Death of Shame & Rise of Foolery

Today I came across a post by a brother who was expressing his thoughts on the passing of the pop star Michael Jackson. As I began to read the post I picked up a tone of sarcasm. When I arrived at the end I became confused as to whether the person was being sarcastic or serious. What led me to think that the brother is serious about his comments was a music video of Michael Jackson’s which he posted. What troubled me about this were the comments from people who apparently did not pick up on any sarcasm.

I heard that Michael Jackson passed away when I woke up in the morning and began to talk to a brother who said, “What is wrong with the Muslims?” This post is merely about that… “What is wrong with the Muslims?”

The first issue that I noticed about the statements of the brother in his post was him talking about the “hypocrisy” of Muslim leaders who mentioned how they enjoyed his music. The brother linked to an article by a popular Muslim speaker in the West who spoke about his past and Music, hardly a reason to accuse him of hypocrisy.

Many of our brothers and sisters were commenting saying the Music is not Haraam and never was dispraised. I already posted about the Shar’ee position of Music here:

http://abulhaarith.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/the-ruling-of-music-in-islaam/

The fact that there are singers who are Muslim does not establish the legitimacy of Music in the Sharee’ah. Some people start by saying, “Music is a hotly debated issue in Islaam” however this was not always the case. Music only became controversial in the recent era. The overwhelming majority of the Ulemaa since the death of the Prophet –peace be upon him- agreed on the prohibition of Music. Only a handful of scholars disagreed, amongst them was Imaam Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi. Yet this did not prevent many of the Salaf such as al-Aajurree and Ibn Rajab and others from reporting Ijmaa’ on tahreem of Music.

But this post is not about Music and its prohibition. It’s about the situation of the Muslims with regards to a pop star.

Why is it that we cry and scream about the Muslims being humiliated? Why is it that we ask “why is this happening to us?”? Why are many of us so baffled when we wonder how the Enemies of Islaam tower over us? Why not just look at how many general Muslims reacted to the death of a singer?

Whether Michael Jackson was a Muslim or not doesn’t matter. It makes no difference, the reason people loved him was not because of his religion, it was because of his Music. There are reports of Saudi brothers moon walking in their thobes. There are reports of Muslim girls screaming and crying in expressing their love of this man. Allaahul Must’aan. How does that not strike you when you start to think of the situation of the Muslims? The death of the Ulemaa, the inheritors of the Prophets, does not raise as much as the death of a pop star? O people of Islaam! What is wrong with you??

What good does it do for you to waste time on such a trivial matter and for our sisters to go out screaming and crying at the death of a musician? SubhaanAllaah. What a shame upon the Ummah that when the Ulemaa fall ill or pass away most do not care, but when a musician dies they go crazy screaming and crying and dancing like idiots on TV in front of the whole world. Then when the Kuffaar back slap the Muslims, they wonder why they are being humiliated.

~ by abulhaarith on June 30, 2009.