What the Prophet Made Rejection Mean

We all know the story of Ta’if. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ delivered the message he was commissioned to and the people, by and large, cruelly rejected it.

In response, he did not engage in self-pity. He also did not deny his feelings of sadness and overwhelm.

Most of us engage in self-pity, self-doubt, and even self-hate when we feel rejected. Rejection is one of those experiences that make us feel painfully and woefully small. And when rejection is severe, we can doubt our very worth and value, disconnecting us from any positive feelings we once held about ourselves.

But all of that has to do with what we make rejection, or any other negative outcome, mean.

We’ve all seen two people handle the same situation wildly differently. That is proof that a human mind is a powerful tool of interpretation. Facts are static, but what we can make those facts mean for us is fluid.

At Ta’if, the Prophet ﷺ didn’t make what happened to him have anything to do with his inherent worth and value. The Prophet ﷺ didn’t make it mean that he was a failure or that he was unworthy of his task or that he should shrink and never preach again. He was able to accept that the outcome was not lovely and that it did not feel good, but that was not an indictment of his inherent worth. Equally important, he believed that God was good even though God put him in that difficult situation.

When we make unfavorable outcomes mean that something is inherently wrong with us, it becomes an endless cycle. We feed the beast of self-doubt and unworthiness.

Self-doubt and unworthiness become the narrative into which almost anything can fit, from missing our alarm in the morning to breaking glass to forgetting someone’s birthday. All of those accidents and trivial things are simply consequences of being human, but we can feed them to the narrative that we are less than if we so choose.

Yet the Prophet ﷺ shows us that we’re allowed to feel the pain of a negative outcome as long as we nurse it like a surface wound.

Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ Prayer at Ta'if:

O Allah,
To You I complain of my incapacity, ineffectiveness, and ill repute before men.
O Most Effusive in Mercy,
You are the Lord of the weak and You are my Lord
To whom do You entrust me?
To someone distant that attacks me?
Or to an adversary that You have made to reign over my affairs?
If it is not a matter of anger, then I do not mind,
However, Your care would be much easier on me
I seek refuge in the light of Your countenance which illuminates the darkness and rectifies the affairs of this life and the next from the incurrence of Your displeasure
I am Yours to reproach until You are well-pleased
There is no power or strength except through You.


Best,
Faatimah