ISLAMIC ARTICLE :- ~ Hypocrites say that family ties are what matter, but Allah reveals in the Qur'an that it is the ties of faith that matter/

Allah reveals in the Qur'an that believers should be respectful,
affectionate and loving toward their parents, and commands them to be
protective toward and watch over their relatives. A pure believer is
kind, affectionate and full of love in respect of his family and
everyone, expecting no reward for being so. However, in the event that
any one of his family or his relatives triesto prevent him having
faith in Allah, following the Prophet (saas) or living by religious
moral values, then of course he will obey Allah's commandand turn his
back on the person seeking to divert him from Allah's path. It is
revealed in one verse that:
Say: "If your fathers or your sons or your brothers or your wives or
your tribe, or any wealth you have acquired, or any business you fear
may slump, or any house which pleases you, are dearer to you than
Allah and His Messenger and striving in His Way, then wait until Allah
brings about His command. Allah does not guide people who are
deviators." (Surat at-Tawba, 24)
As revealed in the verse, nothing is finer and more valuable for a
pure believer than Allah, His Messenger (saas) and striving on Allah's
path.
But hypocrites' criteria andvalues are based on self-interest, rather
than the Qur'an. This comes outin their familial relations, as in
their relations with everyone else. The family is not a holy and
sacred concept for the hypocrite, but somewhere that will help him
survive, provide him with opportunities and make material means
available. To put it another way, it is a gateway to income.
Therefore, the reason why hypocrites regard family ties as important,
in their own eyes, is self-interest. They imagine that their brothers,
spouses, parents or other relatives among believers will regard this
bond as important. The fact is, however, that Allahhas revealed that
the important bond for believers and His approval is that of faith.
In concentrating on familyties, hypocrites do this notbecause they
really love their families, would be prepared to make sacrifices for
them or would watch over and protect them, but out of self-interest.
When there isno hope of personal gain, they never think of their
familial ties, brothers or parents. Indeed, it is revealed in the
Qur'an thatwhen faced with the torment of the Hereafter they will
willingly give up their children, parents and all they love in order
to save themselves.
The bonds between believers and their families are honestly based on
love of Allah andHis approval. The believer is warm, full of love,
protective, loyal and altruistic toward his family, as he is toward
all those who have faith. A devout believer will never even say "ugh"
to his parents. In addition, as required by Allah's command, if one of
the members of his family tries to turn him from Allah's path or
pressurizes him to engage in idolatry, he will never heed that person,
even if it is his mother or father.
Indeed, by citing examplesfrom the lives of the prophets, it is
revealed in the Qur'an that throughout the course of history true
believers havealways left their spouses, children or parents for not
believing in Allah, for not living by the moral values of the deen,
for engaging in denial or for being hypocrites. For example;
The Prophet Abraham (as) Who Fell out with His Father:
Abraham would not have asked forgiveness for his father but for a
promise he made to him, and WHEN IT BECAME CLEAR TO HIM THAT HE WAS AN
ENEMY OF ALLAH, HE RENOUNCED HIM . Abraham was tender-hearted and
forbearing. (Surat at-Tawba, 114)
He said, "Do you forsake my gods, Abraham? If you do not stop, I will
stone you. Keep away from me for a good long time." He said, "Peace be
upon you. Iwill ask my Lord to forgiveyou. He has always honored me. I
WILL SEPARATE MYSELF FROM YOU AND ALL YOU CALL UPON BEDISES ALLAH and
I will call upon my Lord. It may well be that, in calling on my Lord,
I will not be disappointed.' (Surah Maryam, 46-48)
The Prophet Noah (as) Falls out With His Son:
Noah called out to his Lordand said, "My Lord, my sonis one of my
family and Your promise is surely the truth and You are the Justest of
Judges." (Surah Hud, 45)
He said, " NOAH, HE IS DEFINITELY NOT OF YOUR FAMILY. He is someone
whose action was not righteous. Do not, therefore, ask Me for
something about which you have no knowledge. I admonish you lest you
should be among the ignorant." (Surah Hud, 46)
The Prophets Noah (as) and Lot (as) Fall out withTheir Wives:
ALLAH HAS MADE AN EXAMPLE FOR THOSE WHOARE UNBELIEVERS: THE WIFE OF
NOAH AND THE WIFE OF LOT./

IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

5] The verses have been prefaced, in the voice of the Most High, by
aheavenly call mandating the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to undertake
this daunting responsibility (calling people unto Allâh). The verses
meant to extract him forcibly out of his sleep, divest him of his
mantle and detach him from the warmthand quiet of life, and then drive
him down a new course attended with countless hardships, and requiring
a great deal of strife in the way of Allâh:
*.
*. "O you [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] enveloped (in garments)!
Arise and warn." [74:1-2]
Suggesting that to live to oneself is quite easy, but it has been
decided that you have to shoulder this heavy burden; consequently
sleep, comfort, or warm bed are items decreed to be alien in your
lexicon of life. O Muhammad, arise quickly for the strife and toil
awaiting you; no time is there for sleep and such amenities; grave
responsibilities have been Divinely determined tofall to your lot, and
drive you into the turmoil of life to develop a new sort of precarious
affinity with the conscience of people and the reality of life.
The Prophet (Peace be upon him) managed quite successfully to rise to
his feet and measure up to the new task, he went ahead in a spirit of
complete selflessness, relentlessly striving and never abating in
carrying theburden of the great Trust, the burden of enlightening
mankind,and the heavy weight of the newfaith and strife for over
twenty years, nothing distracting his attention from the awcommission.
May Allâh rewardhim, for us and all humanity, the best ending. The
following research at hand gives an account in miniature of his long
strive and uninterrupted strugglehe made after receiving the ministry
of Messengership./

IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

4] PROCLAIMING ALLAH, THE ALL-HIGH; AND THE IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS
The first Revelation sent to the Prophet (Peace be upon him) implied
several injunctions, simple in form but highly effective and of
serious far-reaching ramifications. The angel communicated to him a
manifest Message saying:
*.
*. "O you [Muhammad (Peace be upon him) ] enveloped (in garments)!
Arise and warn! And your Lord (Allâh) magnify! And your garments
purify! And keep away from Ar-Rujz (the idols). And give not a thing
in order to have more (or consider not your deeds of Allâh's obedience
as a favour toAllâh). And be patient for the sake of your Lord (i.e.
perform your duty to Allâh)!" [74:1-7]
For convenience and ease of understanding, we are going to segment the
Message into its immediate constituents:
1. The ultimate objective of warning is to make sure that no one
breaching the pleasuresof Allâh in the whole universe isignorant of
the serious consequences that his behaviour entails, and to createa
sort of unprecedented shock within his mind and heart.
2. 'Magnifying the Lord' dictates explicitly that the only pride
allowed to nourish on the earthis exclusively Allâh's to the exclusion
of all the others'.
3. 'Cleansing the garments and shunning all aspects of abomination'
point directly to the indispensable need to render both the exterior
and interior exceptionally chaste and pure, in addition to the
prerequisite of sanctifying the soul and establishing it highly immune
against the different sorts of impurities and the various kinds of
pollutants. Onlythrough this avenue can the soul of the Prophet
(Peace be upon him) reach an ideal statusand become eligible to enjoy
the shady mercy of Allâh and His protection, security, guidance and
ever-shining light; and will consequently set the highest example to
the human community, attract the sound hearts and inspire awe and
reverence in the stray onesin such a manner that all the world, in
agreement or disagreement, will head for it and take it as the
rock-bed in all facets of their welfare.
4. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) must not regard his strife in the
way of Allâh as a deed of grace that entitles him to a great reward.
On the contrary, he has to exert himself to the utmost, dedicate his
whole efforts and be ready to offer all sacrifices in a spirit of
self-fogetfulness enveloped by an ever-present awareness of Allâh,
without the least sense ofpride in his deeds or sacrifices.
5. The last verse of the Qur'ân revealed to the Prophet (Peace be
upon him) alludes to the hostile attitude of the obduratedisbelievers,
who will jeer at him and his followers. They are expected to disparage
him and step up their malice to the point of scheming against his life
and lives of all the believers around him. In this case he hasgot to
be patient and is supposed to persevere and display the highest degree
of stamina for the sole purpose ofattaining the pleasure of Allâh.
These were the basic preliminaries that the Prophet (Peace be upon
him) had to observe, very simple injunctions in appearance, greatly
fascinating in their calm rhythm, but highly effective in practice.
They constituted the trigger that aroused a far-ranging tempest inall
the corners of the world.
The verses comprise the constituents of the new call and propagation
of the new faith. A warning logically implies that there are
malpractices with painful consequences to be sustained by the
perpetrators, and since the present life is not necessarily the only
room to bring people to account for their misdeeds or some of them,
then the warning would necessarily imply calling people to account on
another day, i.e. the Day of Resurrection, and this per se suggests
the existence of a life other than this one we are living.All the
verses of the Noble Qur'ân call people to testify explicitly to the
Oneness of Allâh, to delegate all their affairs to Allâh, the
All-High, and to subordinate the desires of the self and the desires
of Allâh's servants to the attainment of His Pleasures.
The constituents of the call to Islam could, briefly speaking, go as follows:
1. Testimony to the Oneness of Allâh.
2. Belief in the Hereafter.
3. Sanctifying one's soul and elevating it high above evils and
abominations that conduce to terrible consequences, besides this,
there is the dire need for virtues and perfect manners coupled with
habituating oneself to righteous deeds.
4. Committing one's all affairs to Allâh, the All-High.
5. All the foregoing should run as a natural corollary to unwavering
belief in Muhammad's Message, and abidance by his noble leadership and
righteous guidance.

IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

3] ONCE, GABRIEL BRINGS ALLAH'S REVELATION:
Ibn Hajar said: 'That (the pause of Allâh's revelation for a few days)
was to relieve the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) of the fear
he experienced and to make him long for the Revelation. When theshades
of puzzle receded, the flags of truth were raised, the Messenger of
Allâh (Peace be upon him) knew for sure that he had become the
Messenger of the Great Lord. He was also certain that what had come to
him was no more than the ambassador of inspiration. His waiting and
longing for the coming of the revelation constituted a good reason for
hissteadfastness and self-possession on the arrival of Allâh's
inspiration, Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of Jabirbin
'Abdullah that he had heard the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him)
speak about the period of pause as follows:
"While I was walking, I heard a voice from the sky. I looked up, and
surely enough, it was the same angel who had visited me in the cave of
Hira'. He was sittingon a chair between the earth andthe sky. I was
very afraid of him and knelt on the ground. I went home saying: 'Cover
me …, Cover me …'. Allâh revealed to me the verses:
*.
*. 'O you [Muhammad (Peace be upon him)] enveloped (in garments)!
Arise and warn! And your Lord (Allâh) magnify! And your garments
purify! And keep away from Ar-Rujz (the idols)!'" [74:1-5]
After that the revelation started coming strongly, frequently and regularly.
SOME DETAILS PERTINENTTO THE SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF REVELATION:
Before we go into the details of the period of communicating
theMessage and Prophethood, we would like to get acquainted with the
stages of the Revelation which constituted the main source of the
Message and the subject-matter of the Call. Ibn Al-Qayyim, mentioning
the stagesof the Revelation, said:
*. The First: The period of true vision. It was the starting point of
the Revelation to the Men of Allâh (Peace be upon him).
The Second: What the angel invisibly cast in the Prophet's mind and
heart. The Messengerof Allâh (Peace be upon him) said: "The Noble
Spirit revealed to me 'No soul will perish until it exhausts its due
course, so fear Allâh and gently request Him. Never get so impatient
to the verge of disobedience of Allâh. What Allâh has can never be
acquired but through obedience to Him.'"
The Third: The angel used to visit the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be
upon him) in the form of a human being and would speak to him
directly. This would enable him to fully understand what the angel
said. The angel was sometimes seen in this form by the Prophet's
Companions.
The Fourth: The angel came to him like the toll of a bell and this was
the most difficult form because the angel used to seizehim tightly and
sweat would stream from his forehead even on the coldest day. If the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) was on his camel, the camel would not
withstand the weight, so it would immediatelykneel down on the ground.
Once the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) had such a revelation
when he was sitting and his thigh was on Zaid's, Zaid felt the
pressure had almost injured his thigh.
The Fifth: The Prophet (Peace be upon him) saw the angel in his
actual form. The angel would reveal to him what Allâh had ordered him
to reveal. This,as mentioned in (Qur'ân), in Sûrah An-Najm (Chapter 53
- The Star), happened twice.
The Sixth: What Allâh Himself revealed to him in heaven i.e. when he
ascended to heaven and received Allâh's behest of Salât (prayer).
The Seventh: Allâh's Words to His Messenger (Peace be upon him) at
first hand without the mediation of an angel. It was a privilege
granted to Moses (Peace be upon him) and clearlyattested in the
Qur'ân, as it is attested to our Prophet (Peace be upon him) in the
Sûrah Al-Isrâ' (Chapter 17 - The Journey by Night) of the Noble
Qur'ân.
Some religious scholars added a controversial eighth stage in which
they state that Allâh spoke to the Prophet (Peace be upon him)
directly without a curtain inbetween. This issue remains however
unconfirmed.