300: Muslim Movie Review!

[Globalpeace]

Asslamo Allaikum,

Went to a friend’s house a few weeks ago after Esha and a whole bunch of guys were there, watching 300 on a wide Plasma TV.

I hung around for a few minutes and watched bits of the movie & then the next day there was a discussion in the Masjid parking lot as to how great the movie was and so on…

Comments were passed around that this was a MAN’s movie & so on…
I did watch about 15-20 minutes of adrenaline charged fictional re-telling of the battle of Thermopylae and it sent my mind racing to a very important issue. We (Muslims in the West) have three urgent and candid problems:

1. We have no CLUE about our own history…I mean we have NO IDEA that Sahaba (RA) of Rausl-ullah (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam) defeated NOT ONE BUT TWO Super-powers i.e. the Romans and the Persians! And such a feat has never been achieved in the history of mankind!

2. We have NO ROLE MODELS for Muslims, Non-practising Muslims go after celebrities (Movie, stars, singers etc) and what do practising Muslims have??? Dawud Wharnsby Ali (nothing against the brother!)

3. We have no credible, effective, media outlets, magazines, books, stories (for kids)….Please read my words….I am not saying that we don’t have ANY!

Some of you may say that isn’t Rasul-ullah (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam) supposed to be our role-model? That is absolutely true (till eternity) however Muslim history has produced some colossal figures, Rijal (men) & Nisa (women) who were the Masters of their time and inspired Muslims for generations!

One name spring to my mind straight away, Shaykh-ul-Islam Ibn-Taimiyya (RA)…Hundreds of years have gone since he was around but his legacy is alive and still very much with us!

Now, I would like you to focus your attention on this thread below and please pay particular attention to the wise comments by Br Bawar & Aapa Mehnaz!

http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14171

Our youth are growing up in a cultural-crisis, there is an identity crisis in their mind and you can see it, feel it….Are they Muslims? Are they Arabs? Are they Americans? Are they British? What are they? Imagine young minds grappling with these issues at school and everywhere else!

Most of our youth don’t EVEN know about their ethnic identity any more! Islam doesn’t tell you to HIDE your ethnic identity, rather it tells you NOT TO THINK of yourself as superior!

Net result! In the absence of al of the above, we watch FICTION like 300 and are affected by it!

Our Islamic identity and our Eeeman suffers….These may seem like sweeping statements to some of you; but imagine a 13-14 year old watching the movie but no historical information or context about Islam! What do you think is going through the young man’s mind?

I keep stressing that ALL OF US need to know our mission in life….Broadly it is to invite MUSLIMS to Qur’aan/Sunnah and Non-Muslims to Islam!

But all of us are different with different back-grounds, different capabilities, different approaches and we HAVE to discover our talents, our capabilities and find OUR OWN LITTLE-MISSION!

My mission although it may in the broader sense may agree with some of you, YET in details and particulars it is vastly different!

Muslim men & women NEED to discover themselves and set themselves up as role-models for our youth!

What are you good at? Use it for the Ummah? ****DISCOVER YOURSELF*******

Can you wipe someone’s tears?
Can you provide financial assistance to poor Muslims?
Can you organise events?
Can you GO BEAT PEOPLE UP? (Just kidding, thats my weekend job!)

Lastly, a note to my beloved Brothers/Sisters who sent PM’s & e-mails about the abuse that I have personally suffered at TTI lately…

Jazakullah Khairun for your kind words and support!

But remember, when you set yourself up (or set your little lemonade stall for the Ummah!) YOU WILL GET ATTACKED! YOU WILL BE REVILED AND YOU WILL BE HUMILITAED!

That’s the way the cookie, crumbles!

Do EVERYTHING for the sake of Allah and say, “My reward is with Allah (SWT)”!

Evaluate criticism objectively and improve BUT leave the tittle-tattle to those who indulge in those things, we have better things to do!

DO YOU KNOW YOUR MISSION IN LIFE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THE UMMAH? CAN YOU FOCUS!!!

 

[um muhammad al-mahdi]

Great!!

:salam2: brother!

