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Muslim by ancestry, or by knowledge?

In the name of Allah,
Most Gracious, Most Merciful,
Praise be to Allah,
the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds,
and Peace and Prayer be upon the Final Prophet and Messenger. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran

***

I've been trying to forget about this but mannnn, I can't seem to hold it in any longer. One of the 'perks' of being a Muslim revert is when you try to adhere to the Deen but you get confused. A LOT.

For instance, I remembered once when I was praying at a musolla at a mall, and I was praying without using the telekung. Once I'm done praying, I noticed some people staring at me. I was wondering what was so weird about not using the telekung to pray. I mean, I covered up according to the rulings of covering aurah in solat. I even got scolded once for not using the telekung but I just smiled because it was this one elderly who approached me and I don't want to have any arguments with older people simply because I know I will 'lose' by default.

Well, I'm sorry I didn't learn to pray the way you did from your parents and whoever that taught you. And I'm sorry I was learning Islam based on the Quran and sunnah. Note sarcasm here.


But that's the reality anyway and that, the dhaleel nowadays is,


"Because I saw XXXX do it..."


And please, don't take it personally when I mentioned about who you're learning it from. I am not trying to condemn anyone. I am just tired, I guess, of people making weird faces and the remarks that I get for trying to learn the true teachings of Islam. And I would like to stress that my point of writing this down is because this is happening a lot more than we realized.

I'm not the only one facing this problem. Most reverts had this experience and I'm telling you, it's already hard as it is trying to learn everything in a short period of time. But even non-reverts, e.g. born Muslims who practised Islam the correct way had their fair share of a hard time from their own family. True?

Didn't Rasulullah s.a.w (peace be upon him) said that whoever followed the Quran and sunnah will not be lost forever?

Stop following the teachings blindly, or in Malay, we call that practise as 'taqlid buta'.

As Muslims, we practise according to what Allah has told us to do (the Quran), and how the Prophet lived (the sunnah), NOT practise according to what everyone else is doing.

It all comes down back to us, whether we are practising the Deen to please Him, or just for the sake of pleasing the people around us.


May Allah purify our intentions in our efforts to become better Muslims each day. Ameen.






"Sometimes we can't just say "Allah has a better plan for us." 
We have to believe He does."

Comments

  1. People Who ObserveJuly 7, 2012 at 4:13 PM

    Yes. Not only reverts confronted with this kind of problem.
    It's true but sad. Many of us still take Islam for granted.
    Islamic teachings are mixed up with the culture.
    Blended together and still called Islam. Despite the fact that it is not.

    The society still doesn't has a great desire to find the truth. They just accept the norms to be the truth, or whatever they call it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i remember reading(or hearing somewhere) 'taqlid buta' is not entirely wrong. unless it's in the matter of akidah such as 'how do u know Allah is one true God?' and u just say 'oh he told me so'.

    honestly everybody kinda does it. we learn how to pray and we just accept that is the correct way to pray. is it wrong? only if u are doing it wrong and when someone comes to tell u so u dont find out. in fiqh, most people are not able to comprehend the complexity of how things are. a beginner's instruction on prayer simply fits in a poster and shows u only one variation of it (the way it is done by the community there). if we just rely on this one poster, are we in the wrong? not really.

    the more detailed book is like really big, with the dalils (hadiths and how-it-came-to-be's) and all, the explanation of those hadiths, and arguments some scholars choose one variation over another and stuff. does it do any good? of course. does it do any harm not knowing? not really.

    in the case of this makcik, her wrong is not doing a check first before saying u're wrong or such. telekung is not a culture thing. it is based on a sahaba who has set aside special cloth for prayers. sure we take it for granted but really... not everyone's born to be a jurist. some people could just afford to learn the basic and there are people stuck at not even reaching that.

    now i get this a lot. i mention things like this and some would quote utopia and tell me everyone should learn as much as they can and u know... can stand toe to toe in fiqh discussion and stuff. but that's not reality. some people just couldn't get the difference.

    on culture, shariah is a border. as long as ur culture does not go beyond that it's not wrong. in china they have mosques with coloks/incense that some people here would jump and scream 'syirik!' without thinking. now how people behave in it is different. you say bad things to people who doesn't want to do a certain culture thing, that's wrong even without religious consideration. what i found is that some people insist on 'Islamic' culture and what happens is that they are actually insisting on arab culture.

    darn this is a long one. sorry about that. point is, it may be taqlid buta... a person couldn't really know the dalil to say it's okay but that doesn't mean it's wrong. go ask our ustazs, our jurist, our alims, our scholars... and trust their answers.

    wallahualam.

    ReplyDelete
  3. interesting. (said while stroking the chin)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. for theatrical reasons, u'll need a mustach and beard.

      Delete
  4. this is so relevant. the whole talk is good by our Sy Afifi.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRkFRUwvJAI

    ReplyDelete
  5. Agree with you.
    However lets try to understand them who practiced it culturally without knowledge. Maybe their knowledge is low because of lack of scholars during their time. This I think is applicable to the old generation.

    It will be weird if the young view this the same.
    About wearing telekung it have nothing to do with fiqh or even syariah. If there is what are the 'dalils'? Its weird for me if people think it is 'compulsory' to wear telekung for solat. I thought telekung is for people who do not cover properly and wanted to cover properly during solat. They forget that Allah watches us all the time.

    ReplyDelete

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