The Prophet Muhammad A simple Guide to his Life
The Prophet as a Model
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Giving the above interpretation to this verse, “This
day I have perfected your religion” (5:3) is wrong
both from the point of view of the
shariah
and of
reason. The truth is that the entire Prophetic life,
and not just a part of it, serves as an excellent model
for us. Of all the examples it affords, none is either
undesirable or to be discarded.
There are some who say that the whole matter of
the Prophet’s example is one of gradation. That is to
say that the final goal of the Prophet of Islam is the
one we find in his final phase after the last
pilgrimage. That is to say, all the earlier examples
are only those of initial stages, going by the
principle of order and gradation, and not of the
final and complete stage. This interpretation too is
quite wrong, for there are statements in the Qur’an
which clearly refute this theory.
For instance, the Qur’an tells the Prophet of Islam to
follow the way of Abraham (16:123). As we know,
“the Prophet Abraham did not give his people a
complete
shariah
in the sense of a comprehensive list
of commands. His entire life was concentrated on
the call of monotheism. Examples of the
