I thought the Saudi religious police were crazy, but I think the South African religious scholars are not far off.
I was invited for lunch this afternoon at a friends home as they are leaving for Umrah tomorrow afternoon. May Allah take them safely and accept their umrah Insha allah. Ameen. Whilst sitting and chatting to members of the extended family about the mundane activities of life, suddenly one lady brought up the topic of the Turkish mosque and praised the masjid for its extreme beauty and architecture. She also made mention that she would love to be at the masjid during the month of Ramadhaan. Then a few other women joined in the discussion and I was shocked beyond belief that a few of the women mentioned that recently they attended an Islamic program whereby they were told by a 'Deobandi" scholar that they should not visit the Turkish masjid. For heaven sake, the masjid is a place of worship, why shouldn't South African Muslims visit the masjid. Is it because South African Indian Muslims are far more superior over Turkish Muslims. What kind of mentality is this? This is not what the Prophet Muhammed (saw) taught us. I think some of our South African religious scholars are going cuckoos....They are losing it. Instead of uniting people they are dividing the community day by day.My late grandfather would perform his salaah in any masjid, whether it was built by the Sunni community or the Sufi community or any other community. He would always say that it is only a masjid, a building, a place of worship. What you have in your heart is between you and your creator.Performing salaah in a masjid built by a differing sect only encourages dialogue and creates respect between people. The minute you start saying you can not perform salaah in that masjid because it is built by those people, that's when division is created within communities.A big thumbs up and hats off to Mr. Ali for giving South Africa a piece of Turkey. Through him, nations have now formed a bond and a connection and he has accomplished something that many wealthy Muslim South Africans could not achieve.To these foolish religious scholars who are famous for judging, branding and labeling people, I honestly feel sorry for all of you, for you have missed your goal in life and that is to unite the Muslim Ummah. It is narrated in Saheeh Muslim that the Prophet (saw) said :"My ummah will be divided into seventy three sects. All of them will be in the Fire except one."Thus at present we can see that our very own religious scholars are causing our Muslim societies to divide into various sects and schools of thought. Islam is such a simple religion that can accommodate to the needs of any person irrespective of class, creed or nationality. All we need to do is follow the sunnah and way of life of our beloved Prophet Muhammed (saw) and remain steadfast on the teachings of the Quraan. Everything else is absolute nonsense and baseless innovations in my opinion.....
