Response: In
one of your answers, you state this Hadith from the Sahih
of Bukhari one such incident from which the extent to which gatherings
of music and dance had reached can be imagined. It is narrated that after
the battle of Badr, once Hamzah (rta) along with a
few companions was witnessing the dance of a slave girl while he was taking
liquor. In the meantime, ‘Ali (rta) passed by along with two camels.
At that time, the words of the song which the maiden was singing were something
like this: ‘O if you could only bring me the meat of the humps of these
camels...’. At this, Hamzah (rta) got up and slew the camels and
brought forth the meat to her. Annoyed by this, ‘Ali (rta) stormed
off to the Prophet (sws) and reported the matter to him. The Prophet (sws)
got up and walked across to the scene of the ‘crime’ but after seeing the
situation returned without doing anything.
My question is: How could the Prophet
(sws) have entered such an environment which is clearly prohibited? And
why did he (sws) not do anything to stop it? Doesn’t silence usually mean
acceptance? I know such an environment would not be accepted by him (sws).
Comment: You
must be knowing that the gravest sin in Islam is Shirk (polytheism). If
we look at the life of the Prophet (sws) from the wrong angle, we would
be forced to conclude that by praying in the Holy Ka‘bah in the presence
of 360 idols, the Prophet (sws) perhaps did not take the right decision;
he could easily have avoided the Ka‘bah by praying at home instead of praying
between so many idols. Likewise is the conclusion you have drawn.
We must appreciate that during the
Da‘wah (preaching) period of a Rasul, a Rasul tolerates the
worst of evils with perseverance and in many cases by ignoring them so
that his addressees may pay heed to him. It is only after enough time has
elapsed (which is determined by the Almighty) that he adopts an attitude
of hostility and then takes serious notice of the evil around him. Similarly,
he wisely tackles the failings found in his companions also. Hamzah
(rta), mind you, was Prophet’s uncle and, as we know, a great warrior
of Islam. However, liquor and dance, two important ingredients in the life
of Jahilliyyah, it seems were so strongly rooted in the Arabian
society that even from a person of his stature, they could only be gradually
rooted out; the Prophet (sws), unlike most of our clergy today, realized
this full well and dealt with the whole situation very prudently and in
the end won the day through this attitude.
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