Rahmah not Rubbish
We love to tell the stories of the life of the Prophet, but have we really learnt to apply them to our daily lives?
One of the favourite stories that Muslims like to recount is that of the woman who threw rubbish at the Prophet. We like it because it tells a simple human tale of compassion that wins out over malice. It is the triumph of patience and good manners over hatred.
The Prophet walked along a particular street every day on his way to conducting his affairs. From one of the windows, a woman who was angry at him for preaching the message of one God, would throw rubbish at him. Each day he would walk past, and each day she would throw her fetid refuse at him. One day, as he is walking past, there is no rubbish thrown at him.
Let us pause for a moment, before completing the story, and really truly think about what it must have been like to face this daily occurrence. We recount it very glibly, and don't really feel it in our hearts.
Dear reader, please take a moment to create this situation as though it is real to you, and feel the emotions that rise up within you. You are walking under a window, and a pile of stinking vegetable peelings, rotting banana skins, three day old meat trimmings and some used toilet roll hits your head. You live in a hot environment, and so the mixture of putrid waste is particularly disgusting. A voice rings out above you: "******* Muslims! Terrorist! Osama lover!" and the abuse continues. We can all easily fill in blanks of the insults that Muslims face everyday. I would feel angry, furious. That is the natural human response.
Now we return to the behaviour of the Prophet himself. One particular day, there is no rubbish thrown at him. He is concerned and so he enquires after the whereabouts of the woman. When he is advised that she is unwell, he goes to visit her to see the state of her health. She is shocked when he arrives, knowing full well the extent of her abuse. His kindness and patience in dealing with her cruelty wins her over, and she accepts the message that the Prophet has been preaching.
How much we love to tell this story! How proud we are of the Prophet's exemplary character! But we fail to apply this in our daily lives. Let us return to our imaginary scene above. Would we have asked about the well-being of our abuser? Would we have taken time to get to the bottom of why they abused us? Would we have dealt with compassion and reason with them?
Many Muslims today already do suffer this kind of abuse, from simple rude comments on the street, to derogatory content in the media, to smearing in political circles, to books which cause offence. Sometimes we find it hard to connect it to the stories of the Prophet because we have not internalised the human experiences of the individuals whom we rightly venerate. And this is because we have not put ourselves in the shoes of their real human experience.
When we see an attack on Islam or Muslims, we ignore the example of the Prophet to return violence with rahmah, compassion, and concern, and instead return it with anger, protest and in a handful of cases with violence. It is easy to wax lyrical about the Prophet's patience, but have we really ever imagined ourselves in the situation, as we did a moment ago? Can we now imagine how hard what he did was? When scorn is poured upon Muslims, upon Islam and heartbreakingly on those whom we respect, we must rise above the instinctive response to retaliate with base violence. Defending yourself, and asserting your rights is indeed critical. It is right and proper to rise up to the full extent of law and justice. But we have to also bear in mind the vision that Muslims ought to have for society: to create an equal, fair and tolerant world that is based on knowledge and compassion.
A visionary can only take a dream and turn it into reality by meeting abuse with knowledge. And when those who are thirsty to know about all the values that can make us the best of human, they will look to wherever they can find that knowledge. If Muslims are not offering accessible knowledge, then that thirst will be quenched wherever even the mirage of truth appears. Where there is abuse, it must be replaced with knowledge and compassion, rahmah. That is what happened when the Prophet stepped into the woman’s home. As the Qur'an says, when we face those who are ignorant, we should return it with peace; that is the spirit that leads to quantum change.
This article was published in The Muslim News
One of the favourite stories that Muslims like to recount is that of the woman who threw rubbish at the Prophet. We like it because it tells a simple human tale of compassion that wins out over malice. It is the triumph of patience and good manners over hatred.
The Prophet walked along a particular street every day on his way to conducting his affairs. From one of the windows, a woman who was angry at him for preaching the message of one God, would throw rubbish at him. Each day he would walk past, and each day she would throw her fetid refuse at him. One day, as he is walking past, there is no rubbish thrown at him.
Let us pause for a moment, before completing the story, and really truly think about what it must have been like to face this daily occurrence. We recount it very glibly, and don't really feel it in our hearts.
