In the blessed gathering of Rabī al-Awwal, we turn our hearts to one of the most profound and beautiful dimensions of our beloved Prophet’s ⚘ station — a dimension that existed long before the Age of Ignorance, long before the blessed birth, long before the first heavens were stretched and the earth was spread. Tonight we travel beyond time itself, to the moment when Allāh ﷺ first willed to make Himself known through His creation. And at that primordial threshold, a light appeared.
This is not folklore. This is not sentiment. It is embedded in the Holy Qur’ān, confirmed by authentic Hādith, and has been the understanding of the greatest scholars, saints, and lovers of the Prophet ⚘ across fourteen centuries.
The First Question That Opens an Ocean
Sayyidunā Jābir ibn ‘Abdullāh al-Anṣārī ً — one of the most beloved Companions, who had served the Prophet ⚘ from his youth — came to our Master ⚘ one day with a question so penetrating it opened an ocean of divine knowledge in response. He asked: “Yā Rasūlallāh — what was the first thing that Allāh created?”
Our beloved Prophet ⚘ replied with words that have illuminated the hearts of believers for fourteen centuries. As narrated by Imām ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Ṣan‘ānī in his Muṣannaf, and cited by Imām al-Qaṭallānī in his monumental Al-Mawāhib al-Ladunniyyah:
“Awwalu mā khalaqa Allāhu nūra nabiyyika yā Jābir — The first thing Allāh created was the light of your Prophet, O Jābir.”
(Imām ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Ṣan‘ānī, Al-Muṣannaf; Imām al-Qaṭallānī, Al-Mawāhib al-Ladunniyyah)
The first thing. Not the Throne. Not the Pen. Not the water. Not the heavens. Before all of these — the Nūr of Muḥammad ⚘. That blessed light moved in the presence of Allāh ﷺ for however long Allāh willed, before He divided it and from it created all else: the Throne, the Pen, the water, the angels, the heavens and the earth — all of creation emerging from the primordial light of the Beloved ⚘.
The truth of this station is woven through the Qur’ān itself. Allāh ﷺ declares:
“There has come to you from Allāh a Nūr — a Light — and a clear Book.”
(Sūrah al-Mā’idah, 5:15)
The scholars of tafsīr note that the Nūr mentioned here refers to our beloved Prophet ⚘ himself. He is the Light that has come from Allāh — not a created light like the light of the sun or a lamp, but a light of divine origin carrying divine knowledge, divine mercy, and divine guidance. And Allāh ﷺ addresses him further:
“O Prophet! Indeed We have sent you as a witness, and a bringer of good tidings and a warner, and as one who invites to Allāh by His permission, and as a Lamp spreading Light — Sirājun Munīr.”
(Sūrah al-Aḥzāb, 33:45–46)
Sirājun Munīr. A Lamp that spreads illumination in all directions. The scholars note that a sirāj — a lamp — is a light that comes from within itself. It does not reflect. It radiates.
“I Was a Prophet When Adam Was Between Water and Clay”
One of the most directly authenticated narrations about his pre-eternal prophetic station is recorded in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad and the Sunan of Imām al-Tirmiḍī. A man asked our beloved Prophet ⚘: “Yā Rasūlallāh — when were you made a Prophet?” The reply opened dimensions beyond ordinary time:
“Kuntu nabiyyan wa Ādamu bayna al-rūḥ wal jasād — I was a Prophet when Ādam was [still] between the spirit and the body.”
(Imām Aḥmad, Al-Musnad; al-Tirmiḍī, Sunan — graded Sahih by Imām Ibn Hibban)
Our father Ādam ⚘ — the first human being — had not yet been completed. He lay between two states: his clay form fashioned, but the spirit not yet breathed into it. And at that very point, before humanity itself existed in its completed form, Muḥammad ⚘ was already a Prophet.
This is not merely a chronological statement. It is a statement about the metaphysical reality of his station. His Prophethood is not an event in history. It is a reality woven into the fabric of existence itself — willed and established in the Divine decree before time began.
Lawlaka Lawlak: “Were It Not For You”
The scholars of Islamic spirituality have long reflected upon a divine communication transmitted in the literature of Hadīth Qudsī, reported as an address to our beloved Prophet ⚘:
“Lawlaka lawlak lamā khalaqtu al-aflāk — Were it not for you, were it not for you, I would not have created the heavens.”
