We love Holy Prophet (PBUH). We celebrate every occasion about Him in religious manner. Love for the Prophet Muhammad is a measure of one's iman (faith and inner conviction) and our iman is completed and perfected only when our love for the Prophet exceeds our love for everything else in this world, including our own lives. The Holy Qur'an says:
"The Prophet is preferable for the believers even to their own selves..." (33:6)
The best of Muslims, companions of the Prophet, did show such love for the Prophet. Hadhrat Ali, speaking on behalf of all the companions community in Medina, is reported to have said:
"The Holy Prophet is dearer to us than our wealth, our children, our fathers, our forefathers, our mothers and cool water at the time of severe thirst."
Love of the Prophet breathes life into our practice of religion. Without it our religion reduces to an empty adherence to a set of dead rules and rituals.
He loved us first
We have to love Him because He also loved us. In fact, he loved us first and still loves us. The Qur'an testifies to this when it says:
"(The Prophet) is greatly grieved at your loss and extremely anxious for your good. To the Believers is he most kind and merciful.." (9:128)
Prophet’s love and tolerance for humanity
The Prophet's love was not limited just to the believers. In a way he loved all of God's creation. God says in the Qur'an:
"We have not sent you (O Prophet) but as mercy to all the worlds." 21:107)
According to a hadith recorded in the Sahih of Imam Muslim, when the Prophet’s opponents greatly increased their persecution, His companions asked him to curse them. At this the Prophet replied, “I have not been sent to lay a curse upon men but to be a blessing to them.” His opponents continued to treat Him and His companions unjustly and cruelly, but he always prayed for them.
This shows that His distinctive quality was that He was a blessing incarnate in word and deed.
His heart was filled with intense love for all human kind irrespective of caste, creed, or color. Once he advised his Companions to regard all people as their brothers and sisters. He added, “You are all Adam’s offspring and Adam was born of clay.”
