Seeking Blessings and Gender
A person - who was non-Muslim - wanted to know why there was a
difference in how one used 'peace be upon him' in relation to the
Prophet Adam, but used 'may Allah be pleased with her' in conjunction with Eve. The individual making the inquiries wanted to know if this was part and parcel of a patriarchal mentality within Islam in which a woman's task and role was to be pleasing to God and others.
Response: Without a doubt, there are substantial
elements of Muslim belief (as opposed to
Islamic - since Muslim refers to human
beings who aspire to follow the Deen or
way of Islam, whereas Islam refers to
the way itself, and it is the nature of Deen
which is at the heart of many differences
of opinion and understanding among
Muslims) which are couched in, shaped
by, and informed through patriarchal
notions. These misogynist/patriarchal-laced
influences were prevalent in pre-Islamic
Arabia and Persia, and, then, they joined
forces with the misogynist/patriarchal presence
in India and a great many other cultures -
including North/South America and Europe -
where despite all the self-serving talk about the
rights enjoyed by women, nevertheless, the latter
are still treated, to a large extent, as second and
third class citizens when it comes to work,
education, economic opportunities, status,
rights, protections, and political influence.
The nature of Islam is to introduce change
in a manageable way. And, 'manageable'
means to take into consideration the many
weaknesses and shortcomings of human
beings - whether male or female - that
might undermine or obstruct the path to
societal reform.
This happened in conjunction with many of
the basic pillars of Islam - such as ritual
prayer, fasting and Hajj - which were not
present when Islam first began to be spread
in the Hijaz, or Arabia, via the Prophethood of
Muhammad (peace be upon him). These
practices only were established over time.
Similarly, the injunctions against the imbibing
of alcohol only were gradually introduced over
a period of time. First, came the Quranic
warning that said, in effect, there is both good
and bad inherent in the use of alcohol, but the
bad outweighs the good.
Later, the use of alcohol was completely
banned. In fact, when the announcement
concerning the revelation dealing with this
ban began to spread through the Muslim
community, several close Companions
were in the process of sampling some wine
which they had made, and the streets of the
city became wet with the containers of wine
which were emptied by the Muslims who,
up until that time, could partake in the
drinking of alcohol.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
and the Qur'an followed the same path of
gradual reform with respect to women. Women
were brought from a status - or lack thereof - in
which female babies were buried alive in pre-Islamic
Arabia, to the point, at the end of the Prophet's
earthly life, where women enjoyed many of the
same rights as did men. The Prophet - in his
farewell sermon of his last Hajj - referred to the
rights of women and enjoined the Muslim
community to honor and protect those rights.
I have no doubt that if the Prophet had
continued to live for another 1400 years,
then, with God's permission and direction,
the Prophet would have continued the process of
reforming the cultural practices of the
society in which he lived - not only in
relation to women, but in many other
ways as well. Unfortunately, or fortunately,
it is in the nature of things that all human
beings must die, and, unfortunately, it
it is in the nature of human beings to
begin to become heedless when a spiritual
presence is removed ... at least as
manifested through a physical form such as
a Prophet, Companion, or saint of God.
So, when the Prophet passed away, gradually
darkness began to seep into the everyday
lives and consciousness of people. This
darkness was spoken of, in different ways,
by the Companions.
When the Companions began to die, further
darkness entered the community. As various
great spiritual luminaries have passed from
this world, additional darkness has filtered
into the lives of human beings.
Spiritually speaking, we live in dark times - not
spiritually enlightened times. Modern human
beings tend to pride ourselves on how much
we allegedly know and understand - but, spiritually
speaking, we - collectively considered - are among
the most ignorant people who have ever lived ...
and the proof of this is all around us in the form
of genocidal wars, mass-starvation and hunger,
economic, political, and spiritual oppression, lack
of charitableness, rapes, sexual molestation, and
yes, the mis-treatment of women.
The distinction which is drawn between seeking
Salaam or peace on someone who has passed
from this physical presence, rather than seeking
for God's pleasure for a human being who has
passed away, follows the line which divides Prophets
from non-Prophets, irrespective of whether the
people involved are men or women. According to
tradition, there are said to have been some 124,000
Prophets who were sent to human kind by Divinity, and
in the Qur'an only some 27 Prophets are mentioned
by name.
Thus, there are some 123, 973 individuals whose
identity, as well as gender, is unknown. People,
whether Muslim or non-Muslim can generate whatever
theories they like about the identities of such
individuals, but, in truth, we just don't know anything
about any of this.
The use of either "peace be upon him/her" or the
phrase "may God be pleased with him/her" is, in
actuality, a prayer of sorts. The person who says
or writes these phrases is seeking blessings from
God upon these personalities - whether these
blessings be in the form of Salaam, Peace, which
is one of the Names of God, or in the form of
God's pleasure toward, or being pleased with, the spiritual
station of such an individual.
It is not the task of just women to be pleasing
to God. This is the task of every human being.
One can, in this regard, mention the Biblical
story about the Talents - a denomination of
money - which was either squandered, buried
or put to good use by several individuals. To
be pleasing to God is to find ways to spend
the Talents or gifts which have been bestowed
upon us for the spiritual betterment of ourselves
and the community in which we live.
In addition, the use of such phrases is an attempt
to maintain a spiritual presence in language -
that is, to invoke the blessings of God through
the manner in which we speak and write. Unfortunately,
this practice is more and more absent from
the modern landscape in which the sacred is all
but lost amidst billions of bytes of mere information.
One does not have to be a Sufi or Muslim to participate
in the Spiritual Health Learning Community. One only has to
be interested in seeking the truth, and I don't believe that either
Sufis or Muslims have cornered the market on truth - in fact,
as has been the case in many traditional societies -
whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Jain,
indigenous peoples, Taoist, or Buddhist - the sad fact
is that more and more people are losing, or already
have lost, contact with the truth - a loss which parallels
the spiritual darkness that surrounds us and permeates
us and renders so many of us vulnerable to one form or
another of spiritual abuse and spiritual fraud - whether
in the shape of certain so-called Sufi shaykhs, who
are nothing more than charlatans, or in the form of
some other kind of alleged teacher who claims to
espouse the truth, even as he or she is abusing,
exploiting, and hurting people in the name of truth
and the sacred.
We human beings are in quite a predicament. The
troubling nature of these circumstances have helped
lead to the creation of the surrounding Spiritual Health
Learning Community, as well as the establishing of this
Message Board ... both of which are intended to serve
as sacred-leaning (i.e., oriented) places through which
people can, as with an oasis, stop and rest for a while
from their spiritual journey amidst like-minded and like-
hearted individuals who also are, God willing, seeking
the truth ... or, at least, as much of the truth as our
individual capacities are capable of realizing, if God
so pleases - whether we be men or women, Muslim or
non-Muslim.
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