Nice thread Mash'Allah!!
That's right, we should REALLY try to do something for our Ummah. And trying to do it following our beloved Prophet (SAWS) means that we gonna have to suffer soo much just like him...Insh'Allah!

 

[aisha ali]

:ma: its agreat thread we need to do something for the ummah we muslim in the west need to be united.what role can the women play for the ummah?
:salam2:

 

[Saifu deen]

Assalam Alykom

Baraka Allah feek brother....


fee aman Allah....

 

[zOaib]

:salam2:

well said brother , i agree 1786% with u on this .

 

[Raed]

Jazaka allah khyran brother GP,

Actually I was thinking about same issue few months back, and its totaly true what you said about our ummah and models..

Well when i used to go to cinema alot, I got attracted and effected by those movies especially the hostrical one, and I didnt know about my islamic history (just from very shallow school books) , well after reading and watching videos of muslims history and about each of the sahabah (Radi allah anhum) and the mothers of the belivers (radi allah anhun) and the others of the heros of islam, and the prophet (salah allah alihu wa salam) life, plus all the prophets (alihum al salam) stories.... I went to watch these movies again, and I have to say they were appear so rediclous, and i dont feel like going to cinema or watching hollywood movies again, even few of them have good stories.... We need just to teach our children to love our history and to read it deep... Muslims Media must emerge to make all those heros of islam stick in our heart and our children mind.

 

[Bawar]

mashaallah, very good points raised.
i do a few things which i think is part of islamic dawa on a personal level. your thread has attracted my attention to "what more i can do" for others.

i agree with you about "cultural crisis of muslim youths".
i was living in Rusholme, Wilmslow Road, Manchester a few years back. i came out of my house to go somewhere and it was an Eid day. the road was jam-packed with muslim youths who were either driving or walking along this road and had come from different parts of UK to celebrate Eid.

when i looked at them, i was also lost for a few minutes as "who was i looking at?"
1,they were there to celebrate an islamic event. 2,they had flags of Pakistan. 3, they had beer cans in their hands (immitating non-muslims english boys). 4, they were wearing heavy necklace chains of gold and silver (immitating nonmuslim black boys of Jamaica) . 5, they were playing indian music (immitating hindu and sikh youths) ...

and i wondered, do they know who they are?

i am not criticising only them. we are part of it and something needs to be done so that the future youths are not similarly lost.

Wassalam

 

[al-fajr]

:salam2:

1. We have no CLUE about our own history…I mean we have NO IDEA that Sahaba (RA) of Rausl-ullah (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam) defeated NOT ONE BUT TWO Super-powers i.e. the Romans and the Persians! And such a feat has never been achieved in the history of mankind!

those stories need to be revived.

2. We have NO ROLE MODELS for Muslims, Non-practising Muslims go after celebrities (Movie, stars, singers etc) and what do practising Muslims have??? Dawud Wharnsby Ali (nothing against the brother!)

these people are dangerous, but there is nothing else thats so 'in your face' kinda thing, for younger kids who have freinds talking about music/culture they cant relate to fully so dawud wharnsby ali is almost the natural progression. (it started off with voice. then it went to drum, then it went to multiple drums and now were on guitars)

3. We have no credible, effective, media outlets, magazines, books, stories (for kids)….Please read my words….I am not saying that we don’t have ANY!

Some of you may say that isn’t Rasul-ullah (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam) supposed to be our role-model? That is absolutely true (till eternity) however Muslim history has produced some colossal figures, Rijal (men) & Nisa (women) who were the Masters of their time and inspired Muslims for generations!

One of the greatest role models in the last century is malcom x, they do exist, but again theyre diminshing. i just dont think weve got ppl who are brave as them anymore, people are so AFRAID of everything except Allah (swt) if that was inverted somehow it would have some stunning results.

Our youth are growing up in a cultural-crisis, there is an identity crisis in their mind and you can see it, feel it….Are they Muslims? Are they Arabs? Are they Americans? Are they British? What are they? Imagine young minds grappling with these issues at school and everywhere else!

ok, well, in my opinion young people will generally stick to things that give them a sense of security, minds can be moulded real easily into whatever gives them a sense of popularity/self confidence boost. now, if thats Islam then thats great! but often it isnt.

