Lovely article on Muslim Youth

http://www.saharareporters.com/article/angry-muslim-youth-part-1?nocache=1#comment-105702

[center]The Angry Muslim Youth-Part 1
Posted: August 25, 2010 - 16:08
Posted by siteadmin
By Ibraheem M. Dooba [/center]

A man went to Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) and demanded, “Advise me!” Muhammad (P) said, “Never get angry.” The man repeated, “Advise me.” Muhammad again answered, “Never get angry.” The man demanded for the third time, “Advise me.” Muhammad repeated his earlier answer, “Never get angry.”

“Whenever we looked at his face, he was smiling.” That’s one of the things the companions of Prophet Muhammad (P) said about his demeanor. But our northern Nigerian youth, who claim to follow his example, are too eager to forget or ignore this aspect of his life.

Our youth are so full of anger that they are incapable of any association with non-Muslims and even some of their Muslim brethren. They’re so confused about how to be Muslims and still live in a modern world. Notwithstanding the fact that they can borrow from examples of Muslim countries (especially) of South East Asia who are able to practice Islam and still live peacefully in a multi racial world. Rather, the focus of our youth have always been “you’re not Muslim enough” even though Islam as practiced in northern Nigeria is pretty much intense as it is and more comprehensive than what is practiced in some Arab countries. With such overzealous attitude, our youth unwittingly make Islam difficult for themselves and less attractive to anyone that may be interested in it.

Long before Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton of Harvard Negotiation Project advocated interest focused negotiation instead of a positional one, Muhammad lived it. He never allowed emotions to becloud his judgment or positional disposition of an opposing team to provoke anger in him.

An example will make this point clear. In 628 CE, fourteen hundred Muslims led by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) left their base in Medina to perform Hajj in Mecca. Mecca was then controlled by the non-Muslims and they denied the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his followers access to it. This dismayed the Muslims and they wanted to fight, since Muslims had a superior army but the Prophet Muhammad’s interests were to avoid bloodshed, perform the Islamic rites and visit the city of his birth.

Thus he opted to reach a diplomatic agreement with the non-Muslims of Mecca. In the ensuing treaty, Suhail bin Amir, the envoy of the Meccans objected to the reference “Muhammad the messenger of Allah” in the document and wanted it removed, because as far as they were concerned, Muhammad wasn’t a messenger of God. Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s nephew and secretary, didn’t want to remove it, because he believed doing so would be wrong.

But instead of taking a position and insisting that he was a messenger and causing an impasse, the holy Prophet (P) asked Ali to show him (since he was unlettered) where the word “ messenger” was, and personally rubbed it out. The document finally read “Muhammad the son of Abdullah…”


He was that flexible. The only thing Prophet Muhammad wasn’t flexible about is the worship of one God, Allah. Every other thing - including fasting and prayers - he practiced as far as the context and the situation permitted. In line with this accommodating attitude, he once lodged a Christian delegate who visited him in the mosque.

However, if a single Christian steps into a mosque in northern Nigeria, those who invited him are likely to be declared infidels by our youths and a building or two are likely go up in flames.

In our society a scholar who does not preach harshly and label people unbelievers by the minute does not ‘sell’. Additionally, the youth do not shout “Allahu Akbar” when a preacher talks about being good to a neighbor, or being honest in trade but immediately he labels someone an unbeliever or sentences him to hell, you’ll hear a thunderous “Allahu Akbar”.

This attitude is completely against the example the Prophet set. He was so accommodating to the extent that even his enemies knew that they were safe in his presence. And he had stayed the hands of many a companion who wanted to strike to protect his honour. The earlier Muslims who came after the prophet, followed his accommodating personality. This is attested to by Dr Tilde in his epoch-making article: We are Boko Haram.

“I wish we Muslims in this part of the country will adopt the attitudes of the first generation of Muslims, the sahabah and those that followed them in righteousness (may God be pleased with them all) who, in pursuit of the teaching of the Holy Prophet (SAW) opened their hearts to various forms of knowledge and technology and from all sources: Chinese, Indian, Persian, Roman, European, African, etc. They revived the writings of Aristotle and bequeathed them to medieval Europe. They partook in technological development just as any other society, leaving behind a legacy of discoveries that were ironically the foundations of the very boko we ignorantly reject. They freely associated with everyone and were so liberal that their domains served as sanctuaries even to Jews when they were twice expelled from Europe. Many of them had partnered with them [non-Muslims] in trade and war and married Christian wives. I wish we will liberate our minds and give scholarship its due regard because with ignorance as our anchor we will have little to achieve and everything to lose.”

The Muslims to whom Tilde referred were those who went beyond the theories of the Greeks and pioneered the experimental aspect of science. Before them, science was only philosophy and pontification of theories – they started the experiments. They were open minded as they mined knowledge from different fields, refined it, synthesized it and lay the foundation of modern science – everything you see in mathematics, physics and medicine are based on the foundations they laid. They wouldn’t have achieved such feat with anger in their hearts.