Yesterday I went to another lecture....my third one after living in Dubai for three years (shocking!), but the third one this month so Inshallah this continues!
Let me sidetrack for a second and update on my road rage this week in Thursday night traffic (ref: my post on 'Impatience') well I did not lose my temper. GO ME! This time I did not beep and kept very calm, we stopped off at a beautiful Masjid in Jumeira before this week's lecture too.
The talk was about defending our Prophet and was held by Brother Gabriel Keresztesat at Jumeira Islamic Learning Centre.
Brother Gabriel was a great speaker and touched upon some things that I always pondered but did not want to say out loud. A few months ago I finally found a copy of the Seerah that was written well (it has pictures!!!) but after I read it I had many questions about the Life of the Prophet. The book was called 'When the Moon Split.'
Mashallah Brother Gabriel answered a couple of these niggling questions last night:
One was about Muhammed (PBUH) attacking caravans. In the book it mentioned that our Prophet would attack the caravans and then split the 'booty' between the Muslims. Brother Gabriel made us aware that it was times of war and the Muslims were being attacked too. Obviously Muhammed (PBUH) did not attack innocent people and always had a reason for doing what he did. I learnt that the Muslims had everything taken away from them and sometimes even had to survive on eating animal skin. It was necessary for the Prophet to attack Quraish caravans to survive. Muslims had left everything behind and were persecuted, so it was their right to attack the Quraish caravans.
Another part of the Seerah I felt uncomfortable with was that our Prophet married Aishah who was very young. I guess I have been brainwashed by society today, as everything has to be about sexuality. Brother Gabriel talked about how marriage was about responsibility and a girl of a young age who has reached puberty CAN take on that responsibility. In that time culturally it was accepted to marry at that age. There are no accounts of disputes about the Prophet's marriage by the people at that time. Historically it was acceptable to be married at the age of puberty.
I remembered when I was growing up in England and my Non-Muslim friends would be 'extremely shocked' when I mentioned I would be attending weddings for 16/17/18 year olds. On the other hand these same Non-Muslims were in and out of several 'relationships' from an even younger age! Isn't being in a marriage better than what they do?
This episode of 'The Arrivals' sums it up quite well about how children from a young age have been brainwashed....
Anyway this talk made me feel much better than I did before and much more confident about defending my religion. I have never been in a situation where I have had to defend my religion (Alhamdullilah) but now I am prepared!
Let me sidetrack for a second and update on my road rage this week in Thursday night traffic (ref: my post on 'Impatience') well I did not lose my temper. GO ME! This time I did not beep and kept very calm, we stopped off at a beautiful Masjid in Jumeira before this week's lecture too.
Brother Gabriel was a great speaker and touched upon some things that I always pondered but did not want to say out loud. A few months ago I finally found a copy of the Seerah that was written well (it has pictures!!!) but after I read it I had many questions about the Life of the Prophet. The book was called 'When the Moon Split.'
One was about Muhammed (PBUH) attacking caravans. In the book it mentioned that our Prophet would attack the caravans and then split the 'booty' between the Muslims. Brother Gabriel made us aware that it was times of war and the Muslims were being attacked too. Obviously Muhammed (PBUH) did not attack innocent people and always had a reason for doing what he did. I learnt that the Muslims had everything taken away from them and sometimes even had to survive on eating animal skin. It was necessary for the Prophet to attack Quraish caravans to survive. Muslims had left everything behind and were persecuted, so it was their right to attack the Quraish caravans.
Another part of the Seerah I felt uncomfortable with was that our Prophet married Aishah who was very young. I guess I have been brainwashed by society today, as everything has to be about sexuality. Brother Gabriel talked about how marriage was about responsibility and a girl of a young age who has reached puberty CAN take on that responsibility. In that time culturally it was accepted to marry at that age. There are no accounts of disputes about the Prophet's marriage by the people at that time. Historically it was acceptable to be married at the age of puberty.
I remembered when I was growing up in England and my Non-Muslim friends would be 'extremely shocked' when I mentioned I would be attending weddings for 16/17/18 year olds. On the other hand these same Non-Muslims were in and out of several 'relationships' from an even younger age! Isn't being in a marriage better than what they do?
This episode of 'The Arrivals' sums it up quite well about how children from a young age have been brainwashed....
Anyway this talk made me feel much better than I did before and much more confident about defending my religion. I have never been in a situation where I have had to defend my religion (Alhamdullilah) but now I am prepared!
No comments:
Post a Comment