Thread by @jordandenari

I really enjoyed our two week unit on the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in #IntroToIslamGU. This thread covers what we did.

“What I find truly challenging is to communicate, and to understand myself, what Muhammad has meant to Muslims over the centuries.” -@JonathanACBrown

We began by reading a standard biography of the Prophet, looking at his life and mission as attested to by the Islamic tradition. (Reading: Ch. 1 of Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction by @JonathanACBrown)

I'd intended to show clips from two films about Prophet's life (and which employ creative strategies to avoid showing his body and/orface), but we ran out of time. The first is this 2015 Iranian made film:

The second is the popular 1970s movie, The Message.

Then we spent a session focusing on the Prophet's beautiful attributes (shama'il) and character. Students read texts from al-Tirmidhi (d.892) and al-Ghazali (d.1111) and drawing from these we made our own whiteboard hilya—a textual icon of the Prophet.

These texts discuss minute details of Muhammad's appearance, dress, preferences, and habits, and how he perfectly exemplified virtues like generosity, kindness, humility, and forbearance.

I personally love the details about his laugh, how he liked to do running races with his family, and how he cherished his grandsons.

So while figural depictions of the Prophet in art might be rare, these texts allow us to imagine the Prophet in extreme detail in our minds—the space between his teeth, the shape of his knee caps, the way he spoke and carried himself, the love he showed.

(Though Christians have ample visual images of Jesus, I have yet to encounter any text that comes remotely close to this kind of detail. Khalil Gibran's "Jesus Son of Man" is the closest, and I've wondered if he, being Lebanese, was at all influenced by shama'il literature.)

Next, we looked at Muhammad in various aspects of Muslim spirituality. We read from @ostadjaan's 'Memories of Muhammad' where he discusses how “Muhammad was not merely a history figure in the past, but a present reality that illuminated their spiritual lives.”

Muslims forge a connection to the Prophet and receive his baraka/blessing through art, music, poetry, pilgrimages, relics, and prayers. One common symbol of the Prophet is a rose. Coincidentally (or providentially), my rose bush at home was blooming for our lesson.

We also listened to this @NewBooksIslam podcast intvw with Oludamini Ogunnaike on West African Sufi madih poetry. This poetry in praise of the Prophet is understood by many Sufis to be a means of "fanaa' fil Rasul"—annihilation of the self in the Prophet. newbooksnetwork.com/oludamini-ogun…

On our final day, we explored the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) and the important role they've played in all aspects of Islamic life and thought. We also discussed the study of the Sira (prophetic biography) in the Western academia. (For both topics we read @JonathanACBrown.)

One of the most rewarding things about my study of Islam has been learning what the Prophet means to Muslims and how he inspires them to live. That kind of love can't help but rub off a bit.
"We have sent you not but as a mercy to the universe." –God to Muhammad in the Qur'an