What did our Beloved Prophet (pbuh) mean?

[Muslimwoman]

as salaam aleykum wr wb

I would like to ask other Muslims their opinion of what the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) meant by this:

Once the Prophet was once with his Companions. He then stretched his hand to `Umar ibn Al-Khattab. To that kind act, `Umar responded saying, "O Messenger of God, you are the most beloved to me after myself." The Prophet replied, "No, by Him in Whose Hand is my soul, you can't be a real believer until you love me more than yourself." To this, `Umar replied, " Now you are more beloved to me than myself." Then, the Prophet said, "Now, `Umar, your faith is complete" (Al-Bukhari).

Given that the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was not an arrogant man and strived to teach brotherly love and respect, do you believe he meant we must love him (the Prophet) more than ourselves or that we must learn to love our brothers and sisters more than ourselves?

Salaam

[farhan]

IMO, man's biggest veil from God is his own ego. Throughout his life he has to make decisions regarding his priorities, "I" or GOD.Having said that, love is the biggest ego-breaker. The only thing that can annihilate you, that can destroy you, or that can transform you (for better or worse) .You love your ego more, you will destroy your relation with God, you love God, you will face very hard time from your ego. And you cant love both equally, as ego always wants to keep itself on the top.

So, O Messenger of God, you are the most beloved to me after myself means, I love you a lot, but I'll give priority to myself when both ask contradicting things from me. Now you are more beloved to me than myselfmeans I love myself a lot, but I'll give priority to obeying the messenger, at any cost. He actually proved it many times.

We know that man's personality is formed around the things he loves & hates, things for which he would kill for or die for. When obedience to God & his messenger is the highest aim in life, the whole personality is made around it, & the whole life is spent according to that personality. A personality that is made around ego wil only create chaos for itself & others.

Loving our brothers & sisters more than us is obviously a part of obeying/loving the messenger

Peace

[Zaakir]

my view being a revert was the prophet s.a.w wasnt arrogant was he, when i first heard this hadeeth. and on looking into it it can make you start crying:
we all know that he was the most perfect of creation, and everything he said was not of his own accord, but of revelation as Allah says in the quran, so therefore everything the prophet did was inspired revelation, it happened as Allah wnated him to do certain things, to the way he chewed his food even!

also we know that Allah s.w.t has given this ummah the prophet as a guide and an example for us to follow, so following the prophet gets one closer to Allah, as following the prophet is following what Allah wants for us. for you to follow someone to evry detail you have to have a huge amount of love for taht person, its fact, the more you loev someone, the more u wanna b like them. look at the way movie stars and football players, over here in the u.k a few yrs ago, david beckham shaved off his hair, it used to be fairly long. at the time of him having long hair, people also had it, and when he shaved it, a lot of the other boybands and other people did the same, they also did this when he had a mohawk!(one child even got suspended from school!)
anyway

[Zaakir]

my view being a revert was the prophet s.a.w wasnt arrogant was he, when i first heard this hadeeth. and on looking into it it can make you start crying:
we all know that he was the most perfect of creation, and everything he said was not of his own accord, but of revelation as Allah says in the quran, so therefore everything the prophet did was inspired revelation, it happened as Allah wnated him to do certain things, to the way he chewed his food even!

also we know that Allah s.w.t has given this ummah the prophet as a guide and an example for us to follow, so following the prophet gets one closer to Allah, as following the prophet is following what Allah wants for us. for you to follow someone to evry detail you have to have a huge amount of love for taht person, its fact, the more you loev someone, the more u wanna b like them. look at the way movie stars and football players, over here in the u.k a few yrs ago, david beckham shaved off his hair, it used to be fairly long. at the time of him having long hair, people also had it, and when he shaved it, a lot of the other boybands and other people did the same, they also did this when he had a mohawk!(one child even got suspended from school!)
anyway what im saying is that if u really love somehting you will follow it, youll want to be like it, so the prophet insisted we love him more than ourselves and out family so we follow him exactly, why did he want this?
because HE LOVES US!!!we are his ummah, he wants us to get paradise, so he wnats us to follow him as the only way to paradise is through following his lifestyle, when we look at that, he actually said, none of you is a beleiver untill you love me more than yourself. we call ourselves believers, but du we love him more tahn ourselves? we see thru this hadeeth how important it is to follow his way, thru the very fact that we arent a believer unless we follow him inall our ways.

salaam

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by farhan

IMO, man's biggest veil from God is his own ego. Throughout his life he has to make decisions regarding his priorities, "I" or GOD.

as salaam aleykum wr wb

Thank you both for your comments. The above is where my thought process was going with this hadith. That it is a message to us to put our faith and submission to Allah above our ego, our desires.

I do find sometimes that we put our faith in human beings, as a way to be faithful to Allah but this feels wrong to me. Our Beloved Prophet was our example but surely his greatest example to us was to love Allah before anything or it begins to feel as though we are trying to deify the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh), don't you think?

Salaam

[Zaakir]

i dont know if your are reffering to the prophetwhen talkin about putting faith in humans? but Allah says inn the quran that we have to obey and love the messenger and Allah, as the way to Allah id through the example of the messenger, how can it be anything else, how can we understand god without a messenger.yes, we do need 2 love Allah, and through loving Allah, we become more beloved to Him, and He will show us the way of His messenger and make it vivid and attractive to us,

when you love Allah, you love what Allah loves, Allah loves the way of His messenger.

[Muslimwoman]

But surely the way of the messenger is simply Allah's way, therefore what we love is Allah's way, as the messenger himself was a servant of Allah and our best example of how to submit to Allah?

