Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Feb 2007
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Assalamoalykum
Alhumdulilah I am a salafi and i love my salafi brothers. i try to take my ilm from them only. But I am afraid to tell people around me that I am a salafi. Because of the fact that many people relate the title salafi to harshness and lack of manners. Initially if found it difficult to realise why this was, all that the salafis around me do is quote quran and sunnah with the understanding of the salaf.
A few years back I went to a conference held in masjid as salafi in Birmingham. And there I realised where all the hate came from.
I have an uncle who lives in Birmingham, whom I hadn't met him for a long time before the conference. He took the opportunity to come and meet me at the masjid and take me out for a meal.
Even though he lived close by, he never visited the masjid because it was a 'wahabi' mosque. But because I was there, he stepped inside. As he entered the brother on the microphone spoke fairly harshly and in an aggressive tone against a list of groups and sects, of them the 'braelvys'. walahi my heart hurt so much, I made dua to Allah that my uncle didn't hear that, that his weakness in english didn't allow him to understand or he wasn't paying attention. I don't know if this reached my uncle or not, he is too nice of a guy to say anything.
I may be wrong, but to me that felt bang out of order. If you want to guide people away from misguidance that's not how you do it. My parents and I have been trying over the years, bit by bit, to try and help guide my uncle, all that work may have been undone. You cannot change a a person with a lifetime of bidah to sunnah by shoutng at them. Very few people will change with harshness - rather the masses will turn against you.
Another brother I know in Birmingham has a friend who is a 'qadayani' or 'ahmedi'. I was thinking what if that brother had taken his friend to this conference? It said on the leaflet - all welcome, young old, male female, muslim non-muslim. Would he come away with a positive impression of salafiyah? Would he have thought 'you know what, those guys have got a point, I should read up on this' ?. NO he wouldn't. The brother on the microphone went on to say, in the most aggressive tone I have ever heard anyone use on a microphone
"...and the qadayanis(or ahmedis i forget which name he used) THOSE KUFFFFFAR!!!..."
This is just one of many examples I have seen from the salafis. Why is this??
Another time in the masjid before the prayer some brother began making the rows before the iqamah and another brother, who is well respected by many of the local salfis, began admonishing this group of brothers in a very harsh way. This is not the way you teach people.
I understand that falsehood needs to be exposed so that people do not begin following the misguided, but it would be far far more effective if it done with a smile, with kind words. I am in no way saying that we should compromise to make the people of shirk and bidah and misguidance happy, rather the truth should be established.
All I'm getting at is why cant salafis in the UK advise others with a smile on their face?
For example you see someone wearing a string around their neck believing that it will cause some good for him. What do you do? You greet him with a smile and say ýakh do you mind if I speak to you for a moment?ý you speak to him about tawheed and shirk, breaking things down at a level which is relevant to the person. And inshallah with the permission of Allah he will leave this practice, and walahi , I have seen this first hand. Now had there been harshness , and Allah knows best, there may have been a different outcome.
May Allah guide us all to the straight path, the path to junnah.
Haroon
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hr123
05-12-2008 @ 9:42 PM
