Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 115
115 was openly and widely proclaimed. They found it so true that on no occasion and in no particular did they ever call it in question. It was a standing challenge to his opponents. They never took it up. The Prophet was commanded to proclaim: “If Allah had so willed I would not have recited the Quran to you, nor would He have made it known to you. I have indeed lived among you a whole lifetime before this. Will you not then understand?” (10:17). Thus God put forward the purity and righteousness of the Prophet’s life, which those who opposed him so bitterly had observed at close quarters, as proof that he was not capable of uttering a lie against God. Not without reason had his fellow townsmen bestowed upon him the title “ El-Ameen ,” the Trusty, the Faithful. Faced squarely with this challenge, not one of them ever attempted to assert that Muhammad had on any occasion been guilty of saying or doing that which was not utterly true, completely righteous. Yet all the time he had to stress that he was but a man like the rest, lest, observing the security that he enjoyed in the midst of constant danger, the success that he extracted even from persecution and defeat, and the ultimate triumph of his cause to which the whole of Arabia was witness, some might be tempted to ascribe to him supernatural capacities and powers or superhuman status. “Say: ‘I am but a man like