Most of our youth don’t EVEN know about their ethnic identity any more! Islam doesn’t tell you to HIDE your ethnic identity, rather it tells you NOT TO THINK of yourself as superior!

True, but i think its more they choose not to know, i mean for example keeping with the whole security issue, Pakistani kids only tend to give much thought to pakistan when it comes to cricket (even that has diminished somewhat ) because that seems to be the only thing good that comes from the place. Its more inferiority complex than anything else. To be honest, (it is crazy yeh) but they would prefer to be seen as british than from pakistan or anywhere else theyre from (im NOT generalising), since theyre with brits 24/7 and these were the ancient colonialists that brought so called 'civilisation' to their country. they dont have any real knowledge about islamic history or their own background and the socities they live in, however much it claims to be multicultural and diverse and all that jazz, it automatically looks down on them.

My mission although it may in the broader sense may agree with some of you, YET in details and particulars it is vastly different!

Muslim men & women NEED to discover themselves and set themselves up as role-models for our youth!

yeh and not be afraid to do that.

What are you good at?

hmm You've got me thinking...lol

Can you wipe someone’s tears?
Can you provide financial assistance to poor Muslims?
Can you organise events?

it takes immense courage.

Can you GO BEAT PEOPLE UP? (Just kidding, thats my weekend job!)

lol! with words maybe

One name spring to my mind straight away, Shaykh-ul-Islam Ibn-Taimiyya (RA)…Hundreds of years have gone since he was around but his legacy is alive and still very much with us!

Ibn Taymiyyah was cool yeah!
and so was

1. Imam Abu Hanifah
2. Malik Ibn Anas
3. Abdullah ibn Mubarek
4. Salah-Uddin
5. Muzaffar Qutuz
6. Qutb
7. Muhammad al Fatih

so yeah we have role models! (and there are PLENTY of women i could mention there too by the way but that would mean it would go on forever)

wasalam

 

[DOC_BRO]

I agree with ur post brother...MashaAllah very good points u have made worth thinking and asking oneself... hopwfully we can do things which we will have a proper answer epecially 'what we did for our ummah".
I think as far as doing something for the Ummah is we have lot of things but more excuses not to do them. If we cant fight for our brothers, cant do anything politically, cant voice the concerns, cant help rebuild the lives homes family they have lost,cant give our time and energy... but atleast we can do something financially by giving donation to worthy charity organization, localy or globally there are lots of them atleast if we donate few bucks to each of them then we will have some sense of saticfaction that we did something (i am not saying thats enough or this is the only thing but just a suggestion). or last but not the least help our TTI forum...

I recently posted a thread abt boycotting Isreal good and products but unfortunately it was deleted. But would have been a great coutesy if someone let me knew reason why? so if i posted something wrong I would be cautious in future. well anyways what i wanna say that even if u try to boycott those products of Isreal it should make us feel bit better that we did something for our plastinian brothers-sisters ... here is the website www.inminds.co.uk .

The identity crisis for younger muslim is a bit problem. My brother in law and his friends they modelize the NBA celebrities every day at masjid they discuss about their lifestyles and how much money they have etc once i got a chance to intrude their discussion and asked few question which really stated they were so much into the video game and "playoffs" culture. that reminded me of one thing what we people from indian subcontinet specially say " ABCD " which means American Born Confused Desi (desi means local) . No offense but I think this issue of knowing our role models,about Islamic history and who r we can be much solved if the younger generation has the opportunity to study in an Islamic school. most of them have a very good curriculum/syllabus which includes the history also. Yet it does depend on the parents also how much they inform and clear doubts of their children. Infact there is an easy solution we can ask them to join TTI where they can ask question and here brothers n sisters are always ready to help them so in one way by publicising TTI to others we are doing something for the ummah too . :mashallah: atleast they will have a diversion from the rubbish website like facebook, ebaum, etc.
May Allah show us the right path and make us that worthy that we can help our ummah too in walking the right path InshaAllah aameen.