What would Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Do Today? (Part III)
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
Muad Ibn Jabal was to be sent to lead another province as its new governor. In the conversation the Prophet asked him how he would deal with the new challenges that would surely come his way. Muad answered that he would first look into the Qur’an for guidance. The Prophet further asked him what he would do if he did not find the answer there. Muad then answered that he would look at the example of the Prophet himself. The Prophet further pressed him by asking what he would do if he still did not find any specific instructions even there. Muad then replied that he would then exert his own independent reasoning to come up with a fresh solution to the new dilemma. The Prophet felt satisfied. Muslims closed this last chapter of independent thinking in the best light of the Qur’an and the Sunna some 500 years ago. After all, the ability of man to reason out is also a special gift from God, exclusively bestowed on him. Why the religious scholars remain so tunnel-visioned?
The Prophet lives through Muslims in a global and perpetually changing world. It is in this creative re-imagining of what the Prophet would do that can help us to expand and become indigenous in so many cultural contexts. Safi says it beautifully that if Muslims become hidden from the reality of Muhammad, the light of Muhammad and the manners of Muhammad, then they deserve not to be counted among the People of Muhammad. It is a spiritual responsibility and honor for every Muslim to rise up to meet this challenge.
Today Muslims do not tolerate just an opinion; the Prophet not only tolerated his worst adversary, Abdullah bin Ubai, but also forgave him. It was this hypocrite who would often stand up while the Prophet was speaking and make fun of him; it was he who cast aspersions on the chastity of Hazrat Aisha, it was he who walked away with his 300 men in the Battle of Uhud; it was he who caused great mental distress to the Prophet and Muslims. And yet he claimed himself to be a Muslim.
When he died, his sons came to the Prophet and requested him to forgive their father. The Prophet did that. Then his son requested for the Prophet’s robe to be used as a shroud for his father, the Prophet obliged him there too. Then he requested the Prophet to lead the funeral prayers of his father as well. The gracious Prophet did not refuse that request either. Allah denied all these concessions to such people in Sura Tauba:80, “ Whether you ask for their forgiveness or not (their sin is unforgivable); if you ask seventy times for their forgiveness, Allah will not forgive them; because they have rejected Allah and His Prophet; and Allah guides not those who are perversely rebellious”.
How come these Muftis and Mullahs are allowed to feel free and use the Prophet’s name in order to sanctify their own rancor and political designs, and mark the people who needed to be eliminated? It did not happen so in a month or a year. The process has been in operation during the last 25 years. It happened so because the state law lost its teeth; the State used these extremists and in the process succeeded in creating a Frankenstein of them; it happened so because the judges became scared of attrition; the Muftis and clerics with radical views became the vote-banks and came to be openly patronized by the politicians. It is a whole messed up world over there.
While the bullet-ridden, and blood-stained body of Suleman Taseer was still lying in the hospital that the murderer Mumtaz Qadri’s image began soaring and emerging as “a true lover of the Prophet”. And there was no shortage of Sahibzadas and Muftis readily available to shift the paradigm. While Suleman Taseer’s body was being lowered in the grave, a good number of people could be spotted feasting on sweets. They had done the same a few years ago with Amer Cheema too. I remember the veteran journalists and clerics writing in papers and sermonizing from the pulpits on Fridays, that they had “envisioned the Prophet in their dreams, and heard him telling Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Hussain to see who had come?”
The scribe had never claimed any liking for the late Salman Taseer. He had been good for the PPP, but that is not the issue under discussion. For people like us who went into the study of English Literature, and who grew up eulogizing and quoting Dr. M. D. Taseer, Professor Siraj and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mr. Salman Taseer was a big disappoint. Salman Taseer was himself a highly educated person. But he lowered himself when he chose to play the role of a “Fool” in a Shakespearean play. It just didn’t behoove and befit a person of his background and education to dance like a jester to the tune of PPP jokers just to please the master. All that pinched and pained us.
The Cambridge University is known for producing leaders who have mattered in history. After all, he was the son of legendry Dr. Taseer, the first Muslim to earn a PhD degree from Cambridge in English Literature in the entire Sub-continent. But in his death he redeemed himself totally.
He stood by his words. He sided with the helpless and weak and poor Asia Bibi rather than with a rich and privileged individual. Hazrat Umer in his will had specially included one point for his followers to follow: taking care of the Dhimmis, the non-Muslims. This act of Suleman Taseer alone is good enough to earn him the pleasure of Allah and His Beloved Prophet.
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