Quiz Question: Do you know who are the first people that Allah addresses in the Quran directly?
Read on for the answer!
Have you come across situations where, after a tragedy occurs among non-Muslims, such as a flood or shooting, you hear Muslims around you say, “They got what they deserve”? I have.
And these people aren’t just some religious fanatics. They are normal people like you and me. And let’s be honest, may be you and I have got a grain of this mentality in ourselves.
Where does this come from? How much truth is there in it? These are complicated questions, and beyond our scope to answer. But let’s look at some practical matters.
Who is a non-Muslim? A non-Muslim is not a person who is doomed to hell. He or she is a person who has not accepted Islam yet.
Imagine you are living at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, in Makkah during the first years of Islam, and someone tells you, “You know that guy Umar ibn al-Khattab? I think he will become a Muslim in a few years.”
“Umar? The man who flogs Muslims? The man who is an open enemy of Islam?”
You would have laughed at their face and told them to get their brains checked. And yet that’s what happened. Umar, one of the staunchest enemies of the Prophet (peace be upon him) at the beginning of his prophethood, became one of the best Muslims in history and received the glad tidings of paradise even before his death.
The point is, you never know.
Allah Almighty said about some non-Muslims that their hearts are locked and they will never believe:
{Indeed, those who disbelieve – it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them – they will not believe. Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and over their vision is a veil. And for them is a great punishment.} (2:6-7)
But who are these people discussed in these verses? Definitely not Umar. We can never predict in this world who are doomed and who aren’t.
What we do know in this world is that, before one is labeled “Muslim” or “non-Muslim”, one is a human being. There is a brotherhood beyond the Muslim brotherhood. Non-Muslims know this, perhaps better than many Muslims.
So you find that a masjid in Quebec is attacked, killing six Muslims, and the next Friday, a rabbi calls for people at seven places in Toronto to form multi-faith human barriers to protect Muslims praying Jumuah. A sister who went to attend a prayer on the following Monday found one person carrying a sign that said:
“We stand UNITED with our Muslim brothers and sisters.”
When another mosque was set on fire in Texas, the Jews of the town handed a key to their synagogue to the masjid’s founders.
Does this remind you of anything from the biography of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)?
When the enemies of the Prophet from the Quraysh demanded from his tribe that they hand him over to them, his entire tribe, Muslims and non-Muslims, stood up for him. And at the forefront of these people was his uncle Abu Talib, a non-Muslim.
Why? Because these people have understood what many of us Muslims fail to understand – that we are all brothers and sisters, if not in religion, then in humanity, as the Prophet said:
“People are all the children of Adam, and Adam was [created] from dust.” (Tirmidhi 3955)
One might argue that the nutters who set fire to the masjid in the first place were non-Muslims. Regarding this, Allah says:
Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly. Allah only forbids you from those who fight you because of religion and expel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion – [forbids] that you make allies of them. And whoever makes allies of them, then it is those who are the wrongdoers. (60:8-9)
The verse divides non-Muslims into two categories. The people who set fire to masjids and kill innocent Muslims are not in the same category as the ones who protect and support Muslims.
Do you know who the first group of people is whom Allah addresses in the Quran directly?
Mankind.
O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous. (2:21)
Ibrahim (peace be upon him) used to call his idol-manufacturing father, “Ya abati (O my beloved father)!” And Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) loved Abu Talib beyond any son’s love for his father; and Abu Talib in his turn loved and protected him, and went hungry for three years to shield him from would-be murderers. If that’s not love, then what is it?
“What they believe, they believe; that’s between them and God, not between them and us.” – Nouman Ali Khan
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References and Further Reading:
Amani Aboul Fadl Farag, “Accepting Non-Muslims; Do They Deserve Paradise?”
Houston Chronicle, “Community Rallies Around Muslim Neighbors”.
Independent.co.uk, Jewish people give Muslims key to their synagogue after town’s mosque burns down
Nouman Ali Khan, “Islam, Non Muslims & Tolerance”.
Sami Zaatari, “Don’t take the Jews and Christians as Friends?”
(From Discovering Islam’s archive.)