The Hadith of the Palm Shoot and the Crisis of Islamic Work

Please join us in welcoming Br. Anas Hlayhel as our latest MM specialist in Islamic content.

Anas Hlayhel was born and raised in Lebanon.  He came to US after High School and graduated from the University of Houston as an Electrical Engineer.  Since then, he has worked in the high-tech industry such as AMD and Intel.  Anas has a great affection for the Islamic sciences and has had the opportunity to study under a number of Muslim scholars.  Anas has an Ijazah in Hadith (certification to narrate and teach the tradition of Prophet Muhammad AS).  Anas has been teaching Islam and delivering Friday sermons for the last 15 years.  Anas moved to Phoenix, AZ 5 years ago where, along his full time job as a computer engineer, he serves as a part-time Imam at the Islamic Center of North East Valley.  He is married and has 4 children.

One Hadith that never cease to motivate me to contribute to the cause of Islam is:

“If the Hour starts to happen and in the hand of one of you is a palm shoot or seedling; then if he’s able to plant it before the Hour happens, then let him plant it”.  As-Silsilah as-Saheehah #9.

No doubt, there are many lessons that we can extrapolate from this short yet super-powerful Hadith.  But the first lesson that comes to my mind is that a Muslim should learn to contribute under all circumstances.  Now, I don’t think any Muslim would dispute the fact that the Day of Judgment is the ultimate accumulation of the most difficult set of conditions for a human being to operate in.  There is no shortage of Quranic verses that describe to us the human condition on that Day.  In Surah 22:2, Allāh says, “On the Day you see it, every nursing mother will think no more of her baby, every pregnant female will miscarry, you will think people are drunk when they are not, so severe will be God’s torment”.  In such extreme circumstances, it may have been expected that the Prophet would have instructed us to throw out that plant, and to concentrate on prayer or something.  Yet, the Prophet manages to draw a breathtaking picture of someone who’s fighting against the Day of Judgment, it starting to happen and the man is trying to plant a shoot before it happens!!  Subhan Allāh, not even the Hour is an excuse for the one of us not to contribute to society and to the benefit of humanity.

But if we look at our condition today, we see some Muslims, at least subconsciously, ignoring or even opposing this prophetic message.  We have come to a point where some of us have become experts at manufacturing excuses.  Moreover, this attitude has managed to encompass all spheres of Islamic work, from prayer all the way to social service, civil rights, and political activism.  Take for example the prayer of Fajr esp. in congregation.  In the summer, we claim that Fajr is too early.  In the winter, we convince ourselves that it’s too cold.  When it comes to staffing programs and manning projects for the Muslim community, you see meager participation.  Those of us who are active sometimes joke amongst ourselves that it’s the same people who are getting together to design fundraising for a Masjid, planning a program for the youth, organizing a delegation to talk to a newspaper that offended Islam, and on and on.  So, where is the rest of the Muslim community??  Even the 80/20 rule falls short from describing our condition.  This rule simply states that it’s usually 20% of the people that contribute 80% of the work.  I think I won’t be exaggerating if I said that in our case it’s probably 5% of our community that is contributing 95% of the work.

My intent here is not to expose or highlight a negative trend as much as to contrast our condition with the extremely positive message of the Hadith at hand.  In other words, many of the excuses that you may hear from Muslims for not taking part in Islamic work are revolving around the difficult conditions that they find themselves in.  On the one hand, you hear excuses like “Oh brother, I’m so busy, I have no time, I have a family and I have a full time job”.  Or you may hear, “Oh brother, after 9/11, conditions have changed, I can’t work for this organization, and I can’t give money to that charity”.  On the other hand, you find the Hadith saying that you contribute regardless of the condition you are in.  Otherwise, there may never be an ideal condition for you in this life that perfectly suits your liking.  May Allāh have mercy upon this Muslim poet who beautifully captured this type of mindset when he said:

If you are bothered by the heat of the Summer

the dryness of the Fall and the cold of the Winter

And you are overtaken by the beauty of the Spring

Then seeking knowledge tell me when?

In other words, it’s either not comfortable (too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, etc.), or it’s too comfortable (too cozy, too beautiful, too soft, etc.), but it’s never just right!  If you are waiting for the perfect condition to start working for Islam, it may never materialize, not soon anyway.  But wait a minute, this is the perfect condition.  It’s in the time of crisis that you can contribute most, that you are most needed, that you can influence and cause change and affect impact.  Lots of Muslims immigrated to this country for a better life.  They came here to seek a degree or find a dream job.  And for a while that seemed to work perfect.  Many Muslims became successful and began to enjoy the American dream.  But, now that conditions have changed and are not as pleasant as they used too, it’s not time to get all depressed and negative.  Now, it’s time to recapture and revive the spirit of our Muslim ancestors who operated under much harder conditions but with a very strong and positive attitude.

Just to cite one example of many, Abu Yusuf, the famous student of Imam Abu Hanifa was on his death bed and was losing consciousness when his student Ibrahim ibn al-Jarrah arrived.  When Abu Yusuf woke up and saw Ibrahim he asked, “what do you say about this Mas’alah [a religious issue]?”  Ibrahim proclaimed shockingly, “while you are in this state?”  Abu Yusuf replied, “what’s wrong with that?  We study so maybe one person will benefit or be saved [by the correct answer]”.  Ibrahim goes on to narrate that it only took him to finish debating the Mas’alah and reaching the door till he could hear the weeping of his teacher’s family [signaling his death].  Can you imagine someone who was teaching and learning till the last moment of their lives?  I say Abu Yusuf, and many others of this Ummah, were a true embodiment of the Hadith of the Faseelah [palm shoot] mentioned above.  They contributed what they were best at under the harshest conditions and until the last moment of their lives.  They contributed selflessly even if they didn’t see the results in their works in their lifetime.  Just like this man that the Prophet described.  He’s planting the palm shoot, but he’s not sure if he or the plant will make it for the next hour.  But that’s okay since this man has fulfilled his responsibility.  The rest is on Allāh.