
But the best example for you is to follow our holy Prophet (s). Follow him sincerely and faithfully. He is the greatest leader for those who require a leader and the best teacher for those who want to achieve self-respect. Amongst His creatures God likes him best who obeys this Apostle of God and follows him in his steps.
Our holy Prophet (s) made use of the worldly things only for the barest necessities of life, and never thought of obtaining any comfort or ease in life even temporarily. He ate little and generally went hungry. How often the pleasures of the world were presented to him and he refused to accept them. His will was the Will of God. He detested those things, which were disliked by God, he scorned those things, which were scorned by God and he despised those deeds, which were held in contempt by God.
Remember that such traits of our character, that we like those things that are disliked by God and His holy Apostle and we attach great importance to those things that are detested by God and His holy Prophet are, enough to make us enemies of God and rebels against His Orders.
Our holy Prophet used to take his meals while sitting on the ground. He would sit like an ordinary (poor) person (not like a king or a lord). He repaired his own shoes, washed his own clothes, rode on the naked back of a donkey, if there was scarcity he would share the ride with someone. Once he found a curtain on his door having some pictures upon it. He asked his wife to remove the curtain, saying that those pictures remind him of this wicked worldly vicious allurements.
He sincerely hated splendor and pomp of this world and had removed the desires of its pleasures from his mind. He despised and hated ostentation of luxurious life lest they may tempt him and lest he might think this world as an abode of permanent stay or a place to indulge in luxury and opulence. He had absolutely no liking for a life of comfort and ease; it had no charm for him and no place in his heart. Even the very talk of it was loathsome to him, he hated to see it around him and to heed about its allurements in his society, like a person who hates to see his worst enemy and loathes to hear him mentioned in his society.
Verily, the life and character of the holy Prophet (s) will teach you how evil and vicious are this world and its ways. The holy prophet (s) often went hungry, and, though he had supremely high place in the kingdom of God yet he avoided ostentation and pomp in his way of life and his true followers followed him in this respect. A man with common sense can very well reason whether the Almighty God by assigning such a simple life to this chosen Apostle has really shown high regards towards him or has humiliated him. If he says that God has humiliated him and has apportioned a life of poverty and destitution to him then he lies. Because the historical fact is that the holy Prophet (s) was a descendant of fairly rich and noble family. He married a very wealthy wife Khadija and gradually became the Ruler and Leader of the Islamic State. Therefore, simple and poor life was not forced upon him as humiliation or as a necessity but he voluntarily adopted it andGod assigned it to him as a sign of high regards towards His Apostle. To be a king and rich man and to lead voluntarily the life of a pauper and to give away all the wealth to poor is not a sign of humiliation but a mark and an emblem of greatness).
If one thinks that God has thus raised the status and position of the prophet, one will have to admit that, by allotting lives of wealth splendor and luxury to his enemies and keeping itaway from His most favored Apostle, He has humiliated the enemies of the Holy Prophet.
Therefore, it is the duty of his followers to take example from his life and try to imitate him, to follow in his steps and to lead a life as the Apostle of God had led. Otherwise, one should expect destruction as such that nothing can save him.
He left the world as a poor and destitute person (though he was Leader of the Muslim world when he died) and reached his destiny in deserving grandeur. Till he lived he never built a house for himself and when God called him away he left happily for his eternal home.
The greatest blessing of the Merciful God upon us is that He has granted us such a Prophet, a guide whom we must follow and a leader whom we must obey.