Midnight Musings

I just read a short but heavy post from a sister on here on why Shi’as hate Umar (RA).

Before reading this, one of things that would truly break my heart concerning the state of the Muslim Ummah is the relationship, mainly the lack of love, so much misunderstanding, and the general unsavory bitterness, between Sunnis and Shi’as. For a long time I was able to forget the animosity and discontent and believed earnestly that “it isn’t so bad, we (Sunnis and Shi’as) are brothers and sisters united in Islam, right?”

This post was a painful realization that perhaps it is that bad. There is too much bitterness and discontent between the two sects.

I’m not pointing fingers here either. History for so many is justification for the cultured perspectives and no one is to blame and no one is to be chastised. What i can’t tolerate is the hate and the intolerance (and this, i’m led to believe is something that some claim is something encouraged [may God have mercy on us all]). Islamic teachings have taught us that a difference of opinion is permissible, and as such we should be open to interpretations. If someone feels that the Shi’a path is for them, Alhamdullillah, though it may differ slightly from what you follow and believe in, accept it. All we can do is support one another and help each other get to our ultimate desired destination, no?

This brings me to my Shi’a brothers and sisters: I get it, I think i really do. If you can allow me this much to say, please believe me when i say i can understand your point of view. What i don’t get is the constant cursing and chastising of those whom our beloved Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) openly and passionately loved (if you intend to start flaming me events and cases, know that what you may reference may be heavily debatable). Now, despite the grievances and possible claims we can make about the interpretations of the past, what isn’t debatable about it is the character of our Prophet (PBUH) and how loving, open, forgiving, and cooperative he was. If we are to learn anything from this test before us that is rectifying the relationship we have with our brothers and sisters from different sects it is that we should be good to one another, i mean truly good to one another. That we should respect one another despite the decisions and possible mistakes the people we wish to emulate might have made. I swear, this is one of the biggest tests for our ummah, if we are to hold the lofty title of “Muslim” upon ourselves this is something that all muslims, Sunnis and Shi’as alike, should seriously consider and try and fix.

Alright, that’s my soapbox rant for the day. If i’ve angered or upset any one or sad anything incorrect, forgive me for i’ve only written this with the best of intentions.

Assalaamu alaikum and Peace be upon you all.

livingathomenow:

In Islam, the personality of the Prophet had a fundamental and constructive role in bringing about change, development and progress, in building a future civilization and in changing the course of history. This was because he appeared in a particular geographical location—the Arabian peninsula—which, from the point of view of civilization, was just like its geographic position. That is, it was a peninsula surrounded on three sides by seas, but thirsting and deprived of water. It was a neighbor to the great civilizations of history: to the north, the civilization of Greece and Byzantium; to the east, the civilization of Iran; to the southeast, the civilization of India; to the northwest, the Aramaic-Hebrew civilization. It was also a neighbor to the religions of Moses, Jesus and Zoroaster, as well as to the totality of Aryan and Semitic civilizations. At the time of the appearance of the Prophet of Islam, all the civilizations in existence were gathered around the Arabian peninsula. But the peculiar geographical location of the peninsula decreed that just as none of the vapors that arose over the oceans ever reached the peninsula, so too not a trace of the surrounding civilizations ever penetrated the peninsula. The Prophet of Islam thus appeared in such circumstances that his personality was—from the point of view of a sociologist—the greatest factor in the change and development of society and history. Similarly, a historian looking at the great event that occurred in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh (Christian) century will see that it absorbed into itself everything that surrounded it and laid the foundations for a great civilization and a lofty new society. When the historian then studies the peninsula and finds it an absolute vacuum from the point of culture and civilization, with its people existing at the lowest level, he is bound to attribute all these signs of change and development, this most fundamental and greatest revolution in history, to the personality of Muhammad the son of Abdullah. The personality of the Prophet thus has a particular, indeed exceptional, status.

In general there are five major factors that build a man. First, his mother makes the structure and dimensions of his spiritual form. The Jesuits say, “Give me your child until he is seven years old, and he will remain a Jesuit until the end of his life, wherever he goes.” The mother rears the spirit of man as something tender and sensitive, full of emotion, and gives each child its first instruction with her own gestures while suckling it.