Dear reader, please take a moment to create this situation as though it is real to you, and feel the emotions that rise up within you. You are walking under a window, and a pile of stinking vegetable peelings, rotting banana skins, three day old meat trimmings and some used toilet roll hits your head. You live in a hot environment, and so the mixture of putrid waste is particularly disgusting. A voice rings out above you: "******* Muslims! Terrorist! Osama lover!" and the abuse continues. We can all easily fill in blanks of the insults that Muslims face everyday. I would feel angry, furious. That is the natural human response.
Now we return to the behaviour of the Prophet himself. One particular day, there is no rubbish thrown at him. He is concerned and so he enquires after the whereabouts of the woman. When he is advised that she is unwell, he goes to visit her to see the state of her health. She is shocked when he arrives, knowing full well the extent of her abuse. His kindness and patience in dealing with her cruelty wins her over, and she accepts the message that the Prophet has been preaching.
How much we love to tell this story! How proud we are of the Prophet's exemplary character! But we fail to apply this in our daily lives. Let us return to our imaginary scene above. Would we have asked about the well-being of our abuser? Would we have taken time to get to the bottom of why they abused us? Would we have dealt with compassion and reason with them?
Many Muslims today already do suffer this kind of abuse, from simple rude comments on the street, to derogatory content in the media, to smearing in political circles, to books which cause offence. Sometimes we find it hard to connect it to the stories of the Prophet because we have not internalised the human experiences of the individuals whom we rightly venerate. And this is because we have not put ourselves in the shoes of their real human experience.
When we see an attack on Islam or Muslims, we ignore the example of the Prophet to return violence with rahmah, compassion, and concern, and instead return it with anger, protest and in a handful of cases with violence. It is easy to wax lyrical about the Prophet's patience, but have we really ever imagined ourselves in the situation, as we did a moment ago? Can we now imagine how hard what he did was? When scorn is poured upon Muslims, upon Islam and heartbreakingly on those whom we respect, we must rise above the instinctive response to retaliate with base violence. Defending yourself, and asserting your rights is indeed critical. It is right and proper to rise up to the full extent of law and justice. But we have to also bear in mind the vision that Muslims ought to have for society: to create an equal, fair and tolerant world that is based on knowledge and compassion.
A visionary can only take a dream and turn it into reality by meeting abuse with knowledge. And when those who are thirsty to know about all the values that can make us the best of human, they will look to wherever they can find that knowledge. If Muslims are not offering accessible knowledge, then that thirst will be quenched wherever even the mirage of truth appears. Where there is abuse, it must be replaced with knowledge and compassion, rahmah. That is what happened when the Prophet stepped into the woman’s home. As the Qur'an says, when we face those who are ignorant, we should return it with peace; that is the spirit that leads to quantum change.
This article was published in The Muslim News
Labels: Extremism, faith, Islam, love, Muslim, Muslim News, Muslims, News, prophet muhammed, religion, social cohesion, spirit21, spirituality
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 14:34
8 Comments:
good work Shelina... you have pulled off - what I call - an "Islamic stunt!"
Ahlan-wa-sahlan
Here is a little jotting I did on my Islamic blog of your article ... it was really a fantastic read!
Feel free to comment on anything there... Hope you find it as fun as I found Spirit21...
http://www.religionofamuslim.blogspot.com
i couldn't agree more, shelina! good point!
but i just want to ask one thing: assuming that muslims who are really following the footsteps of our beloved prophet is outnumbered by those who aren't, for argument sake, let's say out of 10 muslim globally, only 1 can truly do so, what can that person do to convince the rest that anger is best kept at bay, being angry is ok but letting off anger the way they do is wrong?
i can only remember how Umar ra reacted upon the news of the prophet's death, and how different it was form how abu bakr did, and both are the best of the companions.
Do you think there has to be a way to 'educate' the muslim majority despite the fact that many if not most muslims are struggling with how to keep ends meet?
I wandered upon your blog quite accidentally, but am fascinated and hope you will allow me to continue to be a little nosey?
Thanks for your thoughts. They are inspiring.
