Muhammad’s(ﷺ) Worship
Muhammad (peace be upon him) shows how He practices acts of worshipping Allah in all aspects, even in His clothes He sets good manners for putting on a dress, starting with the right hand then with the left praising Allah on buying a new dress, “Praise he to Allah Who has clothed me with this and provided me with it through no might and power on my part.”
He also asked Allah to enable Him to make good deeds, while wearing that new dress and to keep Him away from evil that the new dress might bring, ‘O Allah, all the praise is for You, that You have given it to me to put on. I ask You its goodness and the goodness of the purpose for which it was made, and I seek Your protection from its evil and the evil of the purpose for which it was made”.
When informed that the messages He sends to kings and presidents should be sealed, He used a silver one; He put in His little finger of the left hand and sometimes in the right. Three lines were engraved on the ring, (the word) ‘Muhammad’ was in a line, ‘Apostle’ was in another line, and ‘Allah’ in a third.
Therefore, Muhammad (peace be upon him) was balanced in handling clothes; He did not wear ragged or dirty dresses, but rather He instructed Muslims to put on fine clothes and pay attention to handsomeness.
At the same time, He did not exaggerate in clothes or put on what led to arrogance and setting Him above the others.
Thus the system of dress was not separated from that of morals and values Muhammad (peace be upon him) called for in which modesty, common sense, handsomeness and bashfulness manifested themselves.
Muhammad’s Slumber
As Muhammad (peace be upon him) considered all His acts as acts of worshipping Allah, He did so with sleep which was not like others in being a complete detachment from life, escape from problems and crises and distance from the cycle of responsibilities, but He rather looked upon sleep as an act of worship.
He set habitual practices and manners for slumber by which He abided and recommended His nation to do so. Upon lying down, He put His right palm below the right cheek, then soliloquizing, “O my Lord! Save me from Thy torment on the Day when Thoil, wouldst raise or gather Thy servants.”
In His sleep, the Prophet remembered death, where one does not avail or harm oneself, reminding Himself of the Day of Judgment, when Allah resurrects people, then asking Allah to shield Him from the torture of that Day.
Huzaifa bin Al-Yemen narrates of another supplication of the Prophet (peace be upon him) when He goes to bed. Huzaifa said, “Whenever the Prophet lay down for sleep at night, He would supplicate.’O Allah, with Your Name, will I die and live (wake up)’.
And when He woke up, He would supplicate, ‘All praise is due to Allah, Who has brought us back to life after He has caused us to die, and to Him is the return’”.
In another supplication, when He (peace be upon him) went to bed, He remembered the blessings Allah bestowed upon Him by day; of food, drink, sufficiency and shelter, and remembered those who had no shelter or anything to satisfy them and said, “Praise is due to Allah Who has fed us, provided us drink, satisfied us and gave us protection. Many are those who have nobody to provide for them, or give them shelter.”
Anyway, Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not sleep much; In His sleep He was not heedless of worshipping Allah. He slept part of the night, then got up to pray alone in the middle of the night. Sometimes He slept early at night, got up at the middle, then slept at the end.
Furthermore, Muhammad (peace be upon him) considered night worship as the best because it is sincere and earns the heart belief, transparency and purity where men draws closer to Allah. He says in a tradition of best salat after the prescribed salat is salat at night.”
Moreover, He used to follow up the affairs of His companions asking them to pray in the middle of the night as purification of their hearts and a kind of psychological education. His companion, Abdallah bin Amr bin Al-As narrated that “Muhammad came across him, saying, ‘0 Abdullah! Do not be like so-and-so. He used to get up at night for optional prayer but abandoned it later’”.
Sometimes, He prayed at night, reciting one verse of the Qur’an and weeping asking Allah to forgive His nation with people hearing His weeping till day broke while He was soliloquizing Allah saying, “If You punish them, they are Your slaves, and if You forgive them, verily, You, only You, are the Almighty, the All-Wise.”
Muhammad (peace be upon him) was not bent on preparing a luxurious place for His sleep, but rather slept on a simple bed. His wife Aisha (may Allah be satisfied with her) says, “The pillow on which Allah’s Messenger (May peace be upon him) reclined was of leather stuffed with palm fiber.”
One day, His companion Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah bless him, came to Him to find Him lying on a mat that left its mark on His body.
Umar wept, but Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Why are you weeping?”
Umar said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Caesar and Khosrau are leading the life (luxurious life) while you, Allah’s Apostle though you are, is living in destitution:’
The Prophet then replied, ‘won’t you be satisfied that they enjoy this world and we the hereafter’?”
Upon getting up, the Prophet remembered Allah. The first thing He uttered, “Praise is due to Allah, Who gave us life after our death (sleep) and unto Thee is resurrection.”
Here He praised Allah for another blessing; that is to back to life. A new day, in the eyes of Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a new blessing worthy of praising Allah for. He also used to say, “Praise be to Allah who gave me life (after sleep), granted me health in my body, and gave me permission to mention Him (in invocations).”
Moreover, He ordered His nation to be more attached to remembering Allah in their sleep, to shelter themselves from Satan’s harm during sleep, and to enlighten the pains of terrible dreams by taking refuge in remembering Allah and seeking His pardon.
As man sees visions and dreams in his sleep, and people vary accordingly from fear, worry or cheerfulness, Muhammad (peace be upon him) instructed His nation in how to deal with visions, showing their divisions: some of them are the result of man’s thinking while he is awake, some others are from Satan and the third group is an indication to future good news or good circumstances and events to come.
He (peace be upon him) then directs us to deal with vision. He ordered whoever sees a bad vision, should seek refuge in Allah from its harm, not to tell it that to anyone else, and not to be worried over it; for no harm with befall him. Allah’s h Apostle (peace be upon him) also ordered every Muslim who sees a good vision to narrate it only to the people who are competent in interpreting dreams.
When Muhammad (peace be upon him) got up, He started with siwak (tooth stick) to smell good, then made ablution and here He recommended His nation if anyone gets up, one must not dip one’s hand in the water container till one washes it thrice then makes ablution.
His cousin, Abdullah bin Abbas, tells of a rare situation he saw of Muhammad (peace be upon him) when he was a young boy, “He spent the night at Muhammad’s, and lay across the width of the pillow where Muhammad sat across the length;’ Ibn Abbas added, “The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) slept up till midnight, or a little before midnight of a little after midnight, and then got up and began to cast off the effects of sleep from his face by rubbing with His hand, and then recited the ten concluding verses of surah Imran. He then stood up near a hanging water-skin and performed ablution well, and then stood up and prayed, Ibn Abbas said, I also stood up and did the same, as the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) had done, and then went to Him and stood by his side.”
Muhammad in His Mirth and Grief
Muhammad (peace be upon him) led a natural life among people; He did not try to conceal His human feelings from His companions around Him who constantly followed up His affairs according to Allah’s command, when He said, “There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and (who) remembers Allah often.” (Al-Ahzab: 21)
The Prophet (peace be upon him) lived His life as did any of His community, participating in every situation of theirs; thus they lived with Him in His mirth and grief, laughter and weeping describing every particular aspect of His life with nothing concealed from them.
