translation
Of  all  the  damned  dwellers  of  Dante's  
Inferno
,  a  particularly  unfortunate  group  
comes in for a lot of stick. Its maimed members keep going forward, back and sideways
at one and the same time thereby tearing themselves ap
art.
  Bilingual  people,  I  have  often  thought,  are  no  less  an  unhappy  lot.  Condemned  to  
lead  a  liminal  life,  ceaselessly  shuttling  between  one
  orde  ordinum
/culture/language
and   another,   we   have   often   inflicted   upon   ourselves   the   same   sado
-masochist
sufferi
ngs of Dante's damned.
  Above  all  else  perhaps  we  are  pained  and  outraged  that  each  culture  is  busy  
erecting  its  own  segregation  walls,  impervious  to  all  the  revolutions  underway  in  
technology,  information  and  telecommunication.  Fortress  Europe  today  is  far  more  
Eurocentric  and  
xenophobic  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  And  the  gloating,  globalized,
globalizing
  United  States  leaves  the  rest  of  the  world  speechless,  increasingly  looking  
back in anger at
 the
happy
 days of American isolationism. At least we were
 spared the
self
-righteous  rhetoric  of  ever  burgeoning  hordes  of  neolibs,  neocons  and  crusading  
Zionized
  Christians.  Indeed,  with  the  level  of  western  brutality  to  other  cultures  
reaching  an  all-
time  high,  many  of  us  in  Iraq,  in  Palestine,  in  Afghanistan,  in  Somalia,  
would like to be slaughtered in silence, thank you very much. We ache for the good old
days
when we were massacred with barely the crack of a knuckle
- the civilized English
way!
  Faced with rampant Islamophobia and systematic Arab bashing, whi
ch  have  come  
to  replace  anti-
Semitism  in  most  western  capitals,  the  Arab  and  Islamic  world  is  also  
cultivating  its  own  claustrophobia.  Every  now  and  then  we  let  out  the  odd  defensive  
backlash,   born   of   a   chronic   siege   mentality.   Fiery   speeches   and   sweeping   mass
demonstrations   flash   on   world   TV   screens   every   time   a   certain   nonentity   says   
something  somewhere  against  what  we  hold  dear.  The  same  ominously  angry,  hairy,  
sub-
continental figures appear
 regularly
, always screaming their heads off, always with
fists
clenched and raised, always with a pile of books being incinerated nearby.
  After   a   whole   century   of   education,   consciousness   raising   and   supposedly   
breathless  burning  of  stages,  the  East/West  cultural  dialogue,  let  us  face  it,  is  still  in  
ground  zero.  B
ilingual  people  are  nowhere  near  bridging  the  gap  or  bringing  the  two  
parties any closer to each other.
  "Of course
the West
 is to blame in this," the argument often goes, and often rightly
so,  the  west  being  the  stronger,  more  privileged,  more  confident  and  perhaps  the  
more  liberal  party.  But  we  too  have  a  large  share  of  the  blame.  We  have  historically  
failed  to  see  that  "The  West"  is  by  no  means  the
  monolith  of  tattooed,  flag
-waving,
gun-
ho  Marines  and  SAS  men  and  women  marauding  the  streets  of  Baghdad  a
nd  Al
-
Basra.   Nor   are   all   western   intellectuals   the   Bernard
-Lewis   type   of   neo
-colonial
apologists  and  appeasers.  It  is  high  time  we  realized  that  there  is  a  huge  public  out  
there
-   by   far   the   overwhelming   majority
-   of   decent,   humane,   enlightened   and   
reasonab
ly intelligent western people to whom we have been grossly unfair. We have
Was Muhammad (pbuh) Merciful?                                                                                              
Islamhouse.com
5
failed  to  equip  them  with  the  vital  database  with
which  the
y  can
know  more  and,  
hopefully, counteract the simplistic and shameful cultural stereotypes.
  The whole bulk of our Arab
and Islamic cultural texts are still locked in moth
-ridden
libraries  for  "specialists"  to  use  and  abuse  at  will,  while  the  decent  reader  remains  
starved  of  accessible  and  adequately  processed  information.  Treasures  of  
Jahilite,
Umawi,  Abbasside  and  modern
Arab  and  Islamic  contributions  to  human  thought  and  
human  civilization  are  still  mediated  either  by  orientalists  who  often  deliberately  
misunderstand  them,  or  else  by  sub-
continental  translators  who  do  not  understand  
them at all.
  The  bit  we  did  translat
e  we  translated  terribly  badly.  Perhaps  only  truly  bilingual  
people  know  how  utterly  flat  and  uninspiring  does  our  Holy  'Quran  sound  in  English.  I  
can still remember the sheer embarrassment of having to explain to my ex
-British/Irish
wife that the primary
source of our faith and our culture has almost nothing to do with
the  mediocre  paperback  translations  she  had  poured  over  for  months  on  end-
  not  in  
the  full  meaning  conveyed,  not  in  the  minimum  target
-culture  bias  and  dynamic  
equivalence  needed  in  modern  t
ranslations,  and  certainly  not  in  capturing  any  of  that  
awesome  aesthetic  beauty  and  splendour  native  speakers  of  Arabic  feel  and  enjoy  
when reading Al
-'Quran.
  Nor  could  I  furnish  an  alternative  translation  myself.  After  ten  years  of  serious  
work   (albeit
   intermittent,   in   hours   snatched   with   difficulty   from   other   pressing   
occupations), I am still unhappy with my own rendering into English of only one
Surah
of  the  Holy  
'Quran.  I  had  hoped  to  translate  
Surat  Al
-Rahman
in  a  way  that  would  
attempt to capture a
t  least  some  of  the  original  beauty,  especially  that  sublime  sense  
of  music,  cadence  and  rhythm  still  ringing  in  my  ears  as  my  mother  used  to  intone  it
after every morning prayer.
  Somehow the traumatic experience made me amply aware of two translatologic
al
clichés
-  Le  Fevre's  all  cultural  misunderstandings  have  their  translational  roots,  and  E.  
Nida's  everything  is  translatable,  provided  form  is  not  an  integral  part  of  the  content.  
Still, I do not in any way regret the attempt. Although I have
- so far
- failed, translating
the  venerable  Quran  into  English  must  always  be  approached  with  a  trembling  hand  
and  with  the  thorough  mindedness  that  ponders  the  widest  cultural  implications  of  
every  sentence  and  every  word.  Translating  the  content/meaning  alone  is  nev
er
enough.  That  is  why,  I  have  painfully  come  to  realize,  render  the  Holy  Quran  into  
decent
   modern
   English   is   beyond   anyone's   individual   effort.   We   have   only   to   
remember  that  four  hundred  of  Britain's  brightest  linguists,  rhetoricians,  theologians,  
philoso
phers,  men  of  letters,  scholars  of  all  branches  of  science  and  disciplines  of  
knowledge,  as  well  as  gifted  translators,  had  laboured  for  over  forty  years  to  produce  
the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611).
  In all honesty, I can see no reason why a sim
ilar large
-scale cultural attempt cannot
be mounted. Nothing is as urgent as translating Al
-'Quran, content as well as form, into
modern    English;    nothing    as    potent    a    conceptual    tool    to    dispel    cultural    
misunderstandings and
to
enlighten the
willing

 The author said in his introduction, The study itself falls into four parts: Chapter One: An Introduction, Chapter Two: Aspects of Mercy for Human Beings in the Character of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh Before the Divine Call, Chapter Three: Introducing the Prophet Muhammad pbuh , Chapter Four: Aspects of Mercy for Human Beings in the Character of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh After the Divine Call.