At first blush it would appear that Sr. Shelina writes in a thought-provoking manner. Let’s take a close look at her call to action to see what some of us can really do today, individually and in small groups, when faced with some of things she writes about. Here we go:
“A visionary can only take a dream and turn it into reality by meeting abuse with knowledge.”
What sort of practical advice would you give a visionary sixteen year-old Muslim boy or girl in school who is faced with bigotry, racism, Islamophobia and related abuse at the hands of one of their teachers -- abuse such as unfairly punitive grades, frequent, thinly veiled derogatory comments directed at Muslims, Islam and the prophet (p), blatant use of double standards in the class and the school, etc.
Please list five specific things this boy or girl should do, starting tomorrow morning, to “meet abuse (at the hands of one with authority) with knowledge.”
“Where there is abuse, it must be replaced with knowledge and compassion, rahmah.”
What sort of advice would you give half dozen Muslim sisters who were dismissed from their jobs in a courier company’s warehouse, for insisting that they were required by their faith to wear loose-fitting skirts down to their ankles? The company dismissed them because their attire did not meet safety regulations. It is a fact that these sisters had been working satisfactorily for the same company, under the same regulatory regime – safety and otherwise – for two years prior to their dismissal.
Please list five specific things these sisters should do, individually and collectively, starting tomorrow morning, to “replace abuse (at the hands of one with authority) with knowledge and compassion, rahma?”
“Sometimes we find it hard to connect it (this kind of abuse, from simple rude comments on the street, to derogatory content in the media, to smearing in political circles, to books which cause offence) to the stories of the Prophet because we have not internalised the human experiences of the individuals whom we rightly venerate.”
What sort of advice would you give a Muslim doctor, university professor, civil servant, taxi-driver and waiter who are made objects of ridicule and derision daily by their patients, students, colleagues and customers because of the daily barrage of inaccurate, biased and bigoted anti-Islamic reporting in the mainstream media. Reporting that can be described as text examples of duplicity and double standards, at the hands of those who are not without knowledge, but prefer to set that knowledge aside in order to practise the ‘virtues’ I have listed above.
Please list five specific things these five Muslims should do, individually, starting tomorrow morning, to deal with such conduct (by those who have great ability to sway public opinion) to have an impact and at the same time demonstrate that they “have internalised the human experiences of the individuals whom they rightly venerate?”
These are not hypothetical examples. They are stories – a handful from the millions readily available -- of real people and real incidents on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sr. Shelina, I love ‘Khuttab’ from the min(m)bar, in print, on TV and in the cyberspace. I like to hear/read/watch them from the bearded and be-thoubed, the professionals, the activists, the literati, the multi-faithers and all other sorts in the Muslim ummah. However, I find that my tolerance for empty words is running awfully thin these days.
We need to distinguish between the munafiqoon who threw kitchen waste at the prophet (p) and those who laid siege to Medina. He (p) certainly did.
Jamal Hassan
What are you advocating.. violence?
You seem to be proposing that we meet abuse with abuse.
How have you internalised the values?
Rahmah has many manifestations, and one of them is a partnership with justice and truth.
BTW, every time you have quoted an extract from my article you have responded with the same point "name 5 things..."
If you want to be critical, be so, but at least make a valid argument about what you DISAGREE with
Sr. Shelina, you write, in response to my comment, "You seem to be proposing that we meet abuse with abuse." I did no such thing.
What I tried to do was to find out if there was any (practical) substance behind your preaching. I have the answer now.
Hey, it's a free world. You have your opinions, I have mine. When I have things to propose, I'll do so myself, thank you.
Stay well.
Wassalam.
Jamal Hassan
It's important to be clear that I am not preaching, simply stating an opinion. You clearly havent read anything further down or about why I write my blog.
Before I responded to your comment I was pointing out that it was at variance with the article I wrote.
You were raising issues around justice and freedom, which may require a different etiquette and approach, depending on the circumstances.
Jamal,
What do you want to do? Chop off the Islamphobes heads and enslave their children and women - which is what happened to those who laid seige to Medina lest we forget.
Concerned citizen of a pluralist multicultural multi-faith society.
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