In the middle of the nineteenth century, a western writer appeared who, more than any others, surprise Muslim seerah (Description of Life of Prophet) writers in the modern period. He was Sir Thomas Carlyle, a British Scottish writer whose work excited a great deal of interest, first in Muslims of British India and later throughout the rest of the Muslim world.
Indeed his influence on Muslim writer of the seerah can be glimpsed even today, whenever the modern seerah takes on the task of unbiased writings on the life of Prophet Muhammad by Western Orientalists.
Since the time of its publication, Carlyle’s portrait of Prophet Muhammad has been found widely referred in Modern Muslim seerah writings, where it is cited as an example of a “fair” or “honest” Western voice amidst the prevailing Western anti-Muhammad and anti-Islamic onslaught.
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Muhammad is a Hero Prophet
Carlyle’s work ‘On Heroes, Hero worship and the Heroic in History’ a collection of six lectures delivered in London around the year 1840 on eleven “heroes”.
This work included under broad headings such as “The Hero as Divinity”, “The Hero as Poet”, “The Hero as Priest”, and so forth, under the heading “The Hero as Prophet”, Carlyle selected Prophet Muhammad and proceeds in the best tradition of European Romantic historiography, to an analysis of the “Great Man” to be detected in his person and his mission.
Almost at once Carlyle’s interest obsession leads him to dismiss out of hand any talk about Prophet Muhammad’s imposture, lack of sincerity, forgery, violence or sensuality.
Although these charges were raised by almost all Orientalists, but a free and fair judgment of Carlyle decree that all these charges were untenable. And expressed his view that how could God so misguide those millions who revere Him and follow his religion?
Like all other Great Men Prophet Muhammad was “sincere” and “original”, appointed thus by a mysterious force called “Nature” from whom bosom this “fiery man” was cast up.
His “great and fiery heart” had brought forth a message of denial of self that all humanity can embrace, including “us”, that is Carlyle’s British audience.
Did Prophet Muhammad propagate his religion by sword? Carlyle says Christianity did not exactly disdain the sword when once it acquired one.
Carlyle’s Appreciation of Prophet Muhammad
He expressed his intense appreciation for the Prophet’s personality in these words:
“To the Arab nation it was birth from darkness into light; Arabia first became alive by means of it.
A poor shepherd people roaming unnoticed in its desert since the creation of the world.
A Hero Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe; see the unnoticed became world notable, the small has grown world great; within one a century afterwards Arabia is at Granada on this hand to Delhi on that; glancing in velour and splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world.
Belief is great life giving. The history of nation becomes fruitful, soul elevating, great so soon as it believes. These Arabs, that Mahomet and the one century-is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark on a world of what seemed bleak unnoticeable sand, but to the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven high from Delhi to Granada.
I said the great man was lighting out of heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel and then they would flame”.
Carlyle was a contrarian of his time, intent on shocking his audience almost as much as enlightening them, and there is a playful note in his introductory remarks where Carlyle says he choose Prophet Muhammad because he was free to speak about him, there being no danger of “any of us becoming Mohammedans”.
As a contrarian, Carlyle was at least as keen on preaching his moral values to his own society as he was to revamp the image of Prophet Muhammad.
What Thomas Carlyle most liked about Prophet Muhammad, he says, is his “freedom from cant” a compliment to Prophet but also surely, a barb aimed at contemporary British society.
Muhammad-The Greatest Teacher Ever!
Carlyle discusses the fact that Prophet Muhammad was illiterate, he wrote:
“One other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no school learning; of the thing we call school learning none at all.
The art of writing was but just introduced into Arabia; it seems to be the true opinion that Mahomet never could write! Life in the desert, with its experiences, was all his education.
What of his infinite Universe he, from his dim place, with his own eyes and thoughts, could take in, so much and no more of it was he know. Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no books.
Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by uncertain rumour of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he could know nothing.
The wisdom that had been before him or at a distance from him in the world was in a manner as good as not there for him.
Of the great brother souls, flame beacons through so many lands and times, no one directly communicates with this great soul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has to grow up so, alone with Nature and his own thoughts”.
Prophet Muhammad’s Beautiful Conduct with Wife
“How he placed with Khadijah, a rich widow, as her steward, and travelled in her business, again to the Fairs of Syria;
How he managed all, as one can well understand, with fidelity and adroitness;
How her gratitude, her regard for him grew: the story of their marriage is altogether a graceful intelligible one, as told us by the Arab authors.
He was twenty-five; she was forty. He seems to have lived in a most affectionate, peaceable, wholesome way, with this wedded benefactress; loving her truly, and her alone.
It goes greatly against the impostor theory, the fact that he lived in this entirely unexceptionable, entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of his years, was done”.
Lies about Prophet Muhammad Must Stop
Carlyle says:
“Our hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming impostor, a falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to anyone.
The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to us only. It is really time to dismiss all that.
The word this man spoke has been the life-guidance now of a hundred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years [Carlyle was writing this in the nineteenth century]…..
A greater number of God’s creatures believe in Mahomet’s word at this hour, than in any other word whatever.”
Carlyle’s essay on Prophet Muhammad is the first strong affirmation in the whole of European literature of modern period, of a belief in the sincerity of Prophet Muhammad.