Re: The physical beauty of the Prophet (saw)
It's not just phsycial qualities, it is every single quality and thing he (may have) ever said or did to the point that it' put on par with God's word (Quran). Now to top it off, we revere him for his physical beauty.
It's not distinguishing between the prophets in theory, but acting as no other prophet ever existed in practice.
It's trying to emulate everything (it was reported) he said or did the point of making it part of the religion and any other way is haram. The Quran is supposed to be God's final word and commands, yet only accounts for 1/2 of the way the religion is interpreted.
It's taking the things that were cultural at the time he lived and trying to make it necessary for current times.
It's the hyper sensitivity to any perceived defamation to this prophet while other prophets can have their busts made out of feces without any Muslim noticing.
It's because in many Muslim writings I see the respectful "sallallahu alayhi wasallam" following the prophet's name and nothing following Allah's.
It's because the #1 complaint against Christianity by Muslms is the deification of Jesus, yet Christians don't go to the extent of reverence I mention above.
I post this, not out of disrespect or confrontation (so please forgive me if it came off that way), but rather at my utter confusion on this subject. Admittedly I have few Muslim friends, living in rural America, but they feel this way and that is where I am coming from.
Just off topic and sorry to brother STP for this,
Semi i completely agree with your relative thinking with respect to this topic.
I also understand, and I am 100 percent with you regarding revering the Prophet to the level of Allaah, also agree to the point if any other Prophet is being disgraced we as Muslims tend to avoid it as if there is nothing happened at all.
Regarding your Muslims friends in rural America i can figure out from which background they are coming from and because of the sectarian problem in Islam they are a few groups of Muslims who equal the God's attribute to the Prophet which is completely wrong.
According to me we have to again differentiate between religious and cultural factors. Because these parameters is like comparing apple to oranges. Over the past 1400 years most of the cultural factors have been embedded in the religion and finally have turned into a completely new leaf i.e. these cultural factors are now religious factors.
My point is no other human being in the face of earth has such recorded detailed history as the Prophet and there is no denial to the extent we also know what was happening inside the house of the Prophet in simple terms even in his personal matters were detailed out.
But again the actions, sayings of the Prophet are compared to Quran its extremely wrong, but again they are few actions and sayings of the Prophet which explain the Quran now this has to be understood in totality.
Regarding the post in this thread for me its a good read, i dont see any point of reverence for me its a good read because i feel ok Prophet's attributes, characteristics were so and so.
Imitating the Prophet according is no way of worship, as a kid i used to immtate my father and also my uncles, infact we always see a trend amongst the population in terms of clothing as a way of imitation.
Now if this imitation is equivalent to worship is something what i term as non-sensical. Because, we as humans are ready to imitate our own heroes/godfathers but this is no worshipping but imitating the Prophet is worshipping.
Let me quote a live example in my case there was a bollywood movie by name Dil chahta hai, with the protagonists wearing some trendy stuff and i wanted to imitate them by hairstyle, clothes, so and so. Now is this worship again the answer is no.
Revering the Prophet i would say no but following the Prophet i say Yes to it, but revering Allaah and worshipping Allaah is what muslims do. I have tried my best to explain the difference between imitating, following, reverence and worship.
Regards.
