Page 208 - Bigotry: The Dark Danger

Bigotry:
The Dark Danger

Those who follow the Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet, whom
they find written down with them in the Torah and the Gospel,
commanding them to do right and forbidding them to do wrong,
making good things lawful for them and bad things unlawful for
them... (Qur'an, 7:157)
And We located the position of the House for Abraham: "Do not
associate anything with Me and purify My House for those who
circle it, and those who stand and bow and prostrate." (Qur'an,
22:26)

There are many verses of the Qur'an that command Muslims to
be clean and we have only cited a few of them here. There is one par-
ticular point being emphasized in verse 32 of Surat al-A'raf, howev-

er, which is that in the same way that there are those who make fine
clothing and ornaments unlawful for Muslims, there are also those
who make good kinds of provision unlawful for them. Indeed, care-
ful inspection of the life style of the fanatic shows that it is these peo-
ple with their extremist mindset that would make cleanliness unlaw-
ful for Muslims.

According to the Qur'an, a Muslim must be the cleanest and

best-groomed person. He must dress well and in a contemporary
style, he must eat clean food and must keep his home clean; simply
put, he must be clean at all times. Our Prophet (pbuh) was exception-
ally immaculate. Any attempts to defame such a fastidious person as
our Prophet (pbuh) in the manner described above are certainly a
grave offense in the Sight of God. Fanatics, however, behave as if

they were ignorant of this.

Let us now look at what our Prophet (pbuh) really said in order
to expose the error of the fabricated hadiths cited above. Some trust-
worthy hadiths on the subject of our Prophet's (pbuh) cleanliness
and fastidiousness read as follows. (These hadiths are regarded as
accurate because they are compatible with the Qur'an):

206