The Prophet Muhammad A simple Guide to his Life
The Prophet as a Model
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kinds of situations. In this respect the Prophet’s life
offers examples for a great variety of circumstances.
Now God’s servants have to strive to find parallel
examples and on finding guidance from his life,
they must follow it whole-heartedly.
The contradictory examples in the life of the
Prophet are generally regarded as a matter of
abrogation, for instance, when the verses on
qital
(to
do battle) were revealed, the command to exercise
patience and to practice avoidance was abrogated.
But any absolute concept of abrogation is
erroneous. Abrogation of one set of commands,
opening the way to applying another set of
commands, is relative to circumstances, and as such
is only of a temporary nature. Whenever the
circumstances change, the abrogated command may
again become the more desirable one, in which case
it will be observed just as it had been, previously.
For instance, on the occasion of Badr (2 A.H.) the
Prophet acted on the command of war instead of on
the command of
sabr
(patience). He came out of
Madinah and did battle with the idolaters at a place
called Badr. But on several other occasions the
