Message of Islam

While most children his age attend school fulltime, our young brother Nooruddin spends many of his days making sweet desserts to sell on the streets of Mexico City. Each batch takes him three hours to prepare. Once the desserts are finished, he cools and wraps them to sell for a small profit of 15 pesos each, about $1USD. On a good day, he can sell 30 desserts, earning about $30 to help his father, who suffers from heart problems, provide for their family. Nooruddin and his family are among a growing minority of Mexicans who have come to accept Islam as their religion, and like millions of other people across Mexico, poverty is their way of life.

Why did the Prophet (pbuh) had multiple wives? Some ask, why Prophet Muhammad limited his followers to a maximum of four wives, while he himself exceeded that maximum? Listen to this podcast for answers!

In this small yet great booklet, Khurram Murad adopts a unique style of character sketching. Keeping the reader engaged in his beautiful description of the most important aspects of Prophet Muhammad’s life (peace be upon him), he has handpicked 12 images that showcase the beautiful example of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Perhaps these wonderful images will fascinate you. Perhaps you will be inspired by them. Perhaps you will keep these images permanently ingrained in your heart. Perhaps you will reshape your life so that you live in accordance with these images.

If you develop an attachment to these images, they are yours forever. Please embrace these images and keep them in your heart.

Unlike pictures taken with a camera, these spiritual pictures do not involve physical equipment. All you need are the lenses of your eyes, the film of your mind, and the album of your heart. Such is the nature of the 12 images we will reflect upon.

The attack on the office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, killing 12 people and injuring others, was the terrorist act of two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouach. According to the media reports, they were seeking revenge for the frequent publication of cartoons that ridicule and disparage Islam, Muslims, and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). A groundswell of support erupted everywhere for the Charlie Hebdo victims (hebdo is short for hebdomadaire which means “weekly” in French, and Charlie refers to Charlie of the Charlie Brown comics). Signs were held by saddened and shocked people in France and elsewhere, “Je sui Charlie,” meaning “I am Charlie.” Commentators in the U.S. unanimously expressed the need for unity in the face of this murderous attempt to quash freedom of expression. Many pointed out that the satirical magazine is an equal-opportunity fault-finder, ridiculing and denouncing what their cartoonists and writers see as absurdities or other elements deserving of criticism in any and all religious traditions, but the magazine is also renowned for racist and sexist cartoons, with one portraying France's black Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, as a monkey. According to U.K.'s The Daily Telegraph, previous Charlie magazine covers depicted “Pope Benedict XVI in amorous embrace with a Vatican guard; former French President Nicolas Sarkozy looking like a sick vampire; and an Orthodox Jew kissing a Nazi soldier.” The League of Judicial Defense of Muslims (LDJM) sued the satirical magazine in early 2014 for “provocation and incitement to hatred on the basis of religious affiliation and insult.” Jean-Marie Charon, a sociologist whose focus is the news media, says that the magazine has been sued numerous times by various complainants, including 14 times by the Roman Catholic Church, for its intentionally offensive cartoons and content.

When we think of the role of women around the Prophet (pbuh), the thought that often comes to mind is of prominent historical figures such as Sumayah (RA), the first female martyr in the early days of Islam, and Nusaybah (RA), the female companion who fought valiantly with her family to protect the Prophet (pbuh) in battle. While these women are no doubt role models in their piety, devotion, and commitment to the deen, there are many other admirable women as well who helped shape the role of the Muslim woman at the time of the Prophet (pbuh) and the roles that we strive to fulfill in society today. To truly understand and implement these roles, we should look no further than the Prophet’s own household. His wives and daughters truly provide the best of examples of the female role in our Islamic history.

He was a gentle soul, someone whom others could turn to in rough times. He was known by all as someone who advised others with wisdom and the best of words. He cared deeply for all people and his mood did not affect the way he treated them; even if he was angry, he dealt with others in a fair and just manner. His words are a testimony to how he led his life. He said, “Keep to gentleness and avoid harshness and coarseness. Gentleness is not found in anything without adorning it, and is not withdrawn from anything without shaming it" (Muslim). This gentle, caring man was none other than Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Just outside the city, he stopped and looked back. The place he was being forced to leave had been his home for over fifty years! It was here that he had been born, raised, married, and had his children. The people here were his people, some of whom he had known since he was a child. Yet, now they were not willing to tolerate his presence just because his belief was different from theirs; they would have killed him had he not managed to escape.

"Perhaps the world was never in greater need of an accurate account of Prophet Muhammad's life than it is now." So states Adil Salahi, author of Muhammad: Man and Prophet. While awareness of Islam and Prophet Muhammad has increased considerably in recent years, many people still do not really know who he was and what legacy he left behind. The Charlie Hebdo caricatures of Prophet Muhammad are a reminder that the understanding many people have about the Prophet is extremely flawed and far from factual. And the murder of the magazine's editor and other staff members by extremists results from the gaping incongruity of those who call themselves followers of Muhammad yet act in ignorance of and utter contradiction to his teachings.

Now More Important than Ever!

For years we have been decrying Islamophobia, the irrational fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims. We say again and again that this is simply an extra-ordinary hate campaign that has spread ubiquitously throughout society and threatens all Americans because it breeds distrust and division. That is not just a self-deflecting perception. It is a very real phenomenon that has now spawned the recent execution-style killing of three innocent American-born Muslim students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more, please visit http://www.messageinternational.org

By Naureen Aqueel

It seems that every time an act of terrorism is performed in the name of Islam, reporting and discussions in the mainstream media and social media tend to follow a predictable pattern – almost as if there were a template that journalists and analysts pull out when discussing the incident. The media often gets its group-think going on “Islamic terrorism,” “Islamism,” and “jihadism.” A familiar discourse of linking Islam to violence unfolds and talk shows on television and radio channels and comment sections in newspapers and websites are inundated with debates discussing what drives Muslims to violence; questioning Quranic injunctions, especially those specific to war time; and examining the existence of blasphemy laws in various Muslim countries, among other topics.