No Gaming with Peace and Security: Modality in Prophet Muhammad’s Farewell Message

Abstract

In the age long security challenges bedeviling the world, language plays a pivotal role in committance with social injustice and ethnic/class strife which transform to insurgency and other violent crimes. In the light of Hallidayan interpersonal function of language, this study aims to carry out a modality analysis, an aspect of interpersonal meaning in systemic functional linguistics. The objectives of the study include to (i) investigate the import of modal verbs on the meaning of the farewell message; (ii) analyse the relationship between modality and speaker’s attitude in Prophet Muhammad’s farewell message and; explore the role of modality in the conveying degrees of certainty, possibility and obligation in the Prophet’s farewell message. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted and applied to the analysis of Prophet Muhammad’s Farewell speech; through the use of modal auxiliaries and modal adjunct. The findings reveal that there is an indictment to futurity in the message. While the modal auxiliary indicates latter happenings, the present forms of the verb indicate that the present will survive and metamorphose into reality in the future, no matter how long. The preacher speculates in the future and shows his optimism about the future of his followers. The analysis also revealed that the central focus of Prophet Muhammad is, apart from giving a serious caution against brutality and lawlessness stemming from different shades of corruption, providing a road map to future leadership as well as followership. Hence, the study recommends that both the leaders and the followers should, having grasped its meaning, hold firmly to and act on the teachings of the divine message in order to promote peaceful co-existence and by extension, the security of national citizenry.