(Cited by Imām al-Suyuṭī in Al-Durar al-Muntatharah; referenced by scholars of Islamic spirituality across centuries)
The scholars note that while this narration’s chain has been examined, its meaning is fully supported by authenticated Hādith and Qur’ānic declarations. For what does it mean that he ⚘ was a Prophet before Ādam was completed? What does it mean that his light was the first creation? It means exactly this: that his blessed existence, his station, his light, his reality, was the divine purpose behind the creation of the entire cosmos.
Allāh ﷺ declares in the Holy Qur’ān:
“And We have not sent you except as a Mercy to all the worlds.”
(Sūrah al-Anbiyā’, 21:107)
Lil ‘alamin — to all the worlds. Not to Arabia. Not to humanity alone. To every dimension of creation, seen and unseen, in every time and every place. A mercy that extends to all creation must, by its nature, precede all creation. And so it does.
The Covenant of the Prophets: Every Prophet Testified to Him ⚘
This dimension of the cosmic reality is beyond any scholarly discussion — because it is declared unambiguously in the Holy Qur’ān. Allāh ﷺ gathered every Prophet He ever sent — from Ādam ⚘ to ‘Īsā ⚘, every single one of the hundreds of thousands of Prophets and Messengers sent across the ages — and made every one of them take an oath about Muḥammad ⚘:
“And [recall] when Allāh took the covenant of the Prophets: ‘Given what I have given you of Scripture and wisdom, then there comes to you a Messenger confirming what is with you — you must believe in him and support him.’ He said: ‘Do you affirm and take My covenant upon this obligation?’ They said: ‘We affirm.’ He said: ‘Then bear witness, and I am with you among the witnesses.’”
(Sūrah Āl-‘Imrān, 3:81)
Every Prophet — Ibrāhīm ⚘, Mūsā ⚘, ‘Īsā ⚘, Dāwūd ⚘, Nūḥ ⚘ — was commanded: if Muḥammad ⚘ comes to you, you must believe in him and support him. And in Sūrah al-Aḥzāb, Allāh ﷺ lists the names: “And [recall] when We took from the Prophets their covenant — and from you [O Muḥammad], and from Nūḥ, and Ibrāhīm, and Mūsā, and ‘Īsā son of Maryam.” (33:7) His blessed name comes first.
Our beloved Prophet ⚘ himself explained the significance:
“I am the du‘ā of Ibrāhīm, the glad tidings of ‘Īsā, and the vision of my mother — and the Prophets are all part of me, and I am part of them.”
(Imām Aḥmad, Al-Musnad)
I am the du‘ā of Ibrāhīm. When our father Ibrāhīm ⚘ stood at the completion of building the Ka‘bah — the House of Allāh — he raised his hands and asked:
“Our Lord! Send among them a Messenger from themselves who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and wisdom, and purify them.”
(Sūrah al-Baqarah, 2:129)
The greatest gift Ibrāhīm ⚘ asked for in return for building the Ka‘bah was: send us Muḥammad ⚘. And ‘Īsā ibn Maryam ⚘ — who himself held one of the most exalted stations among all the Prophets — gave the glad tidings of his coming:
“And [recall] when ‘Īsā, son of Maryam, said: ‘O Children of Isrā’īl, I am the Messenger of Allāh to you, confirming what came before me of the Taẉrāh, and bringing good tidings of a Messenger to come after me whose name is Aḥmad.’”
(Sūrah al-Ṣaff, 61:6)
Aḥmad — the one most worthy of praise. The Prophets were not rivals. They were heralds. Every one of them, in their own way, was pointing toward the one who would come to complete what they had each contributed to the great story of divine guidance.
The Nūr Travelling Through the Blessed Lineages
The scholars of Sīrah narrate something that fills the heart with awe — the journey of the Nūr of our beloved Prophet ⚘ through the generations, from father to father, from mother to mother, across the centuries between Ādam ⚘ and Āminah bint Wahb, until it manifested in the world in the most perfect form.
