A verse in the Quraan hits my heart every time the issue of reform is brought to the table. Praise be to Allah for sending such a miraculous book that helps us at all times and all situations. When I become in charge of any project, I tend to be very critical of what has been done in the past in order to be able to bring about a change. While doing so, I also tend to offend several people who sweated to get this project where it is. I remember one of the founders of our full time school, a MAS project in our area, told me angrily responding to a joke I made about the school being a kitchen school*, “if it weren’t for the kitchen school of yesterday, you wouldn’t have your school of today.” Only then I realized how much harm we bring to the table when we are not careful about what we say and the way we present our criticism.
Why is that relevant to the TAM discussions? Well, very relevant!
As we take part in discussions regarding:
- how important diversity is in MAS,
- how crucial it is for indigenous Americans to be part of MAS,
- how vital it is to empower the young generation and give them the chance to lead,
- and how the American culture should be naturally embraced for Americans to consider us seriously,
we tend to undermine a lot of the wonderful work people of the past did. We tend to blame our immigrant community of bringing to America their cultural baggage who alienated so many people. We keep blaming them for speaking broken English. We keep blaming them for not being actively involved in the society. We keep blaming them for not being politically involved. We keep blaming them for not involving the youth. And so on and so forth.
I know this naturally happens as part of our analysis and critical views of the past, but we ought to adapt another attitude while going through these exercises especially while presenting our opinions. This attitude is what is described in the verse I started talking about in the beginning of the post. Allah says, after praising the immigrants of Mecca and the people of Medina, “… And those who came after them say, O our Lord, forgive us and those who preceded us in embracing the Iman and do not put in our heart any hatred to those who have believed …”
What is really worthy of noticing here is that the call for forgiveness is NOT ONLY for those before us but for ourselves as well. As if we are saying, “we too make mistakes. We too have shortcomings. We too are not perfect. We too will not fulfill our duties towards you O Allah and towards our deen. We too want forgiveness as those before us do.” I found this attitude a genuine Islamic feeling towards our parents, our teachers, our elderly, and the founders of our beloved organization, MAS.
Another important point to make is that we tend to judge people while we are not aware of the context they lived in and the struggle they went through. One time Huzaifa ibn al-Yaman, the companion of the prophet was talking to his students when one of them said, "if we were to meet the prophet and live with him, we would have prevented any harm from reaching him (PBUH)." This student of Huzaifa is saying that after the fact. Huzaifa taught him, and accordingly us, a lesson by telling him a short story***. This short story brought this man to the reality of not looking down to other's achievement while not living the same experienc as ther were.
In the eyes of Allah, they will be held accountable for what they did and we will be held accountable for what we do. As Allah said, “That was a nation who has passed away. They shall receive the reward of what they earned and you of what you earn. And you will not be asked of what they used to do.****”
O Allah forgive us and all those who preceded us in serving this dean and do not let any hatred comes to our heart to those who believed, Amin!
* There was so much cooking and food parties taking place, so much so it became more important than education (shhh)
** 59:10
*** this stroy is a home work
**** 2:134
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Things that I learned in the TAM 08: A definition of following the Sunnah
I was asked to share some of the things I learned from the TAM and some of the action items that we need to take into consideration ISA. I will have to start by saying that I learned a lot, especially by the challenging questions and discussions from my brothers and sisters to the instructors including myself. I will keep it as brief as possible and I will try to write more messages as I find time ISA.
I was presenting the part of the Basic Tarbiya Training course in which I was running a discussion of how we can establish love with people around us. I mentioned the incident of the Prophet (PBUH) grabbing the hand of Moaaz (r) telling him, “O Moaaz, I love you for the sake of Allah …” and continued to give him the advice. The discussion at that point transformed into a fundamental discussion of the definition of the Sunna of the prophet (PBUH).
One of the sisters said, “I find it so weird that someone picks my hand and tells me I love you.”
The question that came to mind and to the discussion was: is grabbing the hand of someone and saying to her I love you, part of the Sunnah of the prophet?
The answer is definitely YES. The Sunnah, as defined by scholars of Usul is what the prophet (PBUH) said, did, or approved of after he became the messenger of Allah*. Therefore, grabbing the hand of someone and telling him, I love you, is part of the Sunnah. How is it then weird to this sister?
There are two reasons that will make someone feels that an action of the prophet (PBUH) is weird or not accepted. First, one should question the basis on which we base our judgment. We often tend to judge the Sunnah based on factors that need judgment themselves. For that matter, we should actually use the Sunnah to judge those factors and not vise versa.
The other important reason is our misunderstanding of the Sunna of the prophet and that is the point I want to focus on here. I want to first write a very clear yet subtle difference in the definition of “following” the Sunnah of the prophet. People tend to borrow from the definition above and say, “following the Sunnah is following what the prophet did, said, or approved of.” This definition, in a sense, is not accurate (unless you define accurately what the word following means). The prophet did so many things and none of the scholars would dare to say we should do to follow his Sunnha. As obviously known, the prophet dug a ditch around Madinah at the time of al-ahzab and no one ever claims that this should be done these days. Although the Sunnah of the prophet was to dig a ditch around Madina, it will look weird if someone does that these days claiming that he is following the Sunnah of the prophet.
