Medina Stories #11 – The Seerah of The Prophet

When we were in Medina, myself and the other Western students, primarily the US students and the British students, we noticed that we had there was a big deficit. Normally, between us and some of the other students, like you'd get, you would get some students there. I remember I had this classmate from Chad, and this guy was already a shave. Really, he just came to Medina for the diploma like for the for the credentials, he was already memorized the whole core and and books of Hadith. And he carried himself with such dignity and such honor. And he spoke slowly, and he was always helping us come together. And if someone had gotten into an argument, he would advise them in

a very beautiful and gentle way. And there's another student I knew from from Guinea Bissau. He came in, he came in halfway through the semester, because they were under some sort of quarantine back then. They came halfway through the semester. And he

he did not struggle at all, let's say, He conquered the curriculum. Very, very easily. He passed through everything we used to joke with him, we used to say, How's your master's thesis going? Just in his first year, because, again, he showed up basically, as a chef and he to the way he carried himself, there were other people from different parts of the Muslim world. They were already running orphanages, they were already Imams of machines that came to Medina. And what struck us not just about how, you know, advanced they were in their in their good deeds and things like that, but especially their manners, their manners were so refined. And for us as Westerners who have kind of

been influenced a lot by Western culture, we noticed that we had this kind of deficit, not just of knowledge and how much we knew, but the way that we treat each other. And so we would ask our professors in the mache, if so, how do we rid ourselves of these of this harshness that we find? How do we how do we soften ourselves and, and refine our character? And the most common answer we got was to read the Sierra of the Prophet Allah who said, they said that the Sierra is the quickest and most efficient way if we're thinking of like foods, it's like the most nutrient dense material that you could digest because the Sierra well, let's put it this way, if you go to the Quran and the

Hadith, obviously, we love them, we love to study them, but it always risks or runs the risk of having you take things out of context. Right? If you have one eye, well, how many other ideas are there? You have one Hadith, how many other Hadith are there, whereas the Sierra, the Sierra has the application of these things all together, and the person of the Prophet Mohammed salah, so walking in the body of the Prophet Allah, He sets them is the, you know, the knowledge of the Quran, and the knowledge, the knowledge of the Hadith. And so he's putting those things into practice. How is he reacting to things? When is he firm? When is he lenient? When is he forgiving and charitable? When

is he Stern? And just? All these sorts of things? How do you how do you balance between work and home and different personalities? And how do you put people in the place they need to succeed and to flourish? These are all things that you can learn from reading this hero of the prophet Ali, so that's a set up and there's no one authoritative zero in the English language. But hamdulillah every year we get a trickle of a few more options. So there's a lot of material out there to start with, and to end to expose yourself to