With the Hadith
People are Equal
We greet you all, dear friends, everywhere, in a new episode of your program "With the Hadith," and we begin with the best greeting, peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
It came in Sahih Muslim, in the explanation of Imam Al-Nawawi "with modifications" in the chapter on sweeping the mosque and picking up rags, dirt, and twigs.
Sulaiman bin Harb told us, saying: Hammad bin Zaid told us, from Thabit, from Abu Rafi`, from Abu Hurairah, that a black man or a black woman used to sweep the mosque and died, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, asked about him, and they said: He died, he said: Why didn't you inform me of his death? Show me his grave, or he said: her grave, so he came to her grave and prayed over her.
Dear listeners:
The issue is not limited to white or black. Religion does not distinguish between people by color, height, lineage, or ancestry. Rather, the distinction between them is based on piety. This is what our noble Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, taught us. Even though that black man who used to sweep the mosque died and the companions did not pray for him, the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, asked about him and prayed for him.
O Muslims:
Why do Muslims today distinguish themselves on the basis of country and region? They distinguish themselves on the basis of tribe and clan, and even on the basis of wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, as if Islam is for one group to the exclusion of others. This is what our noble Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, warned us against when he said: "There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a red man over a black man, nor of a black man over a red man, except in terms of piety," and this is what our noble Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, applied in this hadith by praying for a black man whom no one mentioned after his death. Why have the concepts changed for some of us? Why did the pre-Islamic era return to nest in the minds of these people? Of course, it returned when the single country and the single state were divided into shreds by the division that resulted from the "Sykes-Picot" agreement, which ignited strife between the sons of the one nation, so that each country had a ruler, an army, and a flag.
O God, hasten for us a rightly guided caliphate on the Prophetic methodology, in which the disunity of the Muslims is healed, and what they are in of tribulation is lifted from them. O God, illuminate the earth with the light of Your noble countenance. O God, Amen, Amen.
Our dear friends, until we meet you with another Prophetic hadith, we leave you in God's care, and peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
Written for the radio: Abu Maryam
