Seeking His Pleasure Through Patience

Assalaamu’alaikum!

I got this in my e-mail today, and it really struck a chord with me, so I decided, hey, we Muslims should be aware of this! =)

No offense to any Jews or Christians reading this. I’m merely passing on this message =)

It pretty much helped to confirm my stand that the differences of OPINION, NOT belief, in our Ummah should not divide us. Instead, we should respect each other’s opinions and the ways they have adopted which they feel is more suitable for them to get closer to Allah swt.

Moral of the story: Don’t criticise. And always remember that no matter how much our opinions differ, we still all believe that there is no God but Allah, and Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is his Messenger.

But if someone’s obviously deviant, well, let’s not over-react and try to exile them, because that will only strengthen them.

May what is shared here be of benefit to us all, Insya’Allah.

Fi Amanillah =)
By: Yahya Emerick
Young Muslims Canada * – *

“Islam teaches that wudu is done this way.” The man said confidently.

“But you’re wrong,” the young man replied. “That’s totally against the laws
of Islam.”

“But it says in a hadith that…” The older man started saying.

“That’s a weak hadith!” The younger man interrupted.

“Oh Yeah! What’s your daleel (proof)? I read in a book that the blessed
prophet said to…”

By this time both men were fuming. The young man screamed, “I read in a
book, too, that…”

But before he could finish his sentence, the older brother pushed him and he
pushed back. A fight would ensued if some quick-thinking brothers nearby
didn’t break it up.

The two brothers eyed each other angrily and left in opposite directions.
Those who remained just shook their heads in silence. Here were two brothers
ready to fight over a difference of opinion.

The funny thing was, they both were right. They just didn’t know how to
handle a difference of opinion. The blessed prophet once remarked,
“Difference (of opinion) in my Ummah are a blessing.”

He didn’t mean that Muslims should argue about everything or be divided,
rather, he was pointing out that it was good for Muslims to think, to reason
together, to discuss things and that if they disagreed over something, that
it was all in the pursuit of knowledge.

If anyone uses differences of opinion to form competing groups, then they have done wrong and may find themselves in trouble on the day of judgment!

Allah is very harsh against those who make divisions. He said, “And be not
like those who split up their way of life and become mere sects, each group
rejoicing in what it (claims) it has.” (Qur’an 30:31-32).

Also he said, “As for those who divide their way of life and break up into
sects, you have no part of them at all. Their affair is with Allah. He will
tell them the truth of what they did in the end.” (Qur’an 6:159).

Once the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), said that the Jews divided up into 71
sects, or groups, the Christians into 72 and that his community would
eventually be divided up into 73. Then he said they would all be in the fire
except one. When the people around him asked which one was going to
Paradise, he replied that it was the one which would follow his example.

We are blessed as a community in that we have our original book and the
complete record of the life of our prophet. If anyone comes and says, “This
or that is Islam,” we can easily check and verify whether or not it’s true.

If it doesn’t come from the Qur’an or Hadith, then it can’t be Islam. So we must use those two sources to explain what Islam really is. Sincere people seek to learn and practice the truth and Allah guides those who seek him. Anything else is opinion.

On many occasions Muslims have disagreed over what something means or what to do. The key is to follow the Islamic manners of how to deal with
differences. We don’t have to agree all the time, but we don’t fight over disagreements as if we were enemies. And if we are truly wrong and realize it, we must not stick to a false position out of pride or fear of “losing.”

An arrogant person refuses to accept logic and a proud and vain person never likes to listen to guidance. In contrast, the Qur’an states, “Those who,
when they hear the signs of Allah being recited, humble themselves” So be
humble where knowledge is concerned.

Before the battle of Khandaq, the Muslims had to decide what to do. Some
wanted to go out and fight while others wanted to stay in the city and defend from there.

The prophet listened to both sides and in the end, he agreed with those who wanted to defend from the city. He didn’t barge in with his own personal preferences nor did the Shura, or group discussion, become heated and full of antagonism. People disagreed over an issue but united after a majority decision was taken.

