I have been troubled by the attacks made on several notable scholars,
especially the slanderous material written about my own teacher, Shaykh
Abdallah bin Bayyah. He never pays any attention to them, but I have
lived with him and witnessed his piety, decency, virtuous character, and
genuine love for the Prophet’s Ummah, and I fear for those people who
so lightly attack him, or who attack others, like Shaykh Sa’id Ramadan
al-Buti, simply because they disagree with them.
We ought to know that such criticism of learned people is not a good sign. As recorded in al-Hakim’s Mustadrak,
the Prophet of God, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to
have said,
“When the Muslims begin to loathe scholars and are
preoccupied with commerce and its development, obsessing over
accumulation of wealth, God will then direct at them four tribulations:
loss of productivity, oppressive rulers, corrupt justice systems, and
enemies who find them easy prey.”
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Meanwhile, sure as the Prophet’s prediction, we find Muslims preoccupied and obsessed with the pursuit of wealth and material possessions. We see Muslims, even in the revered places of Islam, more eager to sate their worldly appetite than their spiritual one. Mecca and Medina are transforming into giant malls where pilgrims spend hours wandering in a daze, gorging on their choice flavor from Baskin-Robbins, or seeking out the McDonald’s to grab a halal Big Mac before the farewell tawaf. It is now not uncommon at the Sacred Mosque to hear a pilgrim’s plea: “Oh, can you please take my picture as I kiss the Black Stone?”
ReplyDeleteIn Medina, I found more signs of the troubled times we live in. I tried to find a non-smoking hotel because my children were with me, and because my reactive airway doesn’t tolerate smoke well. Sad to say, I was unsuccessful. Despite the fact that all of the major hotel chains outlaw smoking in their European and American locations, they revert to allowing smoking – due to popular demand, no doubt – in the two most sacred spots where smoking is not only haram1 but manifold times more so. And it’s common knowledge that secondary smoke clearly causes harm to others. When I went to a hotel’s manager to protest that my rights were being violated, he looked at me as if I was mad and flatly stated the obvious reason for their policy: “The majority of guests here prefer smoking!” So what is clear is that in the City of our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, a smoker’s right to harm himself and others trumps a non-smoker’s right to be free from harm and to breathe the blessed and healing Medinan air.
Apparently, they also prefer to waste food. The wastage I witnessed was beyond belief. While in Medina, my wife and I took leftover food out to the streets and found poor people who were overjoyed to eat it and thanked us profusely for having thought of them. I spoke with one of the waiters in our hotel about people placing far more food on their plates from the buffet table than they could possibly eat, and he responded, “If you saw what we see, you would weep.”