The Muhammad As A Prophet

A prophet speaks exquisitely encouraged words to others. Prophets are willing to give up their life for what they believe in. They bring new ideas to situations, and don’t follow other’s work. They are gifted with the ways of God, and have spiritual insight on certain problems. To be a prophet takes hard work. If you do something so immense, and it helps people around you, doesn’t mean you automatically fall under prophecy. You have to have the full criteria. That is why it’s hard to find a modern day prophet today. Many people in the world today have done something big, but are not viewed as prophetic, because of their power, or personality.

Muhammad a prophet for our time is written by Karen Armstrong. This book is like a diary that tells the life of Muhammad and how he played a big role in the Islamic religion. Muhammad was born in the year 570 ce and died in 623 ce. Muhammad was a man who did not have much going for him, he couldn’t read and lived in a cave with his wife at the time. When Muhammad was reached down upon by Allah he did not know what was happening and why it was happening. “ he knew that some people expected the imminent arrival of an Arab prophet, but it never occurred to him that he would be the one entrusted with the mission.” (p.10). Muhammad was 40 years old when this happened and he lived in Mecca. Mecca at the time had many different civilizations and was a big trading center. Arabs at the time did not like this and kept moving from places to place to get something stable. Some of the Arabs even had settled in urban areas around Mecca. Society in Mecca was based on laws and traditions that even though Allah is the main god

The prophets are difficult to interpret mainly due to misunderstandings about their function and form (Fee/Stuart p182). Most dictionaries define the word “prophecy”as ‘foretelling or prediction of what is to come. Using the prophets in this way is highly discerning, for less than 2% of OT prophecy is messianic; less than 5% describes the new covenant age and less than 1% concerns future events (Fee/Stuart p182). The prophets usually announced the immediate future of Judah, Israel and the surrounding nations, rather than our future. Those events were forthcoming for them but past for us (Fee/Stuart p182). The primary function of prophets as a spokesperson was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. Of the hundreds of prophets in

First, what must be looked at is who is a prophet and what is a prophet’s message. A prophet is an Israelite called on by God to express in poetic form the vision of God, His kingdom, the messianic age of peace, the work of the Holy Spirit, a new community of people, and the transformation of creation and humanity (VanGemeren 16). One example of a prophet is Amos, where the feeling of prophetic sense of an inner compulsion, “Surly the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:7-8).

The Honorable Messenger Elijah Muhammad, in his book the Theology of time stated, “This represents Ezekiel’s Wheel,” “They actually have it up there; the devil knows it’s up there, this is why he continues to go up there.” “Trying to locate it from the moon and watch for this plane, so he would be able to shoot a rocket at it.” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “Allah taught me that and showed me the plane and that the beings that fly the plane look like us.” “The Government has the drawings of it on their blackboard at the FBI headquarters.” The Honorable Messenger Elijah Muhammad also stated that the planes were like unto our brother and Prophet Jesus-you could not catch him and they could tune in to you and at any time get away.

To fully understand the meaning behind his sermons and predictions we must first look at what a prophet is and what he holds true.

A desert peninsula in 6th century was the cross roads of the world, the bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa. Arabia was a vacant wasteland of desert, rarely seeing any life besides that of the trade caravans. City states dominated the political life and the only form of centralized government was in chaos. This was Arabia in the 6th century, this even though Christian was to become the staging ground for the growth of the 2nd largest religion that exists today. This is where the "Prophet" Muhammad was born in the city of Mecca.

Similar to the dictionary definition of a preacher, Merriam-Webster’s definition of a prophet is relatively general. It states that a prophet is a member of some religion who delivers messages that are believed to have come from God. The complexity of this definition have been further explained several scholars. Novelist, Richard Lischer, interprets the prophet in his book The Preacher King, as he quotes:

By the late 600s, Muhammad has had a huge influence on many people, by teaching the faith called Islam. His influences were taught through his early life, his holy visit to a cave, the time before his death, and the 100 years that followed his death.

In “Memories of Muhammad, Why the Prophet Matters,” Omid Safi appears to be sympathetic to Shi’a doctrine. For example, he describes a “horrific” march in which women, children, and a few young men were forced to process by the army through the Iraqi dessert after the death of Hussein. This was not mentioned in the “Massacre of Karbala: A Historical Analysis” video; in fact, the video mentioned only one young man who stayed in the tents of the women due to a high fever. Safi also cites Tabari as a primary source of early Islamic history. According to Tabari, the army marched with seventy-two heads of members of the Prophet’s family propped on their lances. However, in the video, this type of behavior is not mentioned, although the story of

The Muslim prophet, Muhammad, was born in 570 in the city of Mecca. Muhammad lived a normal life just like any Muslim, until he began seeing visions believed to be inspired by Allah. Muhammad believed that since Allah has already revealed himself to Moses and Jesus, it was now his turn to receive the final revelations. After receiving them, Muhammad tried to convince his people that the revelations were true, but most thought he was insane and crazy, or that he would upset the social and political order of society. As a result, Muhammad and some of his followers left to the rival city of Yathrib in 622. Yathrib was later renamed Medina, which meant “city of prophet”, as he began to win support from the residents in Medina and on the surrounding country side. With these people, Muhammad formed the first Muslim community.

The lives of Muhammad by Kecia Ali is a modern book that describes the way the life of the prophet has been told by past authors. It looks at the manner in which he lived his life and some of the decisions that he made. However, many other authors who have written about the life of Prophet Muhammad but Kecia Ali bring out the unspoken perspective that many people hardly notice. She shies away from describing the truth spoken by anti-Muslims and Muslims alike. On the contrary, she analyses both factions of the narrations and tells the story of Muhammad in a new light.

Muhammad, who is believed to be a prophet of God, is considered the last prophet sent by god to the Muslim people. Muhammad is believed to have brought the word of God through the Qur’an. The Prophets’ life started in Mecca where he grew up orphaned. During his life, specifically in the month of Ramadan, he would spend time in a cave outside Mecca where he originally received revelations about the sacred text. Originally Muhammad found little success preaching God’s word but eventually gained a following of Muslim people, which would turn into the tradition it is today.

Khadija was fifteen years older than Muhammad. Muhammad accepted work from Khadija and had led a few caravans for her. Credit should be given to Khadija for Muhammad’s success with Islam because it was her wealth that enabled him to spend a significant amount of time in religious meditation and isolation. Even though she was some years older than her twenty-five-year-old employee and had been married twice, she asked him to marry her (Phipps, 35).

On the surface Muhammad is usually considered to be a prophet and messenger of God, but when looking closer we can see that He played many more roles in His life time including one of a Statesman.