Zaynab Ansari – The Beloved Seerah 2016
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I'm honored to be able to participate
in the very first, Insha'Allah, first of many,
beloved Sira retreats
here in the the lovely,
Apex Masjid.
And, I want to ask all of you
gathered here
to please make du'a for the
success
of this
wonderful event, and all the hard work that
the organizers have put into this very special
occasion.
I
think that this time in which we find
ourselves as a community,
is it it's a challenging time. It's a
trying time.
We find ourselves now
in an election season
in which
the
idea of civility
is actually scoffed at. It's actually frowned upon.
So
I don't think this conference could have come
at a more critical time.
As we reflect upon the beautiful example of
the prophet
as we were reminded
by Shah Hasnal Ashab
in the opening session,
where he elaborated
on the importance of studying Sira.
Shah Hassan reminded us that
sometimes we fast forward through the Meccan phase,
so we can get to the Medinan phase.
And
we need to remind ourselves that the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
endured
many years of hardship
and difficulty
and tribulation
and adversity.
However,
no matter how difficult things became for the
Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
he remained
consistent
in how he responded.
The response that he exemplified was always one
of dignity,
and grace,
and courage under fire.
So for example,
when the Prophet, SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
would be standing
by the Ka'aba,
reciting the words of Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
the words of God Most
High. And various
detractors
of his from the Quraysh would attempt to
literally drown out
the noble voice of the Messenger with their
rather loud, harsh voices.
He didn't give up.
Right? He didn't become dejected,
he didn't walk away in despair.
And I'd also like to point out
that
he didn't return
that which was
reprehensible
with something that was equally or more reprehensible.
He didn't do that.
The theme of this session
is to repel evil with that which is
good, that which is better. Right?
And the ayah is from Surat Fusilat,
ayah 34.
Right? They're not
there's no sort of
equalizing
between
the hasanah and the
Right? So you push back with that which
is better
and more beautiful.
It's very powerful.
That if you are in a situation
where you're confronted with a choice,
and you can either sort of respond in
kind
or take the higher path. If you take
the higher path, Allah ta'ala is telling us
that that person
with whom
there was this sort of barrier of enmity,
that by the grace and mercy of Allah
Ta'ala, that person can be transformed
into a beloved friend.
And we know the famous example of our
Umar alaihiallahu anhu, which Sheikh Hassan mentioned. I
mean, I can't imagine a more compelling and
striking example
of someone whose
entire sort of demeanor
was completely
transformed from the very core. I mean, this
was somebody,
the story is very famous as you all
know, who actually set out to assassinate
the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Right?
He
realizes that his own family members have embraced
this new religion.
Right?
And in the midst of kind of confronting
them,
right, when he
hears the words of the Quran recited that
it awakens in him something.
Right? The seed. Something stirs within Umar radiAllahu
anhu.
And he goes from literally somebody who'd set
out to harm the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam to
becoming one of the,
subhanAllah, one of the strongest defenders of this
faith.
So it's very important
when we reflect on this
current climate of Islamophobia,
it's very important that we always take things
back to the Sira of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
If you were to actually examine,
say, the
life history of,
a famous political leader or a general,
you know, these people who achieve prominence,
Right? In in world historical events.
There's no one who comes close to the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in terms of being
magnanimous
and generous
in all situations.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is both
gracious
when things are difficult,
and the Muslim community is very vulnerable.
Right? And he's also gracious when the Muslim
community has the upper hand.
This is somebody
who is described as being no less than
a Rahma,
a mercy to the worlds,
and he fully
embodies that in every aspect of his noble
sea, Rassalallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Now, in terms of
negative depictions
of Islam
and Muslims,
It's not a new thing. Right?
We look at the ayah to the Quran
that are revealed
in response to the various,
arguments that are deployed against the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. Right? It's really interesting when
you kind of look at the discourse about
Islam and Muslims today,
and you see that some of the the
most sort of vocal and vociferous opponents of
Islam and Muslims are people who kind of
brand themselves,
build themselves as new atheists. There's nothing new
about what they're saying.
Look at the books of Sira
and look at the charges that the Quraysh
leveled against the prophet
Right? They had assemblies, they had gatherings
where they would basically go through kind of
like a whole list
of names
and labels
that they wanted to apply to the prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
They
would actually sit there and confer
on hurtful things.
Right? On hurtful things they could say to
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam.
They strategized about how to discredit
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam and his and
undermine his message.
And
what's really interesting is that the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasallam
did not
embark on
a PR campaign. Right? He didn't hire a
consultant.
And not
to diminish, right, or minimize those efforts that
are being undertaken
in our communities, but I just wanna point
out that the prophet
did not
water down or dilute his approach.
He certainly did not stoop to the level
of his detractors or enemies,
but
he remained
steadfast
from the beginning to the end,
and was not willing to compromise
on the core message that he was sent
with. Because it wasn't a new message, and
that's the thing, that's what we need to
understand.
Right?
That
sometimes
when we sort of see ourselves as a
community that's sort of newly transplanted to the
soil,
for those of us who have origins in
other countries and other cultures,
Sometimes there's a tendency to see ourselves as
that new kid on the block. Right? And
that we have to sort
of play by the rules that are already
established, that we really can't have any input.
We can't do anything to actually change those
rules,
But the
prophet
didn't play by the rules of the Quraysh.
