Salam, Salma.

Thank you for your question.

There is a natural tendency when we speak of a person's multiple roles to think in terms of tension or, in those moments when we display either a positive or pragmatic disposition, balance between competing pulls. We think of the parent, the child, the employee, the volunteer, all as disjoint functions or competing demands.

There is nothing wrong per se with this outlook; it probably reflects the lived experience of most of us, and may be useful from a teaching or learning perspective when we try to understand how to lead a good life. But it does miss on a deeper level the integrity of the individual human being and the fact that he or she is all of these things simultaneously.

There is a significant difference between thinking of each of these roles, functions, or demands as an attribute of the person and between thinking of each of them as an aspect of the person or, worse still, a separate person.

These perspectives carry over into theology and spirituality as we speak of God. God has given us His beautiful names as attributes that are simultaneously descriptive of God.

Knowledge of God arises from understanding the harmony (as opposed to tension or even balance) of these attributes subsisting in the person of God. We read,

*{Indeed He is the Mighty, the Merciful.}* (Ad-Dukhan 44:42)

It is not that He is mighty and merciful, or that He is mighty but merciful, or that He requires any other conjunction between these two attributes. He simply is the Mighty, the Merciful. This is invariably the language employed by the Quran and it is linguistically what would be required to present multiple attributes simultaneously and harmoniously descriptive of one person.

So it is with the Prophet (peace be upon him). Too often we make the mistake of trying to interpret, for understanding or for justification, some event or reality related to the life of Prophet Muhammad without a prior appreciation of his role and the appropriate description of his person.

He was in fact an extraordinary ordinary person. He was a divinely inspired human being in charge of guiding all of humanity, leading those that followed him out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of beauty and majesty, and building a community and a civilization that would last until this Earth is no more.

He was a living person, with needs and wants and weaknesses, who was nonetheless a teacher and an example of human perfection. He was someone that had, as the Quran describes him,

*{a higher claim on the believers than they have on their own selves.}* (Al-Ahzab 33:6)

And he was all of that simultaneously, without contradiction or tension. Is it any wonder that God placed for him in the hearts of those that came to know him love and reverence together?

One of his companions described him as "the most generous in giving, most forbearing, softest by nature, the easiest to get along with, and most committed to truth and integrity. When one would first meet him one would be in awe of him, and those that came to know him came to love him." (At-Tirmidhi)

Another simply said, "When you saw him, you were seeing the sun in its glory." (Ad-Darimi)

In the sixth year after Hijrah the Prophet entered into a treaty of truce with Quraish (the people of Makkah, his home town from which he and the believers had had to flee in search of freedom to worship as they believed). Leading up to the treaty, Quraish had sent multiple emissaries to the Muslims' camp to get different people's perspectives on the state of the Muslims, their intent, their readiness for war, etc.

Each of the emissaries in turn came under one pretext or another and went back to Quraish with his analysis. One such emissary was Urwa ibn Masud, a well-traveled man with considerable experience in matters both military and diplomatic.

Upon his return he simply told his people, "I have visited Caesar in his court, and Khusraw in his palace. I have never met a people that love their leader the way the followers of Muhammad do." (Abu Al-Qasim Al-Suhaili, Al-Rawd Al-Anif, vol. 4, p. 47)

Together with this love, existing with it simultaneously, harmoniously, and quite naturally in view of the person and the role of the Messenger was a deep seated, essential reverence for Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Without such reverence the message would not be complete and the mission of the Prophet would be impossible.

Reverence for the messenger is in fact one of the keys to understanding. Messengers are chosen: the role is not one for which one prepares or auditions. Messengers are nurtured by God and prepared through life experience, trials of significant hardship, and manifest divine intervention for the heavy burden that they would have to bear.

It cannot be otherwise for someone that will serve as the living connection between the world of appearance and the world of reality. And it cannot be otherwise for someone that will bear the rejection of human beings and their enmity and injury while seeking with love and compassion to save them from their own injustice. And no one that recognizes these objective realities could fail to have the deepest reverence for such a person.

Such a person is no longer "just" a human being; he is in fact the human being par excellence. Humility before Truth generates reverence for the embodiment of truth. And the reverence becomes a lens that enables adequate vision of truth.

For these reasons, God deems understanding of the station of the messenger part of the message itself, requires His messengers to communicate this as they would any other part of the revealed truth, and sets an expectation that believers will act in accordance with their knowledge of, and reverence for, the messenger's rank.

The Quran declares,

*{As for those who malign God's Apostle – grievous suffering awaits them (in the life to come).}* (At-Tawbah 9:61)

The Quran reminds Prophet Muhammad,

*{Have we not opened up your heart? And lifted from you the burden that had weighed so heavily on your back? And have we not raised high your renown?}* (Ash-Sharh 94:1-4)  

And he was required to teach, as part of his message, that high renown, "I am the noblest of the children of Adam, and this is not a boast." (Ibn Majah)

It is therefore imperative first that we ourselves feel the love and reverence that are the essential relationship between the believer and a messenger that had shouldered an extraordinary burden to bring comfort and guidance to that believer.

More than a commandment to be fulfilled, this is an expectation of an attitude that will come to exist in the soul that has understood the truth of revelation. Once that step is taken, the significance of the verses in question becomes clear.

*{Do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet and do not speak loudly to him as you would speak loudly to one another lest your deeds come to naught without you perceiving it.}* (Al-Hujurat 49:2)

There are several accounts of the specific context in which these verses came to be revealed, each recounting some incident where one or more individuals simply lost sight of the station of the messenger and acted in his presence without reverence for that presence.

The most telling of these accounts is one involving Abu Bakr and Umar (may God be pleased with them). A particular tribe had come to the Prophet to request that he appoint them a leader or teacher. Unprompted, Abu Bakr suggested a particular person. Umar responded with a different recommendation.

Abu Bakr assumed, and declared, that Umar merely wanted to oppose his recommendation. Umar insisted that he had nothing of the sort in mind. The back and forth that ensued resulted in raised voices and a tension that visibly pained the Prophet. The two, realizing part of their error, subsided.

The verses came down, and one observer commented, "The two people of excellence were almost ruined!" (Al-Bukhari) The community had understood the significance of what happened.

Insidious suspicion had entered the hearts of these two great men with respect to each other's intentions. And despite their greatness, they fell prey to such suspicion to such an extent that even their reverence to the Prophet, fell by the wayside. And that would have been the door to ruin had they not responded to the divine teaching.

Abu Bakr and Umar set the beautiful example for believers in their response to this instruction. From that point onward it became their habit to remain silent in the presence of the prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, until they were addressed. And when they did speak they spoke in the low voice of someone communicating a confidence.

The Quran uses instructions to the Prophet himself and to his close companions, trusted by him and blessed by God, as a way of teaching believers for all time, without taking away any of their rank or stature.

For subsequent generations the lesson is no less relevant. Love and reverence for the Prophet need to be simultaneously cultivated in the heart. This cultivation requires assiduous attention and tender nourishment.

It is brought about by knowledge and understanding not only of the story of his life, but of the experience that he lived and the significance of his struggle for our knowledge of our own selves, our Lord, and our place in the Universe.

Muhammad Asad notes,

"This has both a literal and a figurative meaning: literal in the case of the Prophet's Companions, and figurative for them as well as for believers of later times – implying that one's personal opinions and predilections must not be allowed to overrule the clear-cut legal ordinances and/or moral stipulations promulgated by the Prophet.”

If we are successful in illuminating our intellects with love and reverence for the Prophet (peace be upon him) this will manifest itself in the way we study his Sunnah and are receptive to his guidance. And if we are successful in warming our hearts with this love and reverence we will be able to respond to the Truth with which he came and manifest it in our lives.

I hope this answers your question. Please keep in touch.

Salam.

Useful Links:

Owing Respect to the Prophet

Were Prophets and Companions Infallible?

The Model of the Prophet

The First Muslim Caliph

Abu Bakr: A Man Among Men (Part One)

Abu Bakr: A Man Among Men (Part Two)