The Beauty in Islam Mufti Minhajuddin Ahmed

A Young Muslim's Example

Is he the most suitable candidate? Will he lead an Islamic life and raise Islamic grandchildren for you? I don't know about that. I cannot guarantee that. But I can only tell you that it's valid for me to perform the Nikkah. After that, how he leads his life and how your daughter leads her life, that's up to them. They have to make the right decisions.

In any case, it wasn't that. It was not the story. It was a 16-year-old boy, and he looked like a 12-year-old. He had a very baby face — a young little boy — but he had a Muslim friend. And this Muslim friend had an interest in Islam. He was impressed by his character, impressed by his akhlaaq, and spending time with him, he eventually asked questions about Islam.

Now, if it was many of the other Muslim youth, they would be ignorant about Islam themselves. They're so shaky in their own faith. They would feel scared and timid to share their faith, and they probably would not be a good example for him to learn about the deen of Islam. And that person would be left without a correct understanding. But, alhamdulillah, this young boy rose up to the challenge, and he explained the deen in such a manner that his friend accepted Islam and came to the masjid. MashAllah.

So what does this teach us? That with our good character, with our beautiful akhlaaq, we can prove to the people that our deen is not something to be afraid of.

Lessons from the Seerah: The Power of Character

Actually, even if you look in the seerah of Rasulullah ﷺ — Nabi ﷺ made 13 years of untiring effort in Makkah al-Mukarramah to spread Islam. How many people converted? A handful. Very few people.

Then Nabi ﷺ likewise spent seven years in Madinah al-Munawwara, trying to invite towards Tawheed. Still, the number of believers was very few. In the battle of Badr, there were 313. In the battle of Uhud, 700. Where is 700 compared to the entire Arabian Peninsula — or the world — as Rasulullah ﷺ has been sent for the guidance of entire mankind?

But then, after the Sulh al-Hudaybiyyah in the sixth year of Hijrah, from the seventh year to the tenth year — in these three years — if you plot a graph of the conversion to Islam and those who accepted Islam, you'll see that it rises sharply.

In the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari رضي الله عنه says:

When the Bay'at al-Ridwan — the pledge — was taking place under the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, Rasulullah ﷺ told them: you 1,400 who have gathered here, you are the best of the entire creation.

I was focusing on the number — how many there were: 1,400. So from the 2nd year of Hijrah, 313. Now the 6th year of Hijrah, only 1,400. A very small increase in the number of those who accepted Islam. And this was the majority of the Sahaba. Very few were left behind. Most of them were there because this was the Umrah of Rasulullah ﷺ. The Prophet of Allah is going to Umrah — who would not want to join him? Especially the Muhajireen, who had left their homes and their beloved city of Makkah. Six years they had not seen it, the Ka'bah, and they had a burning desire to go back. Yet only 1,400.

But then, from the 7th year — in the 8th year — the Fath of Makkah. How many Sahaba entered at the Fath of Makkah? 10,000 Sahaba. And from there, from the 8th to the 10th year — in the 10th year of Rasulullah ﷺ's life, in the Hajjatul Wada' — how many Sahaba were there? 124,000. So we went from 1,400 to 124,000. So quickly, so rapidly, the graph shot up.

The Analysis of Imam Shahabuddin al-Zuhri

So the scholars of Hadith and the scholars of Seerah contemplated over this. And they said: what is the reason? How did this occur? Imam Shahabuddin al-Zuhri رحمه الله, who was a great muhaddith from among the Tabi'een — the second generation after the Sahaba رضي الله عنهم أجمعين — and one of the great scholars of Madinah al-Munawwara, among the grand teachers of Imam Malik — he says that his conclusion, which is corroborated by many other scholars as well, is this:

Up to the signing of the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, there was a state of fear. There was a state of war taking place between Makkah and Madinah — between the Mushrikeen of Makkah and the Muslimeen of Madinah. And that's why there was no trade, there was no travel. The Muslims were living in their own area, in their own state of Madinah. They could not interact with the other tribes. And the other tribes did not have an opportunity to see the beautiful character, to see the beautiful akhlaaq, and the mu'amalat and the dealings of the Muslims.

