The Person of the Prophet ﷺ

خُلُقُهُ مَعَ النَّاسِ

His Character with People

Ten years of service without a word of rebuke, generosity that never refused a request, and a mercy that the Qur'an itself named as the reason people gathered around him.

3 min read · 15 sources

And if you had been rude and hard-hearted, they would have dispersed from around you.

— Qur'an 3:159, Sūrat Āl ʿImrān

“His Character Was the Qur'an”

Saʿd ibn Hishām asked ʿĀʾishah to describe the Prophet's ﷺ character. She answered with a question — “Do you not read the Qur'an?” — and then said, “His character was the Qur'an.”1 The Qur'an itself says of him, “And indeed, you are of a tremendous character,” and states plainly what his manner accomplished: “So by mercy from God you were lenient with them. And if you had been rude and hard-hearted, they would have dispersed from around you.”2

Anas ibn Mālik served him from the age of ten, and his testimony is the most quoted sentence in this whole subject: “I served the Messenger of God ﷺ for ten years. By God, he never said 'uff' to me, and he never said of anything I did, 'Why did you do this?' or of anything I did not do, 'Why did you not do this?'”3

His Generosity

Ibn ʿAbbās said he was “the most generous of people,” and most generous of all in Ramaḍān when Jibrīl would meet him nightly to review the Qur'an — “more generous with good than the sent wind.”4 Jābir said, “He was never asked for anything and said no.”5

A man came asking, and he gave him a flock of sheep filling the space between two mountains; the man went back to his people and said, “My people, accept Islam — for Muḥammad gives like a man who has no fear of poverty.”6 A bedouin pulled hard at his cloak, leaving a mark on his neck, and demanded a share of God's wealth; he turned to him, laughed, and ordered that he be given something.7

With Servants, Women, and the Weak

ʿĀʾishah reported that he never struck anything with his hand — not a servant, not a woman — except when fighting in the path of God.8 His final counsel, repeated in his last illness until his voice failed, joined two things: “The prayer, the prayer — and those whom your right hands possess.”9

He said, “Your brothers are your servants whom God has placed under your authority. Whoever has his brother under his authority, let him feed him from what he eats and clothe him from what he wears; do not burden them with what overwhelms them, and if you do, then help them.”10 He would accept the invitation of a slave, ride a donkey, and sit with the poor; and when a woman who used to sweep the mosque died and was buried without his being told, he asked why they had not informed him, went to her grave, and prayed over it.11

The last-recorded scene of his public preaching before his death, in the Farewell Sermon, returned to the same theme: no Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab over an Arab, except by God-consciousness; and “your blood and your property are sacred to you.”12

With Those Who Wronged Him

ʿĀʾishah asked him whether a day had come upon him harder than the day of Uḥud, and he told her about Ṭāʾif — being driven from the town by its people and stoned by its children until his sandals filled with blood, and the angel of the mountains being sent to him with permission to crush the town between its two hills. He refused: “Rather, I hope that God will bring from their descendants those who worship God alone.”13

At the conquest of Makkah, standing before the people who had persecuted his companions for thirteen years, killed his uncle Ḥamzah, and driven him from his home, he asked, “What do you think I am going to do with you?” They said, “Good — a noble brother and the son of a noble brother.” He said: “Go, for you are free.”14

The Qur'an's own summary of the man is a single clause, and the classical scholars treated it as the completed portrait: “And We have not sent you except as a mercy to all the worlds.”15

Sources & Further Reading

  1. 1

    Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn — ʿĀʾishah: “his character was the Qur'an” (ḥadīth 746); also Musnad Aḥmad.

    Ḥadīth
  2. 2

    Qur'an 68:4 and 3:159, on his character and his leniency.

    Qur'an
  3. 3

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Adab, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — Anas: “he never said 'uff' to me” (Bukhārī 6038; Muslim 2309).

    Ḥadīth
  4. 4

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb Badʾ al-Waḥy, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — Ibn ʿAbbās: “more generous than the sent wind” (Bukhārī 6; Muslim 2308).

    Ḥadīth
  5. 5

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Adab, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — Jābir: “he was never asked and said no” (Bukhārī 6034; Muslim 2311).

    Ḥadīth
  6. 6

    Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Faḍāʾil — the flock between two mountains and “a man who has no fear of poverty” (ḥadīth 2312).

    Ḥadīth
  7. 7

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Libās, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — the bedouin who pulled his cloak (Bukhārī 5809; Muslim 1057).

    Ḥadīth
  8. 8

    Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Faḍāʾil — ʿĀʾishah: he never struck a servant or a woman (ḥadīth 2328).

    Ḥadīth
  9. 9

    Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Kitāb al-Adab, and Sunan Ibn Mājah — his final counsel: “the prayer, and those whom your right hands possess.”

    Ḥadīth
  10. 10

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Īmān, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — “your brothers are your servants” (Bukhārī 30; Muslim 1661).

    Ḥadīth
  11. 11

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Ṣalāh, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — praying at the grave of the woman who swept the mosque (Bukhārī 458; Muslim 956).

    Ḥadīth
  12. 12

    Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Ḥajj, and Musnad Aḥmad — the Farewell Sermon.

    Ḥadīth
  13. 13

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb Badʾ al-Khalq, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim — the angel of the mountains at Ṭāʾif (Bukhārī 3231; Muslim 1795).

    Ḥadīth
  14. 14

    Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, and al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā — “Go, for you are free,” at the conquest of Makkah.

    Classical sīrah
  15. 15

    Qur'an 21:107, “And We have not sent you except as a mercy to all the worlds.”

    Qur'an

See the full bibliography for the works cited across this site.