Muhammad a Prophet For all Humanity
9. The Prophetic Method
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What most leaders would have done under such
adverse conditions was raise a popular movement
against the political threat posed by foreign,
imperial powers. They would have sought to rid
their land of the yoke of foreign domination and
revived the nationalistic instincts of their people.
But the Prophet of Islam refrained completely from
instigating any nationalistic freedom struggle of this
nature.
There were also critical economic problems facing
Arabia when the Prophet came to the world.
Arabia was an almost entirely arid land: in an
agrarian age it had no agricultural foundation on
which to base its economy. This was a problem
that affected every individual in the land, and
could easily have provided the incentive for a
popular revolutionary movement. But the Prophet
did not capitalize on the economic problems’ of his
people in any way. On one occasion the Makkan
gentry gathered in front of the Ka’bah after sunset
and summoned the Prophet. When he laid the
basic teachings of Islam before them this is how
they reacted to his message:
