Ramadan Day 29: Gentleness

[akilanajmah]

Sometimes I think about the prophets that I've come to know and the ones that get fed to us by the MMSM (mainstream muslim media)-- the shaming, grumpy, hellfire type prophets and then the ones that actually emerge in their holy books, or in the case of RasoolAllah, sunnah.

To be sure, there're tons of wack sunnah out there where the Prophet (SAW) supposedly is condemning women to Hell for cutting their hair or wearing a wig or walking a certain way but that isn't the Prophet Muhammad I know. A friend of mine in Oakland reminded me of this.

The Prophet Muhammad (s) said: "Verily the one who recites the Qur'an beautifully, smoothly, and precisely, he will be in the company of the noble and obedient angels. And as for the one who recites with difficulty, stammering or stumbling through its verses (because he doesn't know how to read it but is trying to), then he will have twice that reward."

If the Prophet (and prophets) is the best of creation, would they not then possess the best of Allah(SWT) traits? Merciful, gentle, patient, loving, forgiving-- those are the 99 names of Allah.

And I haven't really been going anywhere lately-- I'm not feeling great-- so no new photos of colorful hijab. It was warm yesterday and this was me:

Comments

[delux_vivens]

Honestly these internet imam wannabes are enough to put me off my samosas. Srsly.

didja get your juices and berries pomade?

[akilanajmah]

I'm thinking more about people like Hamza Yusuf honestly. The internet imams learn and get legitimacy wherever-- but it's the ones that people flock to that come up with that wahabist evil prophet stuff that gets me. I'm thinking about Hamza because recently he admitted that women could lead prayer after years of saying it's impermissible... which he knew it wasn't. It's disingenuous folks that end up turning people away from Islam and hurting many more.

[delux_vivens]

he said, um, what?

[delux_vivens]

a lot of this is really abt amina wadud, isnt it?

[akilanajmah]

Not really, although he was amongst the (many) people who were screaming about her research (and she straight up calling him an opportunist last night and asked people to stop posting his comments, but I don't think people, at least my people, were posting like Ohhhhh! He's so progressive ain't he?! but more like "Man, this dude is foul.") back in the early part of last decade.

He's very publicly a homophobe and misogynist. I've never heard him say anything that was not anti-woman or anti-gay when speaking on the topics but because he's white American, people flock to him as though he's some super reliable source on Islam who'll tell it like it is (versus, IDK, all those brown people?) and be moderate. I get that there needs to be more American voices in Islam to make it accessible but that dude presents himself as an authority and intellectual (with the implications that carries) and, imo, purposefully misinforms people about tradition.