3 Blogs for 3 Classes

Posted by: snowmakesmehappy on: February 7, 2012

• In: Uncategorized
• Comment!

This past week we discussed the life of the Prophet. Mozaffar started from Muhammad’s childhood and described the many events in his life that led up to his hijrah. I was super happy by this class. Yes, some of the things he mentioned I already knew. But it is always helpful to get a refresher and hear the story from a different person. I especially appreciated how Mozaffar brought up the ideas of miracles. People always use the fantastical stories to disprove the religion, claiming that these “miracles” are not possible. He made it a point to say what parts of the story may have been exaggerated.

I found it very relevant that one of the chapters in the “Cambridge Companion to Muhammad” dealt with the Prophet’s birthday. It was relevant because many of my friends celebrated Muhammad’s birthday this weekend. My family was never one celebrating Islamic events aside from Eid. Most of the other major events in Islam were focused on prayer and repentance. Some of my friends invited me over for a potluck dinner to celebrate Mawlid-al Nabi. It was different for me this time. I always took extreme pride in how Islam did not promote any form of idolization, especially when it came to the Prophet, and celebrating the Prophet’s birthday seemed a little too much for me. However, after reading the chapter and seeing the different reasons behind the celebration, I now see it as a happy occasion.

This week I was helping staff a booth that the Loyola MSA (Muslim Student Association) was running for an on campus event. In order to make the booth more inviting, we decided to put together a small game of jeopardy. One of the categories on the board was Arabic words/terms, and one of the questions was: What is the Arabic word for ‘struggle’? The answer to the question is jihad. I was talking with the person who ran the booth before me and asked about the kind of responses we had been getting to the game. She told me that most people couldn’t answer that specific question, or believe the answer, because of what they had come to believe as the meaning of jihad. Most people think of violence and dying for the cause of the religion when they hear the word jihad. However, the true meaning is simply “struggle”. A jihad can be an internal struggle one faces in life; for example, which religion to follow.

In response to studentsrockaroundtheworld, I had the opposite reaction upon hearing the story of the boy who “renounced his religion” after seeing his parents die. I understand where your confusion is coming from. In today’s society, a lot of emphasis is placed on standing up for what you believe in and not giving in to peer pressure. Dying for a cause is seen is as almost the greatest sacrifice, then and now. However, I think you should focus on the words of the Prophet at the end of the story. Muhammad told the boy not to fear or be ashamed for what he did because belief is in the heart. Saying you believe something is great, but it is not true unless you actually mean it. It like, you don’t have to follow a religion to be a believer. True, he could have stayed and died along with his family, but I don’t see what that would have accomplished. I’m not sure if I’ve cleared anything up or muddied the waters even more for you, but I just thought I’d throw in my two cents.