The Last Living Companion of the Prophet (s.a.w.)

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is adapted from The Blessed Tree.  This is a meditation on the themes of love of the Prophet (s.a.w.), veneration of holy sites, grace and symbolism.  This film tells the story of the meeting between the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and a Christian monk named Bahira (r.a.).  The meeting happened in the shade of a tree.  Fourteen hundred years later that same tree was discovered still alive in the northern deserts of Jordan.  The only tree alive in hundreds of square miles of emptiness.  This tree is a link to the life of the Prophet (s.a.w.) and a place of pilgrimage today.  The following are some quotes from the film: 

Imam Muhammad Sa’id ibn Muhammad Ramadhan al-Buwthi  (r.a.) said, “In this place, we pray to God to make our hearts containers of the love of the Prophet (s.a.w.).” 

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad said, “The Prophet (s.a.w.) sitting under this tree and its reacting to the Prophet (s.a.w.) makes the tree the only living terrestrial witness to the Prophet (s.a.w.), what we would call in Arabic, a swahabi.” 

Habib ‘Ali Zayn al-‘Abidin ibn ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Jifri  said, “This tree was blessed with the touch of the Messenger of God (s.a.w.).” 

Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hakim Murad Timothy John Winter  said, “That thing that deserves to be loved most is that which brings forth from the depths of our spirits the recollection of the Divine Name.  The title of the Holy Prophet of Islam (s.a.w.) is Habib Allah, the Beloved of God.  This hub, this love for the Prophet (s.a.w.) could be described as the great transformative emotion of Islam.” 

Dr. Sayyid Husayn Naswr said, “You have to be able to apply a symbol in a wise way, from one domain of reality to another.  There is, in a sense, a vertical dimension that goes through our heart vertically through our head and up to Heaven.  The line of transcendence, this is the inner tree.  The roots of it are actually the roots of the Divine Reality in our hearts.  For most human beings this tree has dried up because they are not aware of its roots.  It is virtually there but not actually; and the spiritual life means the reviving of this tree within us by sinking the roots of the Divine once again in our hearts.”