Allah, the exalted, gave us a formula for dealing with differences when he
said in the Qur’an that this book is Al Furqan, the standard to go by. And
further he instructed us to follow the example of the blessed prophet
(Qur’an 33:21)

If we have a disagreement, especially between the followers of one Mazhab
(School of Fiqh) and another, we must respect each other’s opinions and
present our evidence.

In the end, even if neither side proves a point, we must be courteous and respectful. If we find our position is wrong, then we would be a fool to stick with something that is not true. Simply say,”Alhumdulillah, ” and thank the brother or sister for helping you to understand Allah’s Shari’ah better. Khalifa ‘Umar once said, “Allah bless the person who makes me a gift of my own faults.”

I’ve seen countless showdowns between people with different opinions in
which the end-result was ill will and hurt feelings. What’s even worse is
that such a display of rude behavior on the part of people who are supposed
to know Islam makes other Muslims shy away from the Masjid and Muslim
gatherings. It has an even worse effect on new converts and potential
converts. Muslims handle their differences with proper adab, or manners.

I still remember an inter-faith dialogue meeting I sat in on several years
ago. There were about ten Muslims, ten Jews, and fifteen Christians. Over
the course of several hours, it became obvious to all that the Jews present
were completely disunited, to the point that secular Jews were arguing with
the orthodox who were in turn calling the reform Jews fakes.

The Christians, who represented at least ten different sects, fared no
better. They disagreed on just about everything when topics in their
religion came up. Two Christians even got into an intellectual duel which
lasted almost fifteen minutes.

The moderator, who was a Lutheran preacher,
saw that his forum was descending into chaos. So he tried to get the Muslims
to go at each other’s throats also to deflect from the obvious disunity
among the Jews and Christians present.

He brought up the old Sunni-Shi’a issues and tried to make disunity among
Muslims, the primary topic of the gathering. None of us Muslims, about seven
men and three women, had ever met before. We came from different regions of
the metropolitan area. Three had identified themselves as Shi’a on the names
list we all had. I wondered what would happen.

To my great relief, no matter which Muslim spoke, male or female, Sunni or
Shi’a, we were all talking with one voice. We agreed on practically
everything and felt a tremendous feeling of victory in our hearts.

Despite the preacher’s repeated accusations, insinuations, biting remarks and
finally, obvious attempts to divide us, we united as one and handled any
differences respectfully and wisely. We had no shouting matches, no glaring
differences or understandings.

Indeed, after the meeting we knew we were all brothers and sisters while the Christians and Jews kept their distance from each other. They were pairing up with us to talk in the social time.

When we have differences, we must not forget that it does not take away from
our primary bonds of Iman. On one occasion, Khalid ibn Walid and Saad ibn
Waqqas were having a heated argument. After Khalid left, a friend of Saad’s
started saying bad things about Khalid. Saad immediately stopped the man and told him, “The disagreement between us does not affect the bond of our
Iman.” (From: God-Oriented Life)

Once ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, who was the Khalifa, or political leader, went up
to a person he disliked and told him to his face, “I don’t like you.” The
person merely answered back, “Are you going to take away my rights?” Umar
replied, “I don’t like you, but I will respect your rights.” Clearly, that
is the best example for us to follow with regards to dealing with the
differences among us.

====================================================
*Yahiya Emerick was a former vice principal at an Islamic school, President
of the Islamic Foundation of North America and a Muslim author and has
written many articles that have been published in local as well as national
magazines, both in North America and abroad. He was born into an American
Protestant Christian family and converted to Islam in 1989.

Amirah
Publishing was founded by Yahiya Emerick in 1992 in order to further his
ideal of publishing American-oriented literature on Islam. Emerick’s
juvenile fiction books are amongst the very first examples of the Islamic
Fiction genre. http:/ /islamicfictionbooks.com/ifbauthors. html  .

In addition to being an author he is also a lecturer and educator with national
recognition. One of Emerick’s books has been adopted into the curriculum of
Al-Azhar University in Egypt, the world’s oldest college and the foremost in
Islam.*