But after this treaty of Hudaybiyyah was signed, for the first time, the Muslims were able to interact with their neighbors, with the neighboring tribes. And they were allowed to intermingle — the Mushrikeen of the Arab tribes with the Muslims. And they witnessed the honesty of the Muslims, their fair dealing, their compassion. They witnessed their sole reliance on Allah. They saw their tawakkul on Allah. They saw all these beautiful attributes. And this is when the phenomenon occurred:

"And you will see the people entering into the fold of Islam in large, large numbers."

So this is the beautiful lesson we can learn from the seerah of Rasulullah ﷺ.

The Warning from Islamic Spain

And the opposite, we see as well — in Spain. Allah had given the Muslims and the Arabs of Spain authority and domination over the land. They ruled Spain for 900 years. They were not a minority there; they were the actual victors and conquerors of Spain. And Allah had given them beautiful architecture. Allah had given them sciences and arts. In all material fields they were progressing, as well as in the religious sphere. They had beautiful masajid. So many great scholars — Ibn Hazm, al-Qurtubi, al-Shatibi.

When you learn the Qira'at Sab', there is a poem — Hirz al-Amani wa Wajh al-Tahani, which is known as Qasida Lamiyyah as well. In the entire poem, every line ends with a Lam. And also in 'Ilm al-Rasm, 'Aqilat Atrab al-Qasa'id, known as Qasida Ra'iyyah — every poem ends with a Ra. And a very complex subject of Qira'at in the Rasm of the Quran is explained in this poetry. The text itself is a poem, a Qasida, written by Imam al-Shatibi, who was a blind scholar from Islamic Spain.

There is no book of Tafsir — no translation even of the Quran — that anyone can undertake in any language without benefiting from and referencing Imam al-Qurtubi رحمه الله, Al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Quran, which is one of the top Tafsirs. If someone has to ask you or any scholar: what are the top five Tafsirs ever written? Imam al-Qurtubi would be placed in the top four or five Tafsirs ever written in any language. And the author was, again, from Islamic Spain.

So there were so many scholars in Spain, so many madaris, so many masajid. The rulers themselves were Muslims. But eventually they forgot the purpose of their existence. They became insular and — in fact, beyond not worrying about others — they started squabbling and fighting among themselves, which has always been a curse in our history. And because of that, they lost the entire country. The Spanish Inquisition took place, and the non-Muslims killed them, murdered them, and forced them to flee from the land and expelled them. And the beautiful Masjid al-Qurtubi became a church.

So we cannot be content with our masajid — that we have a very beautiful Dar es Salaam Masjid. I cannot be content. You cannot be content. Because the Masjid al-Qurtubi was more beautiful than this Dar es Salaam Masjid. And we cannot be content with our madrasahs, with our academies, because they were greater scholars. Imam al-Qurtubi, Ibn Hazm — the great scholar of Zahiri Fiqh, one of the great scholars of the Zahiri Madhab, Sahib al-Muhalla — all of these great scholars were greater than us. We are mere students of knowledge. But none of this helped them in the long run. They lost the whole country, even though they were in a much better position than we are.

Why? Because they did not show their beautiful Islam to the non-Muslims. They did not interact with them with beautiful akhlaaq. This is our responsibility.

Our Outreach Efforts

We have to take this to heart — make this intention, a firm intention, that we will do outreach. Just to share with you, as we conclude, some of the outreach activities that we were able to do with your help and the help of the volunteers — may Allah reward them — is that all of the officials in the government, we took different gifts and cards and went and spoke to them. Including the sheriff of DuPage County. I personally went, and some of the brothers also went with me. We went and spoke to the inspector, the chief inspector who is in charge of the patrol division of the sheriff's department. We had a meeting with him. We went and spoke to the chief of the entire DuPage County administration. We had a meeting with him. We invited them to the masjid as well.

We went to all the different departments in the county office with different gifts. We went to the church here — I went, we gave a gift and invited them to an open house at the masjid. All of these neighbors in the apartments, in these condos here, and all the neighbors on the street, the car dealer, all the people you see when you're entering — we took gift baskets and chocolates and we invited them.

