The Blueprint To Living Like the Prophet in the Modern World

What does it mean to love the Prophet ﷺ? For many of us, loving the Prophet ﷺ is a birthday ritual, a once-a-year commemoration, a once-in-a-while celebration.

It is something that we do with our clothing, something that we do as an occasional thing now and again to pay tribute to him.

But how did the Prophet ﷺ himself define love for the Prophet? Because we can't talk about the character of the Prophet, we can't talk about imitating his character, until we talk about what comes first.

First, we have to love him more than we love ourselves.

The Prophet ﷺ informs us in a hadith collected by Imam al-Tirmidhi, The most severe of my ummah, my people, the most severe of them in their love for me, the ones who love me the most, people who will come long after I have passed away.

There are people who would be willing to give up their family and their children and their wealth just for the chance to see me, to see me with their naked eyes.

Imam al-Tirmidhi also narrates from the hadith of Bilal ibn al-Harith .

The Prophet ﷺ says, Whoever revives one of my practices, one of my character traits that was dead after me, you will get the reward of reviving something which has died.

And people you inspire to revive that act of the Prophet ﷺ, you will get their reward as well and nobody will lose their reward.

And the Prophet ﷺ says, None of you have complete faith until he loves me more than himself and his family and all of humanity.

What is the greatest route to loving the Messenger ﷺ? It is learning about who he was.

And if we want to ensure that our children don't get attracted and attached to the next Jordan Peterson or the next Andrew Tate or the next B-Tech personality on the internet, then we have to make them attached to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

And we have to attach ourselves to the Prophet ﷺ.

And that will only happen through one action.

Through one action and one action only.

And that is for every one of us sitting in this room and every person hearing this on the internet and every person who will hear this until their grave.

So often we hear that the earliest Muslims would complete the recitation of the Quran every month.

But there is another practice we need to revive in our families, which is reciting and reading the life of the Prophet ﷺ.

Every month, every two months, every three months, every four, every five, it doesn't matter.

To mention his name in the gathering, to teach our children to send salat and salam upon him.

These practices, if they die, they will be a huge vacuum in the lives, in our lives.

A vacuum which will only be filled by another personality, another celebrity, another rich person, another businessman, another tycoon, another historic figure.

And it will not hold the place of the Prophet ﷺ because the love of him has disappeared.

The love of the Prophet is not a ritual.

It is not something you force somebody to do at gunpoint.