Muhammad: The Ideal Character
MUHAMMAD The Ideal Character
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this world was only by way of preparation. In all
matters his attitude was determined by the thought
of how it would affect the quality of his existence in
the hereafter. Whether the occasion for him was one
of happiness or sorrow, success or failure,
domination or oppression, praise or obloquy, love
or hatred, the guiding thought was always that of
the hereafter. He was in no way lacking in human
qualities, but his mind attached value only to things
which were in some manner connected with the
Hereafter, and when any such connection was
absent, he found it difficult to take an interest in the
purely mundane. He would often say to those who
found him indifferent to the affairs of this world,
“You know your worldly matters better than I do
myself”. This conviction of the Prophet is no mere
intellectual assumption. When it takes root, a man’s
whole course of life and plane of living are altered
by it; it turns a man into a being of an entirely
different order. The lesson of the Prophet’s life is
that unless the plane of living is radically changed,
there can be no improvement in the quality of one’s
actions. When the Prophet arrived at this truth, its
propagation became his greatest concern. Paradise,
tidings of which he brought to his fellowmen,