We are also holding — inshAllah — we are going to be hosting a neighborhood open house. This card we printed and gave to all of them: "Happy holidays from your neighbors at Dar es Salaam Foundation. You are cordially invited — January 9th at 12pm — for a neighborhood open house. Refreshments will be served. Open question-and-answer session." And RSVP is there. So we have these cards on the way out. We don't have unlimited numbers of these printed because they are beautifully printed cards with pictures and everything. So if you have co-workers, if you have neighbors that you want to invite to the open house, do pick up a card and take it and present it to them so that they can inshAllah also come to the masjid.

All the studies and all of the surveys unanimously agree and indicate that those Americans who have a one-on-one relationship with Muslims have far lesser degrees of hatred or fear of Muslims than those who have no interaction with Muslims. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what they are being told.

I could not personally reach all of the neighbors myself, so we had some volunteers and students help us. And they came back with stories — that they are at the door, they are knocking, and they hear the television talking about Muslims being terrorists. That's what they're hearing, and they're afraid to knock on the door. And they knock on the door, and there you go — there is a Muslim standing with a gift. With a box of candy. So the person will be forced and compelled to think: I'm just hearing this, I'm watching this — that they are so bad. But what do I see here? There is a Muslim giving me chocolate at the same time.

And inshAllah — as we say, and this is an agreed-upon reality — actions speak louder than words, and he will inshAllah believe in the action that he sees and witnesses, rather than believing in those words he is hearing on the screen.

Our Individual Responsibility

So we have to make the decision. Whatever field that we may be involved in, we all have to take responsibility — each and every single one of us. This was something we always had to do, but the time now has become even more incumbent upon us. We cannot sit back and say that there will be some group of scholars who will take care of this, or some Muslim public action community will take care of this, or CAIR will be fighting for us, or someone else will be fighting for us. Each one of us has been selected by Allah to be an ambassador of the deen.

And I'll conclude by saying that there are those who may be engaged in interfaith, engaged in dealing with others and inviting others, but themselves are not practicing the deen. And there are those who are practicing the deen but are not engaging with others. This is a very sad situation.

Allah says:

"O you who believe, enter into Islam completely" — wholly, completely, kaafah.

Those who are doing their own ibadah — they might not be missing any tahajjud prayer, they are fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, they are doing nawafil as well. But the non-Muslim neighbors — they have no knowledge about that. They don't see that. They need to know that you are concerned about their welfare as well. At a humanitarian level, we have to engage with them and help in those causes that Islam stands for as well. So they don't see that side of you.

On the other hand, there may be those who are very proactive in the political field and other fields, but what they are doing is that they themselves are not demonstrating Islam. They are afraid to mention that they are Muslims. So they are not adding glory to Islam. They are just making it easier perhaps for themselves, for their own existence. But they are not helping the Muslim cause.

So those who are involved in outreach — they need to start practicing. And those who are practicing the religion of Islam — they need to engage in outreach. We have to do both. We have no option but to excel in both fields.

No Excuses — Take the Courage

If you feel that you can't engage — I'm a very insular person, I'm an introvert, I don't like to talk — that is not an option anymore. It's very difficult for me. What do I have in common with the church people? What do I have in common with the people in the government? We went to the fire station. We gave to the fire chief. It's easier for you perhaps to engage with them than for myself. If you want to talk about football or sports, you can talk about it. I don't even know anything about sports. I have nothing in common to talk to them about. But this is something I realized — it is high time I need to do. I have to do it. I have no option.

So I took the courage and I went to these people. And I found it to be very, very beneficial. So I encourage all of you as well. It may be easier for you to communicate. It may be even easier for you to interact with them. So do not shy away. Take the opportunity.

And if you feel that you don't have enough confidence because you don't know enough about the deen of Islam — you're not able to speak — then it's high time to pick up books. Come to the different classes that are offered by the ulama in the area. There are so many opportunities to learn — from Darul Qasim, Darul Hikmah, Darul Salam. All these different classes are being offered by different scholars. Go and enrich yourself with the knowledge and arm yourself so that you'll be able to combat this fitnah.

We do not have an option to stay silent on the sidelines and say that someone else will take care of it anymore. May Allah give us all the tawfiq in this year to make a great change in overcoming this. And inshAllah, we will be able to overcome it with the guidance of Allah.