THE PERSONALITY OF THE PROPHET:
A HEART OF THE WORLD WITHOUT HEART

Yasin AKTAY

  We are living in a merciless age. It is the time which is claimed to have fulfilled all projects of the Enlightenment. The modernity, or the postmodernity is thought to reach the highest level of human accumulation of universal human values. Looking at what this journey has cost to humanity one can see behind this long-standing experience not anything more than tears and blood. The project, had intended to stop the religious war and to achieve religious freedom even on a ground where the religions would be rendered insignificant. We saw in the middle of the last century the most relentless and tragic holocaust aimed at applying the most harsh genocide the human history has ever seen. The Project also aimed to stop the violations of human rights and to accelerating the importance of human life. As a result the humanity has witnessed the wars that recorded the most deadly events: the number of the killed people in only one war reached to the amount that had been killed in all wars took place in the human history. The technology that was made possible by the human knowledge, the scientific development made possible the destruction of the earth at once. No matter if this possibility is realized or not, indeed the fact that it is kept in mind by itself is a tragedy of the modernity. Discrimination on the base of ethnic, religious and class difference has got some more complicated and relentless forms. The daily interests of the countries are paid more importance than human life. The lives of thousand of people are sacrificed for the sake of some temporary mundane interests and the wars are getting worse and worse. In front of such a panorama we become very likely to think on what we need to go out of this world without heart. We need a heart, a strong heart. A heart its mercy would suffice to and encompass all humanity without excluding any part of it. That would be part of the manifestation of the God’s compassionate which distinguish nothing in the universe. His compassionate encompass all man, no mater whether is Muslim or not, and all living and dull beings. Looking from the point of one single class, ethnicity, country, statute group or territory may render one deprived o f any sort of empathy towards other parts. All these positions are indeed human positions, particular in nature. The attempt to universalize these particular positions, to derive superiorities to any one of these positions, is the most important reason of the emergence of the merciless world. This emerges in forms of ethnocentrism, racism, egoism etc. In each form it produces a systematic destruction of empathy and mercy towards the Others. The Others are becoming the hell.

The conception of the other indeed is the beginning of the ethic. Taking responsibility of the other, not to construct the other as the ultimate enemy but the other part of one’s integrity with the universe is the missing point of our age. The other is the counterpart or the complementary side of our personality. Our personality is indeed is always deficient without the existence of our Other. But how we conceptualize our Other, how we treat the other is still a matter of human diversity.

Probably that is why we are searching for figures who might inspire use again what we have lost. To inspire and to guide us in finding the possible integrity. This guidance would lead us out of our particularities and integrate with the universal values, while actually remaining within our time and space. On the other hand this guidance would also help us to integrate the fragmented personality which usually is seen as impossible to compose a coherent and ideal integrity.

One can not reduce the personality of a man to single one aspect. But every particular personality may have some dominant characters. One personality may be prominent in respect of courage. Another one may be prominent in respect of generosity, intellectual side, charismatic leadership etc. Indeed a personality is a matter of social psychology. It is not possible to derive a constant unchanging profile of a personality. It emerges out of a complicated set of diversified relationships within social environment. One may behave in harsh way towards his enemies while he behaving in very compassionate way towards his friends. Man is not a constant entity. S/he is a process. But the personality can be distinguished by its very ability of achieving certain coherence. The coherence may promote and highlight one aspect. It is very seldom that one may combine all positive aspects in one personality. Usually we are familiar with an intellectual figure who is very sensitive in searching for the truth but he may show very less performance in acting in accordance with the requirement of this truth. We may be familiar wit the figure of an artist who is very good one in his works but he is capricious and very asocial in character. We also are not familiar with a strong politician with a profound intellectual insight. Even a strong theorist of politics is not usual to manage a successful political practice.

Usually such persons (as artists or poems with caprice and asocial characters) seem likely to consume a credit reserved for them by their communities which tolerate their caprices for the sake of their successes. This wage of tolerance is paid by people to their asocial poets, capricious artists, irresponsible an cynic intellectuals for their extraordinary features. The help of the prophet is to integrate the fragmented personality. This problem is indeed a very widespread problem happening always and everywhere. Especially nowadays the problem of the fragmented personality is one of the most tragic dimension of our contemporary existence, which is thought to be witnessing to the “end of man”. The existence of the prophet, or the very possibility of his existence as an example is resulted by the mercy of God to humanity. He represented the realistic possibility of the manifestation of the ideal in this world. What is ideal is not something far away. It is very close to everybody seeking for purification with the mercy of God.

