~The Spirit of Sunnah~

We do love RasulAllah and we also love His Sunnah… But did we ever question how true we understand him and his practices known as Sunnah?

In our Rosarium, I wanted to share with you, as far as I could remember, some words of our white haired sage Ahmed Hulusi about it which will drive us to the “spirit” of Sunnah and even makes us think that it is in fact “this spirit” that should be understood truly within this context.

With his shining looks far beyond the time that we are living, our white haired sage was questioning our situation with these words.

“Just think about it!

Did Mohammed (peace be upon him) live in agreement with the wearing style (manner of dressing) and the hair and beard style of the community he was living in fourteen hundred years before our time; or, did he refuse to their wearing style and followed a totally different wearing style from them?

We all know that Mohammed was coming from a pagan community and the people in that community worshipped many idols. There were even three hundred and sixty different idols inside the Qaba at that time and other than eight or ten khanif individuals among them people used to live as idol worshippers by worshipping those idols…

Mohammed (pbuh) was also dressed in the same way as that pagan people, wore his turban, robe and other clothes just like others did in his tribe and he grew his beard just like them, and even he ate and drunk the same way as others…

Well, since he did so and wore turban, robe and he was clothed just like the people of his tribe before his Nubuwwa, did he make any change in his wearing style after the Risala has come to him? Or, just like before, did he continue to follow a wearing style in agreement with the wearing style of his community that he was in?..

He did not make any change in his wearing style after his Risala and just like before, he acted in harmony with the wearing style of the community that he was in, all along his life time…

In that case, Mohammed has not brought a new rule about clothing as an issue, and as this subject had no importance, he has just fulfilled the Sunnah (customs) of pagans in his community. That is, in his era, Mohammed practiced the Sunnah about the wearing style that belongs to the pagan community he lived in…

If RasulAllah, had not agreed with the wearing style of the community he lived in, in that period and if, for instance, he had chosen to wear short trousers or any other cloth by refusing the others’ manner of dressing, then that style which he preferred upon refusing others, would be the Sunnah that belonged to him. But instead, without refusing the pagan customs in that respect Mohammed acted in agreement with the rules accepted by others in his community.

This means that, limiting yourself by the wearing style of fourteen hundred years ago would not be to fulfill the particular Sunnah of RasulAllah but rather to fulfill the Sunnah of pagans which was not rejected by Mohammed!

And what comes out from that is:

If you could understand and appreciate the “Spirit” of the Sunnah, you will see that concerning the issues that are not in conflict with the commands of the Koran, acting through the Sunnah (customs) of the community that you are living in, is the appropriate way to act on “Sunnah”.

Furthermore, think about this!

We call him “RasulAllah”, which means the “Rasul of Allah”—the one who articulates what he gets from within, Allah.

The Sunnah of Rasul of Allah could only be the Sunnah of Allah.

The statement that explains The Sunnah of Allah in the Koran is as follows:

“You shall not find any alteration in the Sunnah of Allah.”

And that never-changing Sunnah is the real Sunnah of RasulAllah.

—Ahmed Baki

Originally published on the Sufism and Science site at http://ahmedbaki.com/english/