Seerah of the Prophet صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم - Why Study the Seerah?

Why Study the Seerah?

• Allah has put this obligation on us. Over 50 verses command us to take the Prophet SAWW as an example. Indeed there is for you in the Prophet SAWW an exemplary character. We look at this example for all spheres of life and deen.
• It is the best way to increase our love for the Prophet SAWW and it is also a demonstration of our love for the Prophet SAWW. A sign of loving someone is the desire to know more about the person.
• It helps us to understand the Quran because the Quran has to be understood in its context. Every Surah has a shaan e nuzool and a context of revelation which is understood through the seerah.
• The seerah lifts our spirits and gives us optimism. It helps us to practise Islam in this age of fitnah. The persecution we face is not even close to the persecution the sahaba RAS faced so it gives us a lot of strength. Allah also used to tell stories of the prophets to the Prophet SAWW to give him hope.
• The biggest of his miracles is his seerah. His seerah and the transformation of arabs through his seerah is a beautiful proof of his prophethood SAWW.
• Seerah lays out a methodology for the revival of the Ummah. We should follow his methodology if we want to revive the ummah. He SAWW began from scratch and built an Islamic state. Studying seerah gives us insight into the best generation that ever lived(RadiAllahu anhum wa Radhu anh). The Prophet SAWW said the best ummah is by ummah. Allah chose the purest heart for prophethood and other pure hearts for sahabah.
• Studying the seerah will arm us to defend the Prophet SAWW against false claims of the kuffaar and the atheists. It will allow us to understand many things that are misused to create controversy.

The Prophet SAWW is the leader and the Sayyid of mankind. He is the best person to live on Earth.

Where to study the seerah from?
1-The Quran
2-All of the ahadith
3-Books about seerah(starting from the sahaba and tabaeen, but the earliest sources are not saved because of the lack of resources for printing. Ibn e Ishaq and Ibn e Hisham are one of the earliest sources. Ibn e Ishaq wrote huge volumes and with their isnaad and chain of narrators. Ibn e Hisham made a summarized version of the seerah. Now we cannot find Ibn e Ishaq's book. The seerah was summarized by Ibn e Hisham because it was hard to make copies of the extremely lengthy book by hand. Ibn e Ishaq's book was just hundred years after the death of Prophet SAWW which is even before the books of ahadith.
4-Shamails are books about the specialties and characters of Prophet SAWW e.g. shamail e tirmidhi
5- Miracles of the prophethood e.g. Dalail e Nabuwwah of Bayhiqi

PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA

Most Arabs have become Arabs through culture and not pure ancestry.
Arab al Baiyda(extinct Arabs): Earliest civilizations that lived in Arabia thousands of years ago e.g. Aad and Samood. They lived in the land which was later called Arabia. Samood is the earliest humanity in Arabia.

Arab al Baqiyah(remaining Arabs) have two categories:
Two tribes: Qahtan and Adnan
QAHTAN is the father of Arabs. His son was Yarab from which Arab comes. Arabic language is traced to Yarab. Majority opinion says that Qahtan goes back to one of the sons of Nooh AS(Saam). Semites are the descendants of Saam and they are Hebrews. Nooh AS had three sons but this is not completely authentic but one of his sons led to African lineage, one to Caucasian lineage,and one led to Qahtan and Arabs. Another minority opinion is that Qahtan is the son of Ibrahim and an even weak opinion is that Qahtan is the son of Hud AS. Qahtanis lived in Southern Arabia and had a number of dynasties e.g. Sabaa, Aus and Khazraj

ADNAN is the ancestor of our Prophet SWS. Adnan is one of the descendants of the Prophet Ismael AS. Eventually they go back to the same son of Nooh AS. Ismael AS is Iraqi. Ismael AS married into Qahtanis and began speaking their language Arabic and his children are a merger. All of the Arab tribes e.g. Quraysh are from Adnan. Adnan was the 20th grandfather of Prophet SWS. The followers are called Arab al mustaraba because they learnt Arabic and they became even more eloquent than Arab al Aariba.

RELIGIOUS STATUS OF THE WORLD BEFORE ISLAM
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