Standing Up and Taking Action

And when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was first given the message — there is one opinion of scholars that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) became a Nabī when he received the revelation of Iqraʾ, and he became a Rasūl when he was given the revelation of Qum fa-andhir. That is one view that some scholars hold, because there is a difference between Nabī and Rasūl. Nabī, which is translated as prophet, is someone who is receiving revelation from Allah, but it does not necessarily mean that it is a mandate on them to propagate the message. However, a Rasūl, which is translated as messenger, is a Nabī who is commanded by Allah to propagate the message. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) received the revelation in the verses of Iqraʾ, so he then became Nabī. And then the revelation stopped for a while, and he was not conveying the message at that time; he was not given the command yet by Allah (swt) to propagate the message, until he was given the revelation of Qum fa-andhir — stand up and warn. That is when he became a Rasūl, according to the opinion of some scholars.

So one can notice that the first commands Allah (swt) gave to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), which made him a Rasūl, were the commands of stand up. Stand up. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was wrapped in his garments; Allah (swt) said that he had to stand up — he could not be sitting down, he could not be lying on his bed. This religion needs men and women to stand up and take action: qum fa-andhir. So the Muslim is standing up, and even when the Muslim is sitting down or lying down, they are not relieved of their duties:

The ones who remember the name of Allah, standing up, sitting down, and when they are lying on their beds — one is never relieved. As a Muslim, one is continuously doing something. So one needs to take action, and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb makes this duʿāʾ: a prayer for refuge from the strong disbeliever and the weak believer.

The believer should be strong, and unless one stands up and goes ahead and does something, things will not change. One cannot expect one's problems to be solved by some supernatural force. From the time of Mūsā (peace be upon him) and onward, Allah (swt) has not punished a nation through a supernatural event. For example, with the people of Ṣāliḥ, they were destroyed by the thunderbolt; with the people of ʿĀd, they were destroyed through the tornado; with the people of Lūṭ, Allah (swt) made the earth sink. But from Mūsā (peace be upon him) and onward, Allah (swt) has brought about change through the hands of the believers. Allah (swt) prescribed jihād on the ummah of Mūsā — they were the first ummah to wage jihād. Before that, the prophets did not fight, but from Mūsā and onward, Allah (swt) would punish the non-believers through the armies of the muʾminīn, the believers.

A further point: the miracle of the document being eaten up by termites brings up again the issue of the soldiers of Allah — wa mā yaʿlamu junūda rabbika illā huwa, no one knows the soldiers of Allah but He. Who would imagine that termites would be a soldier for Allah? This is a miracle that happened in the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); it can be added to the many other miracles that occurred on the hands of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).