Universal Man The Prophet, besides being the leader of men and the founder of a new civilization, is also the perfection of the human norm and the model for the spiritual life of Islam. He said 'I am a human being like you' [ana basharun mithlukum], to which Muslim sages over the ages have added, yes, but like a precious gem among stones [ka'l-yaqut bain al-hajar]. The profound symbolism contained in this saying is connected with the inner nature of the Prophet. All men in their purely human nature are like stones, opaque and heavy and a veil to the light that shines upon them. The Prophet also possesses this human nature outwardly. But inwardly he has become alchemically transmuted into a precious stone which, although still a stone, is transparent before the light and has lost its opacity. The Prophet is outwardly only a human being [bashar], but inwardly he is the full realization of manhood in its most universal sense. He is the Universal Man [al-insan al-kamil], the prototype of all of creation, the norm of all perfection, the first of all beings, the mirror in which God contemplates universal existence. He is inwardly identified with the Logos and the Divine Intellect. Islam considers all prophets as an aspect of the Universal Logos, which in its perspective is identified with the 'Reality of Muhammad' [al-haqiqat al-muhammadiyyah], which was the first of God's creation and through whom God sees all things. As the Muhammedan Reality the Prophet came before all the other prophets at the beginning of the prophetic cycle, an it is to this inner aspect of him as the Logos to which reference is made in the Hadith 'He [Muhammad] was prophet [th Logos] when Adam was still between water and clay.' So did the cycle of Prophecy begin with the Muhammedan Reality, with the inner reality of Muhammad, while it ended with the human manifestation of him. He thus is inwardly the beginning and outwardly the end of the prophetic cycle which he synthesizes and unifies in his being. Outwardly he is a human being and inwardly the Universal Man, the norm of all spiritual perfection. The Prophet possessed in himself that reality which later gained the technical name of Universal Man. But the 'named' was there long before this name was given to it. -from an article by SH Nasr