Ibn Katār records in Al-Bidāyah wan-Nihāyah that this blessed light was visible in the blessed foreheads of his noble ancestors — a light that those of spiritual perception could recognise. And this narration finds its root in the Qur’ān itself:
“Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find written in what they have of the Taẉrāh and the Gospel…”
(Sūrah al-A‘rāf, 7:157)
They find him written in their books. The description was specific enough that the monk Bahīrā recognised a twelve-year-old boy. It was specific enough that the great rabbi of Madīnah, ‘Abdullāh ibn Salām ً, looked at the face of our beloved Prophet ⚘ as he entered Madīnah for the first time and said without hesitation: “When I looked at his face, I knew immediately that this face was not the face of a liar.”
The great Companion Ka‘b al-Aḥbār ً — a senior rabbi before his embrace of Islām, whose knowledge of the previous scriptures was unparalleled — reported that the description of our beloved Prophet ⚘ appeared in the Taẉrāh: his name, his birthplace, his migration, his character, and his Ummah — all written centuries before his birth. Because the One who wrote those scriptures had already decided upon him before the world was made.
Rumi and the Nūr Muḥammad
Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī rahimahullāh — whose Mathnawī is, in the understanding of the scholars, a Persian commentary on the inner dimensions of the Holy Qur’ān — opens his entire work with the image of the reed flute cut from the reed bed and weeping for reunion. The scholars of the Mathnawī have noted that Rūmī understood the reed bed itself — the origin from which all souls have been separated — to be the Muḥammadan Reality, the Nūr of Muḥammad ⚘.
In Book VI of the Mathnawī, Rūmī speaks with extraordinary directness about the pre-eternal station of our beloved Prophet ⚘: “He was the first to drink from the Wine of Love — before the existence of the vine, the grape, or the cup. His being preceded all beings — not by time, but by rank — as the cause precedes the effect, as the sun precedes the shadow it casts.”
This line — not by time but by rank — is one of the most precise theological statements in all of Rūmī’s work. His pre-existence is not a claim that he existed “before” in the way we understand time. It is a claim about his ontological rank — his position in the order of being — that makes him the reason for all of creation in the divine will.
And among the most celebrated of Rūmī’s utterances about our beloved ⚘, from the Mathnawī:
“Aḥmad is the name for this world, and Aḥad is his name in the realm of the unseen. When the mīm of ‘Aḥmad’ is subtracted, the two worlds become one.”
(Mathnawī, Book II — Rūmī)
Aḥmad — the name of our Prophet in this world. Aḥad — one of the most exalted names of Allāh, meaning the Unique One. Rūmī is saying: the name of the Prophet ⚘ contains within it the name of Allāh. He is, in the language of the mystics, the most complete mirror of divine attributes that creation has ever produced or will ever produce.
What This Light Means for Us Today
All of this beauty, all of this truth — what does it mean for the man going to work tomorrow morning, for the woman raising her children, for the student preparing for exams?
It means, first of all, that the one you love ⚘ is no ordinary beloved. When you send Salāwāt upon him ⚘ — when you say Ṣallāllāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam — you are addressing a soul whose light was the first thing Allāh created. You are sending your love to the reason the universe exists. And Allāh ﷺ Himself sends His Salāt upon him ⚘:
“Indeed, Allāh and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send blessings upon him and salute him with a worthy salutation.”
(Sūrah al-Aḥzāb, 33:56)
Our beloved Prophet ⚘ himself said: “Whoever sends one Salāt upon me, Allāh will send ten blessings upon him, remove ten of his sins, and raise him ten degrees.” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim)
One Salāt. Ten divine blessings. In a single moment of love, the connection between the believer and the most beloved soul in all of creation is renewed. Every Salāwāt is a recognition: I know who you are. I know what you are. I know that you were light before the world existed, and I love you for all that you are.
And Allāh ﷺ declares the path that this love opens:
“Say: If you love Allāh, then follow me — Allāh will love you and forgive your sins.”
(Sūrah Āl-‘Imrān, 3:31)
Follow me — ittabi‘uni — and Allāh will love you. He ⚘ is not a barrier between the believer and Allāh. He is the bridge. He is the door through which divine love enters the human heart.
May Allāh ﷺ grant us the love that the Companions had — the love that made them weep at the mention of his name ⚘. And may He gather us with him ⚘ on the Day of Gathering, under his blessed banner, drinking from his blessed hands at the Pond of Kawthar. Āmīn.
