On 4th of July I named my Daughter Iman Sofea which can be translated as Beautiful Believer. May Allah give here the beauty that can be reflected back towards our Deen. Just like our beloved Prophet Muhammad s.a.w which is described as a reflection of the moon. He is not the light itself but the reflection of the light that guided people travelling in the dark night.
Few days or probably still going on, in our own country we are faced with a questionable picture regarding some Non Muslim wishing us the Muslim to have a good Ramadhan. I do not know what is the original picture nor quote since it's long gone and multiple Photoshop or Edited Picture appeared everywhere across the vast Internet.
Like any other believers, my first reaction is anger, shocked, agitated what is the motive behind posting with such questionable picture? Are they mocking my religion? Are they that ignorant about Islam at all? Didn't they learn Islam in their SPM at least in History class?
But in the midst of anger, shocked , full of emotional swing we have to look back what did our Prophet s.a.w do encountering such situation? For the believers , the beautiful way to handle the situation is... do not get angry. If we look in the 40 Hadith of Imam Nawawi wrote:
On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him):
“A man said to the Prophet, ‘Give me advice.’ The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘Do not get angry.’ The man asked repeatedly and the Prophet answered each time, ‘Do not get angry.’”
Related by Bukhari & Muslim.
If we succumbed to anger to make a judgement . Then that is not right ,another beautiful story about the Prophet s.a.w
There was a muslim man who came to the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) of Allah who gave him as a gift a bottle of wine. The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said “didn’t you know that Allah prohibited wine?”. He said “I did not know that”. Then he whispered to the man who came with him a servant and then the man said “What did you just tell him?”. He said “I told him to go sell it”. The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said “the one that prohibited its drinking also prohibited its selling. He said “In that case go dump it out”.
Now we never know what the intention of the original poster posting the picture. But by looking at the behavior of our beloved Prophet s.a.w he didn`t react with Anger. He calmly told the person that he couldn`t accept the wine. Not shouting mocking cursing like majority of us sadly did today.When did we lost this type of beauty in us?
Another story that some addressing the same issue,
Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that `A'ishah said, "Some Jews came to the Prophet and greeted him by saying, `As-Sam `Alayka, O Abul-Qasim.' So I said to them, `wa `Alaykum As-Sam (the same death be upon you).' The Prophet said,(O `A'ishah, Allah does not like rudeness and foul speech.) I said, `Didn't you hear them say, `As-Sam Alayka' He said,(Didn't you hear me answering them back by saying, `Wa `Alaykum (And the same upon you)')
The wife of the Prophet sa.w upon hearing someone mocking his beloved Husband , like any other wife would are upset . (If your wife doesn`t get angry when someone telling bad things about you in front of her, well better check out lolz) . Neverless the Prophet s.a.w told her to calm down and do not get angry or used any foul language to retaliate back . For foul words affects the heart , the mind and the soul (Which i discovered recently). It disturbed the inner peace within our hearts which affects the beauty of our soul.
Now to make some sense, when someone talk with the intention of mocking making fun of our Deen. Know that that's how it always been since the dawn of the Deen. People are making fun of our Deen constantly from the day the Prophet s.a.w first preach until today :). It's all over the Internet where you can find people constantly mocking our religion with serious bad logic and misinterpretation .
Instead of getting angry we should be glad this is a signed of a legitimate legacy revelation that we received, adopted in our life. The fact that we care about matters like this (where other ummah doesn`t care anymore etc look how the comedian/cartoons/media making fun of their own religion, and of course other religion as well. )This is a good sign that our Deen, our people is still gazed with sight of Loved by our Lord.
Last but not least, traditional Islamic Scholars defined Dakwah as inviting People to our Deen . Repairing corrupted Muslim is called amar maaruf nahi munkar, nonetheless how fare is our dakwah to these people? What is the steps that we have took to explain the situation/ethiques and why it's inappropriate. The meaning of dakwah is invitation.
So if we going to invite some strangers to our dinner should one say
" You look filthy, I hate you, If you don`t want to get kill, come to my house for dinner". I doubt people will come.
If we are unable to see the beauty within the message of others. Then we should avoid making such ugly commentary or statement.
And Allah knows best.