[Zaakir]

yes exactly, thats what i said, or maybe it didnt come across that way, but thats exactly it, as Allah says that the messenger doesnt speak through his own accord, but rather through inspiration, so his way is the way Allah has intended all humans to follow, i find it hard to put into words as i wouldnt say its Allahs way, id say its the way He chose for us, but if i say Allahs way, some might think im refering to Allah eating a ceratin way (like sunnah) etc, as i was a christian and now cannot bear to give or say anything that might sound 'human-ified' when talking about Allah, but yes i do mean what you have written, lol

[Muslimwoman]

Oh no, never let it be said that I would refer to Allah by human traits (sometimes these thoughts are quite difficult to put into words).

So what we are actually told to love more than ourselves is Allah, not the human that lived as our Prophet - would you agree this is the lesson the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was trying to teach us?

[Zaakir]

i know you werent saying that about Allah i just have difficulty saying certain things. but yes its his way we need to love. also to love him as a human is good as he made ceratin choices also like he chose to live a life of simplicity after having a choice to live either rich or poor. i was reading some hadeeth last night and the commentary, and it stated that we need 2 love his way and make it the way of ourselves.

i think about him telling us to love Allah more than anything goes without saying, the quran mentions we need to love Allah and the messenger, follow Allah and the messenger. but the hadeeth is still stating this, would you love the prophet if you werent a muslim, would you follow hs way... no.... so in loving him, you love him for the sake of Allah, loving someone for the sake of someone means you would love the person who you are lovng the other person for. so here we love the rasool for Allah, so we love Allah an uncountable amount more, also as i think you said before, loving the messenger, loving his way, your'e loving the way Allah wanted us to live. also remember the hadeeth, when a man is raised up he will be witht hose who he loved the most, who better to be with on the day of judgement than muhammad. but yeah, basically, i think this goes without saying you need 2 have love for Allah more than anything, as only WHEN you have love for Allah will you love anything for his sake

[Muslimwoman]

Thank you for your reply Zaakir, it just worries me that on the Day of Judgement I will be asked who I loved more than Allah of course I want to answer no-one. If I follow the example of some Muslims around me I would have to answer the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh), as in truth they appear to worship him before Allah and take his words before those of Allah and this troubles me considerably.

[Zaakir]

i understand, as a revert i felt exactly the same, i thought why do they do this?Muhammad said do not over praise me as the christians did to Isa. but the only reason i love Muhammad is for the sake of Allah, and loving him and followinf actions of his more, makes me feel asif i love Allah more. sister, i know exactly what u mean, i was christian before and thought are the muslims doing what the christians did, and it really scraed me at times, like some ppl say they keep a beard for the love of the prophet, rather than saying for the sake of Allah, or i do as the prophet did, and Allah told him what to do. anyway thanks fot the discussion, make du'aa for me plz in this ramadhan

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Zaakir

make du'aa for me plz in this ramadhan

Of course and right back at you.

Thank you for your understanding, it is often difficult to discuss these concerns with other Muslims as they assume I am trying to insult the memory of our Beloved Prophet (pbuh), which I am not, I love and respect him and simply try to follow his teachings that all praise is for Allah.

Happy Ramadan
Salaam

[Amica]

Salaam,

I think the message is not that the Prophet pbuh demanded that everyone loves him more than anyone/anything else. I think the message is that one needs to love other human beings more than oneself, to avoid greed, being selfish and unmindful about the life itself.

Allah Allmighty said that who ever destroys a life, it is like destroying all of the humanity. So much great is supposed to be our respect for other living beings. Loving oneself above others is greedy and disrespectful. If a person feels love for others stronger than for oneself, he/she is able to be generous, kind and peaceful with other living creaturs.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

as salaam aleykum wr wb

I would like to ask other Muslims their opinion of what the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) meant by this:

Once the Prophet was once with his Companions. He then stretched his hand to `Umar ibn Al-Khattab. To that kind act, `Umar responded saying, "O Messenger of God, you are the most beloved to me after myself." The Prophet replied, "No, by Him in Whose Hand is my soul, you can't be a real believer until you love me more than yourself." To this, `Umar replied, " Now you are more beloved to me than myself." Then, the Prophet said, "Now, `Umar, your faith is complete" (Al-Bukhari).

Given that the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was not an arrogant man and strived to teach brotherly love and respect, do you believe he meant we must love him (the Prophet) more than ourselves or that we must learn to love our brothers and sisters more than ourselves?

Salaam

Salaam!!

This is an awesome message, indeed Muhammad (saws) was indeed not an arrogant man... If he were would he say this? "Do not exceed bounds in praising me, as the Christians do in praising Jesus, the son of Mary, by calling Him God, and the Son of God; I am only the Lord's servant; then call me the servant of God and His messenger." But when you look at other teachings of him, you can link a connection between them, Would you say it is important to love yourself first? Then to think of others? Or to love your fellow brothers/sisters before you? It is an act of selflessness.. If you ask my humble opinion. Did he not also say: "If anyone removes (one of the) anxieties of this world from a believer, God will remove (one of the) anxieties from him on the Day of Resurrection; if one smoothes the way for one who is destitute, God will smooth the way for him in this world and the next; and if anyone conceals the faults of a Muslim, God will conceal his faults in this world and the next. God helps a man as long as he helps his brother. If anyone pursues a path in search of knowledge God will thereby make easy for him a path to paradise.”

So it is all for one and one for all, you do good deeds Allah will smile upon you and reward you... Muhammad (saws) was teaching the man of the good deeds so that Allah will show upon him.... Something to contemplate.... Perhaps?

maca salāma