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THE
PROPHETS WERE FREE FROM ALL BODILY AND MENTAL DEFECTS
One of the attributes of
Prophethood, unanimously agreed upon by Muslim theologians, is that the Prophets
were free from all kinds of bodily and mental defects. As they were
extraordinarily attractive in personality and conduct, they were also graceful
and charming in outward appearance. They had nothing in their bodies, from head
to foot, that could disturb people. They were perfect in bodily structure,
handsome and well-built.
Anas says that God’s
Messenger was the most handsome of people. In describing his beauty, Jabir ibn
Samura remarks:
It was a full moon
when we were sitting in the mosque. God’s Messenger came in. I looked
first at the shining moon, and then at the face of God’s Messenger. I
swear by God that the face of God’s Messenger was brighter than the
moon.1
Prophets must be free
from all bodily defects as they should not repel by their appearance. In
explaining the Divine wisdom of God’s Messenger living to sixty-three years,
Said Nursi writes:
Believers are
religiously obliged to love and respect God’s Messenger to the utmost
degree, and follow every command of his, without feeling any dislike for
any aspect of him. For this reason, God did not allow him to live to the
troublesome and often humiliating period of old age, and sent him to the
‘highest abode’ when he was sixty-three. This was the average
life-span of the members of his community, thus making him the example in
this respect also.2
Despite this phenomenon
being common to all the Prophets, some false stories about Job and Moses, either
borrowed from Israelite sources or misunderstandings of some Qur’anic verses,
have found their way into some commentaries on the Qur’an.
In a hadith, God’s
Messenger says: The Prophets undergo the most severe of trials; the greatest of
misfortunes strike them. Then come other believers; the firmer one is in belief,
the bigger his misfortune is. The Prophet Job is praised in the Qur’an as a
steadfast, excellent servant of God, one ever-turning to his Lord (Sa’d,
38:44). As can be deduced from the Qur’anic verses, and mentioned in the
Bible, he was afflicted with a kind of skin disease, with painful sores from the
soles of his feet to the top of his head (Job, 2.7). Influenced by
Israelite stories, some commentators of the Qur’an have, unfortunately, made
additions that worms were produced on his sores or abscesses and, because of the
bad smell emitting from those abscesses, people left him.
These additions are
completely groundless. If people left the Prophet Job, this might have been due
to his later poverty. For he was, in the beginning, a rich, thankful servant of
God, but later lost all his wealth and children. As a Prophet, he can neither
have had a repelling or disgusting appearance, with, at least, his face exempt
from sores, nor have emitted bad smell. Contrary to what is written in the Bible
that he cursed the day of his birth (Job, 3.1), and God openly (Job,
7.20,21), and justified himself rather than God (Job, 32.2), Job bore his
afflictions for years without any objection to God. He prayed: Affliction has
visited me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful (the Qur’an, al-Anbiya’,
21:83). God answered his prayer and removed the affliction that was upon him,
and He gave him his household (that he had lost) and the like thereof along with
them (al-Anbiya’, 21:84).
As for Moses, on
receiving the order to go to Pharaoh, he supplicated:
My Lord, open my
breast (relieve my mind and make me so persevering as to tolerate every
impudence and bear every hardship), and ease for me my task. Make loose a
knot upon my tongue so that they may understand my words. (Ta Ha,
20.25-8)
Some commentators,
influenced by Israelite sources, have misunderstood Moses’ supplication, Make
loose a knot from my tongue, and asserted that he suffered difficulty in
speaking. According to the story they narrate, Moses once pulled Pharaoh’s
beard while being brought up in his palace. Angered at what the child did,
Pharaoh wanted to have him killed, but his wife, in order to save the child,
offered Pharaoh to test him whether he was fit to judge or decide in his favor.
They put a piece of gold in one of the scales of a balance and embers in the
other. The child took the embers and put them in his mouth. This made him a
stammerer. So, by supplicating Make loose a knot from my tongue, Moses
petitioned God to restore him the ability of articulation.
An invented story can be
no basis for the interpretation of any Qur’anic verses. If Moses had had a
speech impediment due to the burning of his tongue, he should have said, ‘Make
loose the knot’, not ‘a knot, from my tongue’. What Moses meant by Make
loose a knot from my tongue, was that he was not as eloquent as his brother
Aaron (the Qur’an, al-Qasas, 28:34; the Bible, Exodus, 4:10), and
therefore desired to be more articulate in delivering God’s Message in Pharaoh’s
palace.
In conclusion, all the
Prophets were perfect both mentally and physically, with nothing to suggest any
defect. However, some of them may, in some respects, have been superior to
others: And those Messengers, some We have preferred above others; some there
are to whom God spoke [directly], and some He raised in rank (al-Baqara,
2.253). However, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, enjoys,
in general terms, superiority over all the others by virtue of being the last of
them who was sent to all of humankind and jinn and whose mission was not
restricted to a limited people and time, but was inclusive of all people and has
validity until the end of time.
1. Suyuti, al-Khasa’is
al-Kubra’, 1.123; Hindi, Kanz al-’Ummal, 7.168.
2. The Letters, 2.84-5.
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