In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent in Mercy, the Most

Merciful

All praise is for Allah the Exalted and may the peace and blessings
of Allah be upon His Messenger Muhammad and his family and

companions and all those who follow them
(and their way) until the Day of Resurrection

The Prophet Muhammad was sent by Allah as a mercy for all the
worlds, and this is one of the many reasons for which Muslims
invoke the salutation upon him with the words “may the
salutations, praises, prayers, peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him” or as we say in the Arabic language, ( وسـلم عليه االله صلى,(
SALL ALLAHU ALAIHI WA SALLAM (often shortened to:
peace and blessings be upon him)
The scriptural basis for the belief that the Prophet Muhammad was
sent as a mercy, peace and blessings be upon him, is in the revealed
Book of Allah, the Holy Qur`an, when the Almighty and Exalted
said in Surat al-Anbiya`a (Chapter of the Prophets: 21):

The Universal Mercy of the Prophet
Muhammad’s Mission

“And We have written in the Psalms after the remembrance that
the land is inherited by My righteous servants. * Verily in this
(Quran) is a notification for a people that worship (Allah). And We
have not sent you except as a mercy to the universe. * Say ‘Indeed it
is revealed to me that your god is only one God, so will you be
Muslims in submission to Him?’* But if they turn away then say, ‘I
have announced to all equally, and I do not know whether what you
are promised is near or far away. * Indeed, He knows what is
openly declared and He knows what you conceal. * I do not know
but perhaps this a trial for you, and a mere (respite of) enjoyment
for a time.’ * He (the Prophet) said, O My Lord judge in truth, and
our Lord is the Most Beneficent in Mercy, and He is the One
whose aid is sought against that which you describe (in
blasphemy).”
The crucial verse for our subject is the saying of Allah, ‘And We
have not sent you except as a mercy to the universe.’ This qualifies
the entire mission as a mercy intended to all people. The context is
also important since this declaration came to us in the general
context of calling to Islam, to wholehearted submission to Allah, to
pure monotheism, and to righteous acts of sincere worship before
the coming of the promised Day of Resurrection. Thus we have
three aspects of this mercy: the sender of mercy, the messenger of
mercy, and the message of mercy. The mercy can only be fully
activated by our full acceptance of the God of Mercy and his
Prophet of Mercy, and by our being truly merciful to others and to
ourselves by following the teachings of the message of mercy.
This book before you will explain the concept of mercy, that Allah
is the Most Merciful in the general sense and in the special sense,

The Universal Mercy of the Prophet
Muhammad’s Mission

that mercy permeates the teachings and message of Islam, and that
mercy is the dominant characteristic of the Prophet’s personality
and his mission as the Messenger of Allah to the various worlds of
the universe. This thread of inquiry will carry us through our entire
investigation. We will direct the line of search and present our
understanding and our elucidation, but will let the presentation of
many clear scriptures of revelation in Islam from the Qur`an and
the Sunnah speak directly to prove these points with minimal
explanation, by the will and aid of Allah Almighty.
Before we initiate this journey we must give some terminology and
the authenticated sources of reliable knowledge about Islam in a
preliminary manner to keep the investigation on proper course
since misconceptions are often derived from misconceptions about
definitions and misinformation from unreliable sources.

The author,

(a humble slave who continually seeks the mercy of his Lord,

Allah, the Most Great and Majestic)
Abu Salman Deya ud-Deen Eberle

 The Prophet Muhammad was sent by Allah as a mercy for all the worlds, and this is one of
themany reasons for which Muslims invoke the salutation upon him with the words may the salutations, praises, prayers, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him

Importance of basic terminology and authentication of
sources
Without verification of terminology and rigorous crosschecking of
source information, a researcher always confronts the possibility of
falling into grave misconceptions. Faulty information leads to false
premises and consequent wrong inferences, and subsequently the
entire edifice will fall because it is based on weak structures that do
not stand up to scrutiny. It is necessary therefore to mention here
some of the most basic terminologies for any discussion about
Islamic concepts and the authentic sources of knowledge in Islam.
In the polemical atmosphere of today’s confrontational mood and
manners between Muslims and those of other faiths and ideologies,
we do not wish to add to the preconceived misunderstandings by
additional misconceptions, rather correct them by presenting what
is the best and most authentic.
Allah, The One God, ( هَّالل( ُ
The very first term we must discuss for the reader is the word for
the Majestic and Exalted God, “Allah.” Unfortunately there are
some antagonists that wish to propagate that this word means other
than the One God of the Prophets, as if the word refers to some
idol or moon god.1 In Arabic the generic word for deity and god is
“ilah” ( إله (with the dual as Ilahain (إلهين (and the plural as Aalihah
( آلهة .(The word Ilah in Arabic means “that which is worshiped”
whether rightfully or in folly, thus meaning respectively the One
True God, or god as in false gods. In the plural of Arabic Aalihah
( آلهة (is always for the false gods and idols. To give some examples
of usage we can say, for instance for the One True God, in
1
This outrageous claim is prevalent nowadays on the internet especially among
Christian evangelicals who wish to malign Islam falsely. One African friend
informed me that as a child the Christian missionaries in his land of Zimbabwe
(called Rhodesia at the time) told him that Muslims worship the moon and that is
why the crescent is a symbol of Islam on flags and so forth.

The Universal Mercy of the Prophet
Muhammad’s Mission

constructions with pronouns like my God “Ilahi,” and your God
“Ilahukum,” and with proper nouns like the God of Abraham
“Ilahi Ibraheem.” In the following verse we find “God of your
fathers” as Ilaha aba`ika and “One God” as “Ilahan Wahidan” (

“Were you witnesses when death approached Jacob and he said to
his sons, ‘What will you worship after me?’ They said, ‘We will
worship your God and the God of your fathers, Abraham and
Ishmael and Isaac, one God. And we are Muslims (in submission)
to Him.” [2:133]
Allah relates the amazement of the Arab polytheists at the claim of
monotheism by the Messenger Muhammad, and what they said to
him:

“And they are amazed that there has come to one to warn from
among themselves, and the disbelievers say, ‘This is a sorcerer, a
liar.’ * Has he made the gods one God? Indeed, this is an incredible
thing.”[38: 4-5]
The word “Allah” is the proper name of The One God. Literally it
is made up of the letters “al” which is the definite article “the,” and
“ilah” the word for god or God (according to context as above).
Thus the word “Allah” is “al-ilah” and literally “The God,” as in
the Arabic phonetic construction ( ال + إله = ال .(Of course the
meaning is the One and Only God and the One Lord and Creator
and Sovereign of the creation..