THE PROPHETS CALLED PEOPLE WISELY AND WITH KINDNESS
Another
attribute of the Prophets is calling people to the way of God with wisdom and fair
exhortation.
The Prophets
never resorted to demagogy and dialectics. They always acted wisely and always spoke with
wisdom. God ordered His Last and Greatest Messenger:
Call to the
way of your Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the best way.
(al-Nahl, 16:125)
Man is not a
being that consists of a mind or heart only. He has a complex structure, composed of many
faculties, including the mind, intellect, heart, soul and other innermost faculties. Each
of these requires satisfaction, and the Prophets addressed all of them.
Those who were
taught by the Prophets acquired certainty, and their view of things differed from those
with limited external sight, devoid of insight and spiritual vision. Their conviction of
religious truths was unshakeable, and they were continually fed with Divine Revelation.
They did not merely speak without action nor act without contemplation. They combined
speech with action, knowledge with practice and action with contemplation. Some among
them, like ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, would say, If the veil of the Unseen were lifted
up, my certainty would not increase. Their conviction was so strong that supposing
they were to see with their eyes what they believed of the Unseen, their certainty would
not increase. There was no further degree of certainty left for them to attain.
The education
given by the Prophets to their disciples, or the function of the Prophets, is described in
a precise way in the Qur’anic verse:
We have sent
among you, of yourselves, a Messenger, to recite Our signs to you and to purify you, and
to teach you the Book and Wisdom, and to teach you what you know not. (al-Baqara, 2.151)
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