ery.djunaedy

Celebrating the Prophet’s birthday

How should we react to those insulting cartoons of the Prophet?

This is the transcript of my sermon delivered on Friday prayer 21-Mar-2008 at the Islamic Center of Boise.

Brothers and sisters,

I start this khutbah with an advice for every one of us to always increase our imaan and taqwa to Allah s.w.t. Allah says in the Quran (surah Ali Imran, surah no 3, verse no 102)

[3:102] O ye who believe! Have taqwa to Allah in the real form of taqwa, and do not die except in a state of Islam.

Our whole life is a struggle to get closer to Allah. According to this ayat, muslim is not a state of being, but a process of becoming. The ayat challenges us all to live however we want, and the only requirement is that we should be a real muslim at the time of our death. We will not succeed in that challenge if we do not seek the true meaning of takwa throughout our life.

Brothers and sisters,

In the month of Rabi’ul Awwal, the month of when the Prophet s.a.w. was born, the best topic to discuss in this khutbah is how we should remember the Prophet s.a.w. In particular, I want to explore how we should defend his noble status in the hearts of muslims, in this crazy world where people can freely mock the Prophet with insulting cartoon. I want to share my exploration into this matter with all of you, to see just how the Prophet s.a.w himself wants us to respond to such provocation.

Brothers and sisters,

If we love someone, we will talk about that person, we will honor the person, we wish the person well, and always remember the person. Our love to the Prophet is much stronger than our love to other people, even stronger than our love to our own parents. Our love to the Prophet is not only based on stories from his life, but also a religious obligation.

There is no wonder if many muslims are so angry if the Prophet was drawn in insulting cartoons. There is no wonder that so many muslims are even willing to die when the Prophet’s name was mocked.

However, curiously enough, many of those muslims who were so angry and even willing to die for that purpose, many of them are not devoted muslims. We see ourselves in our home countries, that many muslims are simply not practicing Islam. But when it comes to demonstration and public show of anger, they will be in the front row defending the Prophet and Islam.

Angry demonstration, public show of anger, killing people, those are extreme acts that can result from insulting the Prophet s.a.w. In this khutbah, I want to warn every one of you, Brothers and Sisters members of our congregation, that we should not defend our Prophet by doing any of these extreme acts.

The obvious reason for this warning is that because these extreme acts are against the law. Of course, you can say that I have to say this because we live here in the US, where you cannot say anything to approve those acts.

But let us stop there, and imagine that we live in our own countries, where you can get away with running amok, burn churches, harass the westerners, or even kill people, all in the name of defending the Prophet. Think about this question: does the Prophet really want us to do those things?

Does the Prophet really want us to kill those cartoonists who drew insulting cartoons? Absolutely not. Why would he want us to do that? He used to be called a witch, in front of his face. People called him crazy, in front of his face. They boycotted him. They spit on him. They put a wet camel skin over him when he prostrated in an attempt to kill him.

In the famous story that everyone knows, he was chased out of a village where everyone threw rocks on him. And what did he say to those people? Did he ask them all to be killed? Even when an angel lost his temper (can you imagine an angel lost his temper?), and proposed to the Prophet that he throws a mountain on that village, what did the Prophet said to the angel? He did not approve such action and said that “they are just ignorant people. If not them, I hope that their children will embrace this religion.”

And now these cartoonists depict the Prophet as terrorist, should we all kill them? Absolutely not!

Brothers and sisters, imagine it in your heart, ask that question to the Prophet: Ya Rasulallaah, should we all kill those people who insulted you?

Ask that question in your heart, and let the history of the Prophet answer that question for you. You would not believe that this kind hearted Prophet would approve such a thing, when he himself during his life time would resort to other ways of responding.

Ask another question, Brothers and Sisters, because these cartoonists are from Christian nations, should we burn the churches? Absolutely not. You will not believe that this kind hearted Prophet would approve burning churches in response to insulting him, when he himself during his lifetime has never burnt down any places of worships, from any religion.

But then the question remains, brothers and sisters, how should we respond to those insults?

O yes, I am sad and angry for those cartoons insulting the Prophet. We are all sad and angry, because people are mocking and insulting our beloved Prophet s.a.w. But our sadness and anger should not be shown in manners that are not consistent with the teachings of the Prophet s.a.w. How should we show our love to our Prophets in this uncertain time?

Brothers and sisters, the answer has been written down by the Prophet himself in the history of his life. I will summarize two ways of responding it.

The first way is on the personal level. Looking inward, what we should do is measure our love to the Prophet.

Allah says in the Quran, surah Al-Ahzab, surah 33, verse 6:

For the believers, the Prophet is “awla” even to themselves.

“Awla” means to have priorities in various forms. If you love the Prophet, you love him more than you love yourselves. If you protect the Prophet, you will protect him more than you protect yourselves.

Look at those cartoons, Brothers and Sisters, and if you feel nothing, then there is a problem with your relationship with the Prophets. This unfortunate event is an opportunity to gauge our love towards the Prophet.

