She sat in the little chair shifting uncomfortably. Staring at the computer screen, she could feel the pressure building up inside of her, her heart thumping ferociously. She felt as though she was about to explode.

How dare they, she bitterly asked no one in particular. Her hollow words echoed back and forth in the empty room.

*** 

A few years back, in the gloomy month of May 2010, an outrage followed the cartoons on Facebook. There was a huge uproar from Muslims all over the world. Facebook remained banned, a new Islamic facebook was created. The youth was angry. It brought out the ugly side in us – all our frustrations flooded out in the form of violent activities and verbal abuses.

The reason for this outburst was simple.

All these years Muslims had worked hard on becoming friends with the popular culture – trying to remove the barriers that differentiated us from the non-Muslims.

The message we gave out was clear, that look we know you guys hate Islam. So we are just going to be less Islamic. Who needs Eid? We will celebrate Christmas and Holi instead. You want us to keep our religion in our pockets? Done. We will lock up our Imaan inside our heart, so deep down no one would even know it’s there.

To see the extent of our submission, one need not go any farther than a common Muslim home, where day in and day out – hanuman, krishna and ram are being praised. The hymns celebrating Hindu gods echo through the walls – their noise piercing its way into our praying rooms – shaking the very roots of Tawheed.

But it is difficult to please those who are bent on humiliating you, that too after selling your dignity. It’s like trying to be friends with the popular kids at highschool – you know they will remain your buddy only so long as you are subservient to them. They will keep making fun of your clothes till the point you start nagging your parents for more expensive ones. Then they will start making fun of your parents to the point you will ask yourself, what is wrong with my family?

They are not really your friends, are they? They are just pushing you around and getting their kicks out of the situation. You are the joke of the town.

Why is that kid the joke of the town? Because he does not understand that there is nothing wrong with his clothes. There is nothing wrong with his parents. He shouldn’t let the popular kids stop from letting him be. The minute he starts giving in – that’s where the problem begins.

Thus despite our constant enslavement, the highschool bully once again sprung into action resulting in these cartoons. Of course it outraged us. We felt cheated. Where were the equality of rights that the West sang praises of, the freedom that we were promised? So we took to the roads – took out our laptops and started bashing the non-Muslims.

Time passed. Qur’ans kept burning and Muslims kept protesting, now in lesser numbers; their passion buried deep down under silent oceans. Many had gotten used to the idea of their religion being humiliated. Many didn’t care.

Few years flew by and this year, in 2014 people are going about with their lives as though nothing had happened. It should make us wonder how shallow our reaction was. So short-lived?

It’s not like people have stopped making fun of Islam – it’s not like things have taken a turn for the better.  Doesn’t the thought of coming across those cartoons haunt us anymore? Where is our love now? Are we too numb to care? It’s almost as if through our rage we had only tried to satisfy our guilty conscience that at least we did something. At least we did not stand idle.

But between the two extremes of violent outbursts and sheer indifference, shouldn’t we have taken the middle road and upheld the sunnah instead? Shouldn’t we have shown the colors of the life of our Blessed Prophet (s) to the world by copying his actions thorough and through all these years? Shouldn’t it have been a life-long struggle for us, instead of shouting hate slogans for a week? Isn’t that what our reaction should have been?

On the Day of Judgement, wouldn’t we like to say:

When the world was busy bashing and making fun of the sunnah, I was the one to hold tight to it. While others were too ashamed of having any resemblance with you (s), I was the one who was proud to be your (s) ummati. I was the one who revived the sunnah of eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, walking – not one gesture did I make, but that it was drowning in sunnah, my tongue busy sending durood and salawat to you (s) when the world had forgotten to take your (s) name. Because I loved you (s). And I respected you (s). And I wanted to copy you (s) when the rest of the world was busy copying their celebrities and sports stars.

Rasool Allah sallallahi alaihi wassallam said that Islam began as something strange, and it will return to being something strange. So give glad tidings to those who are strangers. [Muslim]

Imagine on that day, when every Muslim will crave to get his (s) attention, what we wouldn’t give to be differentiated from the liberals. What we wouldn’t give to stand out as that strange ummati, the one being mentioned in the hadith. How we would wish that despite people mocking us and ridiculing us behind our backs, we had remained a stranger to this world because there would be nothing more heart wrenching than on that day our Prophet (s) passing us by without a glance of recognition, thinking we were someone from the rest of the world.

It is up to us whether we want to mourn over our state as a failed ummati, or whether we want to change that. It is time to take the bully by the horns and make them see that the representation of our Prophet (s) was indeed ignorant and that truly he (s) is a perfect man. Through our actions and mannerism, through our humility, courtesy and etiquette we can show the world just how great the teachings of Prophet (s) truly are.

***