Although, the example above is naïve and all of us know it, in many ways of our life we dig a ditch around us and claim that we are following the Sunna of the prophet. The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we express our feelings, the way we think of Islamic work, and even the way we deal with our families is full of examples in which we are literally following the model of digging the ditch around us. We are the ones who make the Sunnah appear very weird and irrelevant to people around us especially people who are closely monitoring us to find out what Islam is.
We ought to define following the Sunnah of the prophet as doing what we think he (PBUH) would do should he were to do it now. With this definition we will make the Sunnah as relevant as it should be and it will make sense to all.
Coming back to the Basic Tarbiya course***, one should understand that the Sunnah of the prophet (PBUH) is to love others, care about them, express this love, communicate his message to them, etc (as we described in detail during the course). The methods and the tools are subject to change and are dependent on the context which the prophet himself would have changed them when the context changes.
Comments are appreciated …
* Sheikh Mustafa Al-Seba3i (r), “Sunnah and its position in Islamic Sharia”
** One would claim that it is proven scientifically that this specific tree branch is the best way of cleaning the teeth. Well, you know my answer
*** the whole sound track of the course is available and will be uploaded if the requests are a lot :-) (since it is kind of long)
I was presenting the part of the Basic Tarbiya Training course in which I was running a discussion of how we can establish love with people around us. I mentioned the incident of the Prophet (PBUH) grabbing the hand of Moaaz (r) telling him, “O Moaaz, I love you for the sake of Allah …” and continued to give him the advice. The discussion at that point transformed into a fundamental discussion of the definition of the Sunna of the prophet (PBUH).
One of the sisters said, “I find it so weird that someone picks my hand and tells me I love you.”
The question that came to mind and to the discussion was: is grabbing the hand of someone and saying to her I love you, part of the Sunnah of the prophet?
The answer is definitely YES. The Sunnah, as defined by scholars of Usul is what the prophet (PBUH) said, did, or approved of after he became the messenger of Allah*. Therefore, grabbing the hand of someone and telling him, I love you, is part of the Sunnah. How is it then weird to this sister?
There are two reasons that will make someone feels that an action of the prophet (PBUH) is weird or not accepted. First, one should question the basis on which we base our judgment. We often tend to judge the Sunnah based on factors that need judgment themselves. For that matter, we should actually use the Sunnah to judge those factors and not vise versa.
The other important reason is our misunderstanding of the Sunna of the prophet and that is the point I want to focus on here. I want to first write a very clear yet subtle difference in the definition of “following” the Sunnah of the prophet. People tend to borrow from the definition above and say, “following the Sunnah is following what the prophet did, said, or approved of.” This definition, in a sense, is not accurate (unless you define accurately what the word following means). The prophet did so many things and none of the scholars would dare to say we should do to follow his Sunnha. As obviously known, the prophet dug a ditch around Madinah at the time of al-ahzab and no one ever claims that this should be done these days. Although the Sunnah of the prophet was to dig a ditch around Madina, it will look weird if someone does that these days claiming that he is following the Sunnah of the prophet.
Although, the example above is naïve and all of us know it, in many ways of our life we dig a ditch around us and claim that we are following the Sunna of the prophet. The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we express our feelings, the way we think of Islamic work, and even the way we deal with our families is full of examples in which we are literally following the model of digging the ditch around us. We are the ones who make the Sunnah appear very weird and irrelevant to people around us especially people who are closely monitoring us to find out what Islam is.
We ought to define following the Sunnah of the prophet as doing what we think he (PBUH) would do should he were to do it now. With this definition we will make the Sunnah as relevant as it should be and it will make sense to all.
- Digging the trench is a sunnah but protecting your land with all possible sophisticated means is the real Sunnah
- Grabbing the hand and saying I love you is a sunnah but expressing the care and love is the real Sunnah
- Sending people with messages is the sunnah but utilizing all possible sophisticated means of communication is the real sunnah
- Brushing the teeth with a specific tree branch is a sunnah but using the best tooth brush and tooth paste to clean the mouth is the real Sunnah**
- And so on ..
Coming back to the Basic Tarbiya course***, one should understand that the Sunnah of the prophet (PBUH) is to love others, care about them, express this love, communicate his message to them, etc (as we described in detail during the course). The methods and the tools are subject to change and are dependent on the context which the prophet himself would have changed them when the context changes.
Comments are appreciated …
* Sheikh Mustafa Al-Seba3i (r), “Sunnah and its position in Islamic Sharia”
** One would claim that it is proven scientifically that this specific tree branch is the best way of cleaning the teeth. Well, you know my answer
*** the whole sound track of the course is available and will be uploaded if the requests are a lot :-) (since it is kind of long)
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