Imitation of The Prophet
The individual method, referred to above, consists of initiating the Prophet Muhammad, particularly in his methods of worship. The idea behind imitation the Prophet is to allow everybody to recast and remold his character so as to develop his total personality. This development takes place by the release of all types of inherited and acquired psychological complexes which are the chief enemy of freedom. The means for release of these complexes consists of the Quran and the worship practices passed down to us by the Prophet. A worship practice which deserves a special mention is the Prophet’s prayer which was always a comfort to him.
The Prophet’s prayer, which was five times a day, plus the night vigil which he used to observe in the last third of every night, occupies a special position amongst his worship practices. This is because in prayer all the faculties of an individual mind, body and heart are engaged in a way which progressively unifies the human self, so that it is no longer sharply divided between inner self and an outer one, or between a consciousness and an unconsciousness.
Indeed one can say a lot about how prayer, and the ablution necessary for it function in the release of all psychological complexes, and how an intelligent person can use prayer as a “psychoanalytic therapeutic session” which he repeats every day and night in order to cultivate a balanced, mature and productive personality, and to ultimately attain absolute individual freedom. But the size of this pamphlet, which is by its nature introductory, compels us to wind up this topic here.
But before doing so, we must draw attention to the fact that imitating the Prophet Muhammad is not the limit of our intrinsic creative abilities and potentialities. Instead, the perfect initiation of the Prophet is the means to be liberated from imitation itself. This is because everybody’s worship is but his means to achieve his originality (or individuality) which distinguishes him from all other human beings. Now imitation, even in its mildest form, is a denial of individuality and originality. But, of course, individuality can not be achieved by being forever denied. However, imitation of the Prophet is only used as a preparatory stage which is succeeded by the stage of originality (or individuality) when the individual acquires his own methods of worship, including prayer, by which he further unifies his self so as to continue broadening and deepening his life.
The broadening and deepening of his life means the expansion of feeling and the sharpening of thought. The expansion of feeling requires a heart set at peace, and the sharpening of thought rest on a clear mind. Thus a heart set at peace and a clear mind are what we are after. As we mentioned, in a previous section, the New Islamic Mission has succeeded by appealing to the universal contents of Quran, in unmasking the “scientific” stage of “Religion,” or say the Second Message of Islam which has drawn upon what binds men together, namely their common faculties of heart and mind. So it is natural to elaborate a bit, in what follows, on the statement that the Second Message of Islam represents the scientific phase of Islam, a statement which has many connotations and which can be viewed from different angles.
