JIHAD!

The Prophet's mausoleum in Medina

So a ‘nasty’ video about the Prophet Muhammad has apparently been causing quite a ruckus around the world.

Last week I talked myself into watching the 13 minute trailer of the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ on Youtube.

By the time I was done, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t overcome with a sudden desire to jump off my chair, yell ‘JIHAD!’ and lunge for the throat of the nearest Westerner. 

Nor was I left feeling angry or hurt.

Rather, I was left bemused by the fact that a pile of rubbish like this could actually cause as much noise in the world as it supposedly has.   

It’s going to take much more than a movie, if you can even call it that, for me to take offence about a man whose very life was a lesson for humanity (and whom I might add, I am proudly named after).

In his own lifetime, the Prophet had endured much worse than a joke of a production mocking his life. Take this short story for example:

There was an elderly, non-Muslim woman who lived beside the Prophet in Medina. Let’s just say she wasn’t his biggest fan.

To make her feelings known, she would attempt to drop her daily collection of trash on the head of the Prophet every time he would step outside his house walking through the alleys of Medina.

The Prophet never reacted until one day, he was walking and found that no rubbish came his way from the sky.

Surprised, he inquired about the woman to the nearby neighbours and came to find out that she had fallen ill. 

 

When he turned up on her doorstep, the woman was sure that Muhammad had come to take his revenge, or else insult her for her antics.

But instead the Prophet had come by to offer her his best wishes, and pray for her quick recovery.

This same Muhammad who once said, ‘Pride enters the heart like an ant crawling onto a black rock at night’ is being portrayed as a womanizer and a crook in the ‘Innocence of Muslims’.

But that’s beside the point. The bottom line is that people are entitled to say whatever they want – Muhammad is greater than all of that and those who take Muhammad as their role model should be greater than that.

As for Libya, Egypt and Pakistan – I find it exceptionally hard to believe that a video clip can be the sole cause of all that’s been going on there recently.

There’s more to this than meets the eye, and the US’s willingness to meddle around anywhere that smells of oil or money has a little something to do with it.

And as for those Muslims crying out ‘Jihad!’ and feeling offended about the film – take a break and watch the thing. My Prophet would not have burned embassies and put bounties on people's heads.

“I believe if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring much needed peace and happiness.

I have studied him - and the man in my opinion is far from being an anti–Christ. He must be called the Saviour of Humanity.”

George Bernard Shaw on Muhammad

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A version of this article appeared in the online edition of Carleton University's student weekly, the Charlatan in September 2012.