Increase our love to the Prophet by repeating the shalawaat to him. Teach your children about this particular form of remembrance. In Indonesia, we even sing it together in the Masjid while we are waiting for the prayers to start:

[Allaahumma shalli alaa Muhammad, ya rabbii shalli alaihi wa sallim, Allaahumma shalli alaa Muhammad, ya rabbii balligh hul wasiilah]

Also on the personal level, do not forget to pray for those cartoonist who insult the Prophet, exactly the same prayer that the Prophet said to those people who chased him out of the village: May Allah bless them with hidayah. If not them, may their future generations be blessed with hidayah.

We as muslims believe that Allah is the “Muqallib al-quluub”, the One who change the feelings in our heart. As you all know, we cannot control how we feel. How many times that your anger was washed away by things outside your control? How many times that your joking mood erupted into anger?

We cannot even control who we love or who we hate. We have seen cases where the love of thirty years was changed into hate because of one single incident. We also have seen cases where eternal enemies suddenly become jealous lovers.

Allah is the One who has full control of our feelings. That is why we always pray to Him, that He would keep our hearts steady in this religion.

In the same spirit of what the Prophet has done, we should always pray, may Allah change the hearts of those cartoonists. They may now hate the Prophet s.a.w., but may Allah turn that hate into love. And if not them, let their future sons and daughters be blessed with love and tolerance.

Brothers and sisters,

The second level is the public level. What should we do in public? The best way is to educate the people around us. We need to tell them that this is how we feel about the Prophets, about Muhammad s.a.w. and also all of other Prophets.

There was one incident not long ago in the Middle East. A western teacher (meaning a non-muslim) was asked by her student what is the best name for her teddy-bear. She answered “Why don’t you call it Muhammad?”

What happened next was typical of our reactions to this matter: public show of anger. It’s like: the more you show your anger, the more you love the Prophet. It’s a race in showing bigger and greater outrage.

The teacher lost her job, and might have faced criminal prosecution. I did not follow what happened next, but that is irrelevant for this khutbah.

What I want you to do is think about it. When she said to the student to name her teddy-bear Muhammad, did she intend to insult? On that very specific occasion, on spontaneous reaction to her student’s question, did she really mean to insult?

I don’t think so. The worse that could have happened is ignorance. The teacher might have even meant well when she suggested the name Muhammad. Probably she knows that Muhammad is a beloved person to muslims, and muslim girls love teddy-bear. So why not call the teddy-bear Muhammad, to show affection, to reflect love.

This is the ignorance on the teacher’s part. She do not know that we muslims do not show our love to the Prophet by calling a doll Muhammad. In fact such action can be seen as insulting. The fact that she does not know this disqualifies her from being a teacher.

But looking deeper into the community where she comes from, how could we blame her? The people in the western culture, including the people here in the US, they generally do not know how to show respect to religious figures. In this culture, people can affectionately call their dog Jesus, or Adam, or Moses. And this can happen innocently, without any ill spirit.

When somebody from this culture goes to muslim culture, and sees that muslims girl affectionately loves both teddy-bear and the Prophet, it is not hard to imagine that they would suggest Muhammad as the name of the doll. And mind you, there might not be any insult, it is plain ignorance.

Brothers and sisters,

And what is the best cure for ignorance? One word: education. Muhammad s.a.w. was sent to ignorant Arabs with a single mission: [li utammima makaarimal akhlaaq], to improve the moral values.

How did he do that? Not with killing those ignorant people, not by burning their churches. By education.

And the best education of all is by example. It means that we should show them how to respect all religious figures, including religious figures from other religions.

There is a constant question from this community, a question with accusing tone: if Muhammad was insulted the whole muslim world erupted. Would they do the same thing if religious figure from other religion is insulted?

I want to be able to answer this question with a strong: YES. But unfortunately, the reality is not.

But this only shows that education is really the answer to this issue. Let us start teaching and training ourselves to respect religious figures, whatever the religion is. Try to understand how other religion show respect to their religious figures, it might be different from us.

There was one important lesson from Indonesia that I want to share with you. A few years ago, a Muslim musician publish his song with a cover on the CD showing himself riding a bird-like figure. There is a complaint from Hindu community that this bird-like figure in the CD cover is one of the representations of Wishnu (one of the Hindu Gods).

Immediately after the complaint, the musician made a public apology, and all of the CD was withdrawn to be given a new cover.

Now think about this: Hindu is a very tiny minority in Indonesia. The musician and the authorities can simply ignore them, and with a little bit of intimidation the Hindus will probably forget about it. But instead of just ignoring them, the musician made a public apology.

This kind of spirit should be shown in our daily life: showing respect towards religious figures from other religions. This is the best education that you should always demonstrate and explain to the people around you.

Brothers and sisters,

Those are the main principles on how to show our love to the Prophet in the crazy world that we live in today. May Allah keep the love alive in our hearts towards the Prophet s.a.w., and may He keep us strong in our efforts to be his followers. May Allah guide us how to respond to the insults on the Prophet, and may our guided acts be an inspiration for others to know the beauty of mutual respect.