No person who loves Allah and the Messenger (pbuh)
can be completely
unaffected by the insults towards the Prophet (pbuh),
by the way that the
Prophet (pbuh)'s been drawn, ridiculed, portrayed,
particularly in the Western image to look like what
the Muslim man is being molded to be: barbaric, angry,
regressive, violent. And so the idea is that our Prophet (pbuh)
is this way and, therefore,
all Muslims are like that, especially the Muslim man.
And, the way we're gonna prove it is by insulting the
Prophet (pbuh) and causing
people to come out with their emotion to respond in a way
that allows them to submit to the very image that they've
cast on the Prophet (pbuh).
And so you find yourself in this predicament as someone
who loves Rasulullah (pbuh),
who loves the Messenger (pbuh),
that when he's being insulted, your raw emotion tells you
to respond in a certain way.
But, at the same time,
you want to defend the Prophet
(pbuh)
while being like the Prophet (pbuh) in defending him,
right?
You don't want to defend him in a way to where you might
make the substantive arguments that are needed to be made
to cast away those suspicions, or those
aspersions, that have been cast upon him
(pbuh), but you also don't want
to give them the image because that's what they're trying
to do: portray him in a certain way.
Now, I want you to think about this with the previous
hadith:
if defending your brother in his absence,
is that rewardable?
What then is the reward of defending
the Prophet (pbuh) in his absence?
Right?
What good is it then when a person defends the Prophet (pbuh)
and does something that would actually cause
him to be further insulted?
So, we have to think about this in a holistic way.
Number one, to defend the Prophet (pbuh)
is one of the most beautiful acts of worship and one
that the angels cling towards.
And that's why the angels of Badr are so special,
because they were with those special companions
that defended the Prophet (pbuh) physically,
when no one else would.
And Jibreel (pbuh) asked the Prophet (pbuh),
"How do you view the veterans of Badr amongst you?"
Meaning, human beings.
And the Prophet (pbuh) said,
"They're the best of us,"
And Jibreel (pbuh) responded,
"The malaa'ikah, the angels, who served on that day
of Badr are also considered the best of us."
Meaning, you have the veterans of Badr from the
Sahabah, from the Companions, the human Companions.
And the veterans of Badr from the angels that served
Allah and his Messenger (pbuh)
that protected him in the midst of
all that turmoil when very few people would.
You also have someone who defended the honor of the Prophet
(pbuh) like Hassan ibn Thabit (r).
And Hassan ibn Thabit was a poet,
and he was sent by the enemies
of the Prophet (pbuh) to insult him,
to lampoon him,
and instead when he saw the Prophet (pbuh),
he could say nothing but words of beauty about his
appearance and his character and who he was,
and he ended up becoming a Muslim and responding to
the enemies of the Prophet (pbuh) on his behalf.
And Hassan was so talented that they built a mimbar,
they built a pulpit for him in the masjid of the
Prophet (pbuh), that he would stand up and he would
respond on behalf of the Prophet (pbuh), since the
Prophet (pbuh) would not respond
on his own behalf to insult.
And when he would do that, the Prophet (pbuh)
looked at him in a certain way, and on more than one occasion,
the Prophet (pbuh) said that "Jibreel (pbuh)
is with Hassan." Not any angel. Jibreel is with Hassan,
so long as he defends the prophet of Allah (pbuh).
He would even tell him: "Uhju al-mushrikeen fa inna Jibreela ma'ak." Go ahead and lampoon
them because Jibreel is with you.
Respond to them, Jibreel is with you.
Some of the scholars connected that to the verse in
Surat al-Hashr where Allah talks about the believers who
loved the Prophet (pbuh) more than themselves.
"Wa ayyadahum bi Roohin minh."
And Allah (swt) supports them with a spirit from Him.
The majority of the scholars said "Roohin minh" refers to
the spirit of the power of Allah (swt), not
Rooh al-Qudus being Jibreel (pbuh) being the Holy Spirit.
But some of the scholars said that it could possibly
mean that as well, that when a person defends the
Prophet (pbuh), not just any angel would come
and support them,
but maybe Jibreel (pbuh) as well because that's what
caused Jibreel to come in the life of Hassan ibn Thabit.
(r).
So again, if defending your brother, in his absence,
with his honor, causes an angel to defend you and
protect you,
what then does that mean when we defend the
Prophet (pbuh)
intelligently, intellectually, emotionally,
without becoming who they want us to become,
and demonstrating, in the process of defending
the Prophet (pbuh), the character of the
Prophet (pbuh), even in that defense, so that
we don't submit to that horrific image that they've painted
of him (pbuh).