The second factor in the making of man is his father, who makes the other dimensions of the spirit of the child after the mother.

The third factor that builds the outer and apparent dimensions of man is school.

The fourth is society and environment. The stronger and more powerful the environment, the greater will be its educative effect upon man. For example, if somebody lives in a village, the formative effect upon him of his environment will be less than in the case of one who lives in an extremely large city.

The fifth educative factor in the building of personality consists of the general culture of society or that of the world as a whole.

There are thus five dimensions which taken together form a mold into which the spirit of man is poured and from which it is extracted once shaped.

Education consists of the particular shape deliberately given to human spirits for the attainment of certain purposes. For if man to be left to his own devices, he will develop in such a manner as to be unfit for the purposes of social life. We therefore provide men with certain molds within which to grow and develop according to our desires and the demands of the age.

But in the life of the Prophet of Islam, whose personality must be regarded as the greatest factor in historical change, none of the factors mentioned above affected his spirit. It was, on the contrary, the deliberate purpose of God that no mold or form should be imposed on his spirit, and no artificial or inculcated form should touch his soul, in the way that earns men the approval of their time and their environment. For that great man came precisely in order to break all molds, and if he had grown up within one of them, he would never have been able to complete his mission. For example, he might have become a great physician, but only according to Greek models; he might have become a great philosopher, but only according to Persian models; he might have become a great mathematician or poet, but only according to the models approved by his age. However, he was sent to grow and develop in an environment that was empty of culture and civilization, and to remain untouched by the influence of any of the five factors mentioned above.

It is for this reason that when the Prophet opens his eyes, he does not see his father. Even though he has his mother, the hand that would keep him free of all forms and molds draws him into the desert while his mother is still alive. It was then the practice of the Arabs to send their infants into the desert until they were two years of age, so that they would spend their infancy in the desert. They would then return to the cities to grow up in the care of their mothers.

By contrast with this practice, the Prophet Muhammad went back to the desert after returning to Mecca, and he stayed there until he was five. After some time his mother died. These wise and subtle divine measures preserved from the influence of all forms and molds the infant that was destined to shatter all existing molds—Greek, Eastern, Western, Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian—and to create a new mold. Then again the hand of providence and fate removed him from the city to the desert in his youth, on the pretext of making him a herdsman, so that the urban environment might not impose its own approved forms on the spirit that had to develop in freedom. In order that society and the age might not leave any effect on the Prophet, he was, moreover, created in a society that had no general culture. In addition, he was unlettered—that is, he was unable to read or to write—because it was necessary that the mold of schooling also should not be imposed on him.

We see then that the greatest distinction and advantage enjoyed by the person who was to undertake such a mission lay precisely in his exemption from all forms and molds accepted in his age, all the forms that fashion man according to a stereotype. For the man who was destined both to destroy all fire temples and to close down all academies and establish in their place the mosque, the man who was destined to destroy all racial, national and regional forms and molds, should not himself be subject to the influence of any such form.

First, his father was taken from him so that his dimensions would not be imposed on the spirit of the Prophet. Then his mother was kept at a distance from him so that her maternal affection and tenderness should not taint with lyrical softness a spirit that had to be stern and powerful. He was, moreover, born in a dry peninsula, far removed from universal culture, so that his great spirit might not be affected by the educative influence of any culture, civilization or religion, for a spirit destined to endure and perform an extraordinary mission cannot be fashioned in any ordinary form. This apparent deprivation was in reality the greatest of advantages and distinctions for the person who was entrusted with the greatest role in the greatest event of history.

Excerpt taken from a complete translation of “Ravish-i Shinakht-i Islam” or “Approaches to the Understanding of Islam” which comprised of two lectures given at Husayniya-yi Irshad in October 1968. By Dr. Ali Shariati, translated from the Persian by Dr. Hamid Algar. Taken from the book “On the Sociology of Islam.”