He didn't.
And that's because he knew that this was
not something novel that he was bringing. Even
though they try to discredit this message as
just Asati'il Uwelin. Right? This is just fables
of the the the people of old.
In their heart of hearts, they knew that
this wasn't some type of
newfangled innovation.
They knew about the idea of 1 God.
They knew that.
But in their
arrogance
and their intransigence, because that's really what kufr
is all about, that's what disbelief is all
about. It's about arrogance, it's about intransigence.
Right? They didn't wanna concede
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had
been right all along.
So I would really encourage us as a
community
to
not be so willing to adopt a defensive
posture,
as if we have to justify our very
existence in this society.
We don't have anything to apologize for,
And we don't have to justify our existence
to anyone.
That the message that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam brought has a very ancient provenance,
and this was the message brought by every
single prophet and messenger.
And
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
time after time
always chose
the higher response.
Right? He was always
generous
and wise
and lenient and magnanimous.
He never
responded, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, on the basis of
caprice, or whim, or emotion.
And that's
despite
the fact that his own people
went from
honoring him as Asad, Dirq, and Al Amin.
Right? The truthful, and the and the trustworthy,
to leveling all kinds of accusations
him, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So
negative depictions
of Islam, negative depictions of the Quran, negative
depictions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that's
nothing new.
Right? Islamophobia
is actually not a new phenomenon.
All the prophets and messengers,
right,
were faced with denial,
mockery,
rejection,
vituperation,
and they were all patient
in the face of those challenges.
And we also have to think about the
fact that
those who leveled various charges and accusations against
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
were doing so
from a position of having a particular agenda
that they wanted to fulfill.
Right? There was always some type of agenda,
whether it was political,
whether it was economic, whether it was theological,
that these
that denigration
of Islam did not sort of arise out
of a vacuum,
because the Quraysh realized
they they knew this. They realized that this
message of Tawhid,
of the oneness of God,
they knew that it was going to completely
transform their very society, and it was going
to upend
the influence, the * that the Quraysh enjoyed
over everybody else.
It was a challenge, right? It was a
threat.
And they attempted to neutralize
that challenge, and what they perceived as a
threat.
So there was always an agenda.
And this agenda continued. Right?
So when, for example,
Christians
are mobilizing,
the Crusaders
more specifically, are mobilizing
to
invade the Muslim world. Right? To supposedly, quote
unquote,
liberate Jerusalem from the quote unquote infidel.
If you think about it, you know,
the pope
has to have some way
of stirring up animosity
against
the Muslim other,
and that's what it's really
that's what it's really about. Right? It's about
ultimately demonizing and dehumanizing the other.
And this is something that's happened since
the earliest, our earliest history. Right?
So the pope had to have some pretext
for why he was basically sending
people's sons to the middle to the Middle
East. Right? So you have to basically
dehumanize the other, and the way you do
that is to attack their religion, attack their
faith, their way of life,
denigrate their prophet.
So some of the earliest Islamophobic writing that
you actually see, at least when it comes
to Western Islamophobia,
right, is in the incitement,
you know, the incitement of the pope.
And, these writings of medieval Europeans
about Islam and Muslims.
It's really kind of out of this context
that honestly the earliest
translations of the Quran
arise.
So trans The very act of translating the
Quran itself, translating the Quran,
translating the Prophet's life for a European audience,
it becomes a political act,
because the agenda
is we have to dehumanize these people and
render them so completely other so that we
can basically invade them. Right?
So
we need to understand
that this phenomenon of Islamophobia
is not
it's not new.
And
ultimately,
when we see
and witness and observe,
you know, whether it's sensational media headlines,
or attacks on Muslims. Right? On our communities.
When we see varying various manifestations of Islamophobia,
we have to
remind ourselves
that often these manifestations of Islamophobia
are coming from a place,
not just of ignorance, sometimes ignorance is a
factor,
but a place sometimes of arrogance
and intransigence.
That in some cases,
right, in some cases,
there is a recognition on the part of
the person that's trying to undermine
Islam. There is a recognition on the part
of that person that there is
a kernel of truth in this faith,
but it's the
wall of denial that they've built up. Right?
That doesn't allow them to conceive that.
So instead instead,
they attempt to render
Islam and Muslims as the other.
And
I want to conclude on this note.
In 1994,
I was in London,
and I'll never forget something that
the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Sheikh Mustafa Cherich
told the audience when we were asking him
about the experience of Muslims in the former
Yugoslavia,
and what they endured, and you know, his
explanation, we were wondering is it ancient hatreds
and this type of thing that we're hearing
in the media, and he said no, quite
honestly, that Muslims are being targeted because their
enemies quite honestly were jealous of them. And
I always thought that was just the strangest
thing to say,
but
thinking about that statement all these years later,
I think there's
something valid in that. That a lot of
times,
these sorts of negative responses to Islam and
Muslims it's not really about us, it's more
about
that other person. A lot of times it
says more about that person than it does
about
Islam and Muslims in the Muslim community.
So
try to have,
as the prophet did sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the
ability to have a certain degree of empathy,
even when you completely disagree with the approach
of that person, to be able to sort
of
analyze and assess, unpack, and even empathize on
a certain level inshallah. I hope to get
back to these ideas inshallah later on.