 

One do not need to pay any wage for the personality of Muhammad. Perhaps one of the most important aspect of his personality is that he is above ala man of integrity. Because of his integrity he does not force his community to tolerate himself. Just on the contrary he is a man who has tolerated. He has ad no any burden on his community. His leadership has revitalized a death society. Death in terms of their hopes and emotions toward the world. He had at the same time a very genius personality with a strong charismatic capacity and a deep sense of aesthetic. He was a very strong battle in the war square but also very compassionate and peaceful person in social life. You can see a very childish person playing with children and especially with his grandsons. When he is warned by some of his serious friends for damaging his image of being a man of integrity he replied by his very famous words: “one does not receive mercy unless he have mercy on others”

The integrity of his personality in my vision is one of the most important character of the Prophet Muhammad. He is not specialized in single one aspect. He is an integrated Man. A man of perfection. He is not focusing on one personal value with the cost of ignoring other good personal values. By this way he successfully showed the very possibility of the ideal man in the world. This ideal is being denied in the modern mode of life and the conception of humanity. When one speak on that kind of personality the philosophers and sociologists make a turn into the discussion of the possibility of (S)ubject. The idea of subject is of course something that tends to create an impossible hero. The prophet himself has showed the possibility of that subject. But by this idea of subject man is not supposed to go beyond his being a subject God also. When he feels himself as the maker of the history, or the maker of his fate he is reminded about his nature. The prophet of Islam, Muhammad (PBUH) is also a man. In Islamic perception of the prophet, He is not but a man. He is only the messenger of God and he is only like every human-being. He does not claim any sort of goodness, any aspect of divinity. He is a man like all of us. That is why he is the proper source of the hope of the possibility of being he ideal man. If he was shaped like a semi-god, as Jesus is pictured in Christianity, then his superiority would not appear. He was like a common man, without breaking the human limitations towards being transforming into a divine being. Indeed a divine being can not help the worldly species. Because the guidance of the Prophet is within the limits of this world. So He is the real and immediate of hand of help to man. He is not from outside the world. He is from the world of us. That is indeed the core of compassionate, of the mercy. But this mercy and compassionate, above all is not resulted by the Prophet himself. It is the compassionate and mercy of God himself that rendered messengers from among people for a direct guidance. It is out of the mercy of God that he created and sent the prophet himself. The prophet guided his people who were acting every kind of distinction in all occasions. They were acting in their relationships wit the others as ethnocentrists, as racists, with a class and statute pride suppressing the lower classes and the slaves. They were also careless about the weak, about the people who were unable to take care of their personal rights. The world into which the Prophet was sent was extremely relentless. The others who were made so weak that were unable to take any position were suppressed and wronged. Muhammad took part in the organization of the community of the virtues during his youth age. The idea from that beginning was that the mission in politics is not to take power, but to undertake the responsibility of the wronged, of the suppressed, of those who can not speak for themselves, may be human being or animal or environment. So even in the conditions of war he forbade to kill children, women and cutting the trees and polluting the water and nature for taking advantage against their enemy. The idea here, too, was to take care of those who cannot speak on their part. If you can take care of those who can not speak for themselves you are already more competent to undertake a universal position which makes the realization of ultimate mercy and compassionate possible. That is the position of the Prophet. That is the position that was inspired from a divine source.

The personality of the prophet himself is not that much extraordinary like the other miraculous religions. Perhaps one of the most important aspect of Muhammad is that he is not part of the impossible world. He made his personality as possible to follow within this world by everybody. In that sense he seems rational and real. The infinity of reason and beauty is manifested and shown within the limits of his human condition. He is proud of being beloved by three things of this world “woman, good smell and the praying”. In order to keep his personal coherence he was very conscious about the need to change his behaviors regarding the context. So, he valued it as stupidity to keep serious in the context of picnic. By this way he also set a very good peace with body too. The body which is seen as the enemy of the believer in many religions and in some extremist interpretations of Islam  is celebrated and paid its own right in justice. This is perhaps the first step to set peace and show mercy to the others. It is in fact difficult to be in peace with others while keeping in fight with one’s own body. The Prophet warned all the believers not to be in conflict with their bodies. He taught them to show mercy not only to others but to themselves too. Their body also had some rights requiring to take care of.

The Prophet’s personality represented a very sensitive balance including all human conditions and values. Coherence and integrity were the prominent aspects of His personality. So when we think about his mercy we cannot locate it as something dislocated from other sides of his personality, such as being generous, courage, and justice. He was as much angry against all injustice as he was merciful towards everybody. He was not tolerant to the wrong for the sake of keeping merciful. Indeed he had very high sense of the friend and enemy. He was the enemy of the wrong on behalf of keeping his friendship to the good.

However he was also very generous in h own rights. He never think of taking revenge even from the worst people who tortured him, forced him o leave his hometown and who killed his kins. The way He conquered Macca by itself is an epic phenomena, where there fled no drop of blood. He forgave even the murders of his uncle, who killed him in the barbarian way, and included them into his community. This is the community of mercy.

Why not conclude by saying indeed the very existence of that prophet himself is the manifestation of the compassionate of God