Bismillah [hidayahnet] salam...my piece of thought

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:52:52 -0800

 Muhammad SAW
 
In 1980’s it was difficult for Western people to really understand and comprehend the violent Muslim reaction to Salman Rushdie’s fictional portrait of Muhammad in his insensitive book The Satanic Verses. Inevitably, the murderous hatred and vigorous reaction from the Muslim world stood as a proof of the incurable intolerance in Islam. This issue has resulted a disturbing atmosphere among the Britains have they failed to appreciate how Muslims value their beloved prophet. This clash between religions and cultures proceeded with a death penalty from a fatwa given by Khomeini which was very much been condemned by most of other Muslims leaders saying that this is not Islamic.
 
Related to the above, recently we were shocked by another portrayal of Muhammad; now in a visual form. This caricature issue was first initiated by a newspaper in Denmark that publishes a cartoon of our beloved Muhammad in such a disgraceful way. Personally I don’t want to touch further on how the images were presented as I believe that it has been published and forwarded to almost everyone. I appreciate those people who had sent me the cartoon but no offence, there is a question in my head saying, “how would I be different to those newspapers that intentionally publish the image as information to the public?”. “Why are we angry to them while many other Muslims who want to share their concerns over this issue keep on forwarding the caricature?” “What is the difference?” Providing history as a point of thought, in 850, there was a monk called Perfectus in Cordova, al-Andalus. He was asked by a group of Arabs whether Jesus or Muhammad was the greater prophet. He knew that it was something beyond that simple but tricky question. He understood that it would be a major offence to insult or degrade Muhammad and suddenly labeled the prophet as a sexual pervert and antichrist. However, since that the Muslims were very much a solid civilization, they didn’t do anything to him as he was not a threat to Islam. If we read the history of Andalusia, this event was extremely unusual when Muslim and Christian and Jews had a content life together and enjoyed the religious liberty. After the Perfectus’s case above, it has inspired several more insensitive groups to do the same until the Qadi in charge was forced to sentence them all to be executed.
 
Surprisingly the caricature of Muhammad started 1000 years ago when he was portrayed in various forms. The latest one has repeated the history itself. Have they not learned in these whole millennia? I can’t say that they are not aware of the rapid outcome that might occur from the Muslim Block nor help myself from not being prejudice for such irresponsible act. How would our reaction being justified? Is it culturally relative in how we should act and take action? Are we being fair to those people? Or one would ask, should we show love and mercy instead of warning? I have once read that some people said that, we have no right to forgive them just like Rasulullah did during his time when people treat him so bad simply because we are not Muhammad SAW. He didn’t react to the Thaif people that threw stones and other things even after being offered by Jibrail to collapse the mountain on them. Instead he pray to Allah and show mercy to them Offering another point of view, base on history, our prophet even blocked Hamzah from resolving matters with violence.
To further discuss this matter I will continue my essay later….
Muhammad Jazlan Zulhaimi

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