How did Muhammad look?
Should I
care? We learn from the Quran that it is the message that we should
give importance to, not the mes-senger, especially when he is already
dead. It is the message that is alive, not the messenger. However,
there are many so-called Muslims who are serious about knowing and
praising the Prophet’s physical appearance even though the
Quran did not give us any clue. They concentrate on Muhammad as
a person; how he looked, how he ate, how he slept etc., instead
of the message he brought to us from God, the Quran. However, praising
and exalting the messenger after his departure, instead of the Almighty
God who sent him, is a human tendency in all religions, not only
in Islam. Thus the purified religion always gets distorted with
time as people get diverted from the true teachings of the messengers.
The distortion and nonsense is now carried out in
well-established “Islamic” web sites on the internet.
The back-ers and supporters of these web sites think that they are
doing a favor to the religion of Islam. They think that they are
enlightening the masses about Islam. They don’t realize that
what they advocate is generally the rubbish that surrounds our pristine
and beautiful religion, and practically nothing to do with true
Islam. They follow mostly conjecture, traditions, and hadiths (sayings)
that are falsely attributed to the prophet and those around him.
Thus, they abandon God’s revelations in the Quran in favor
of man-made innovations. Unfortunately, the usual practice for the
people in these UNTRUE ISLAM web sites is to wrap the truth from
the Quran with falsehood and igno-rance, and furnish to the unsuspecting
people.
Here is an example from such a web site where one
person wrote that he thought he had seen Muhammad in his dream.
He was asking the so-called Islamic scholar available on that site
how he could verify that it was indeed Muhammad in the dream. The
religious “expert” in total ignorance of the Quran,
and with no common sense, re-layed the following answer to this
question:
We will quote below a number of ahaadeeth [hadith] which
describe the Prophet (peace and blessings of Al-laah be upon him).
If what you see in your dream is in accordance with this, then you
did indeed see the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him), because he said: “Whoever sees me in a dream has really
seen me, because Shaytaan cannot appear in my image.” (Reported
by al-Bukhaari, 5729).
Rabee’ah ibn Abi ‘Abd al-Rahmaan said: “I heard
Anas ibn Maalik (may Allaah be pleased with him) describ-ing the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). He said: ‘He
was of average height, not too tall and not too short, with a pinkish
colour, not very white and not dark, and his hair was neither very
curly nor very straight. The Revelation came to him when he was
forty years old, and he stayed in Makkah for ten years after the
Revelation came, then in Madeenah for ten years. When he died, there
were no more than twenty white hairs on his head and in his beard.”
(al-Bukhaari, 3283).
Al-Baraa’ ibn ‘Aazib said: “The Messenger of
Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was broad shouldered
and had thick hair coming down to his shoulders and earlobes. He
was wearing red garments. I have never seen anything more beautiful
than him.” (Reported by Muslim, Kitaab al-Fadaa’il,
Baab Sifat Sha’r al-Nabi (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him), no. 2338).
Ali said: “He was neither tall nor short, and had large
hands and feet. He had a large head and was big-boned, and the thin
line of hair (starting from his chest and extending to the navel)
was long. When he walked, he would lean forward, as if he was walking
downhill. I have never seen anyone like him, before or since.”
(Re-ported by al-Tirmidhi, 3570, who said this is a saheeh hasan
hadeeth).
Jaabir ibn Samurah said: “The Messenger of Allaah (peace
and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was dalee’ al-fam, ashkal
al-’ayn and manhoos al-’aqib.” Shu’bah said:
“I asked Maalik, ‘What is dalee’ al-fam?’
He said: ‘Wide-mouthed.’ I asked, ‘What is ashkal
al-’ayn?’ He said, ‘Big-eyed.’ I asked,
‘What is manhoos al-’aqib?’ He said, ‘His
heels were not fleshy.’“ (Saheeh Muslim, Kitaab al-Fadaa’il,
2339).
So how would you describe Muhammad now that you know
what he looked like?!!!
Abdullah
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