Khutbah Reflections: Lessons from the story of Sayyidina Salman Al-Farisi (RA)
The khutbah on 22nd February 2013 was about yet another Companion of Rasulullah(S); Salman Al-Farisi. What sets him apart from the rest of the Companions was that he was Persian while the rest of the Companions were Arabs. However if we were to look beyond ethnicity, this was a man of unwavering determination in his search for the truth.
Salman Al-Farisi travelled from his hometown in Esafahan, Iran to Syria, Iraq and Madinah. Even though he was cheated, robbed, tortured and even made a slave, he didn’t give up. Eventually he met a Christian priest who told him of the coming of a Prophet who brought the message of Prophet Ibrahim and that he should seek him out.
Salman Al-Farisi finally met Rasulullah(S) in Quba and after ascertaining that Rasulullah(S) was indeed the Prophet that he was searching for, he hugged Rasulullah(S) and cried. His arduous journey was finally over. The truth he was trying to find was Islam; through the teachings of Rasulullah(S).
Most of us can’t even begin to comprehend the struggles of someone who wasn’t born a Muslim but instead had to search within and without before finally finding peace in Islam. This is a process that could take years but none can truly accept Islam before gaining knowledge of it first.
The accessibility of knowledge that we have today however, is something that we can all appreciate and be thankful for. Unlike Salman Al-Farisi who had to travel great distances and go to great lengths just to find it, for us it’s just a masjid, institution or a few clicks on our computer away. It’s just a matter of whether we want to or not.
Perhaps it has become too easy. This has led to the inception of “Sheikh Google” and “copy & paste fatwas”. Information has become too readily available but not people with the wisdom to interpret it.
Scholars dedicated years of their lives on the study of a particular subject taking into account the context of their environment as well as other factors before finally issuing a ruling on it but here we are simply “googling” it and what’s worse we could be undermining the efforts and being blatantly disrespectful of these scholars.
This is why we should always refer to people who are more knowledgeable. This was what Salman Al-Farisi did in his travels. He didn’t think himself to be smarter than others not did he assume he was right but instead learned from others until he found Rasulullah(S) and learned from him.
In a nutshell, I feel what we can learn from this is that we should continually seek knowledge from credible sources under the guidance of a teacher while being respectful and humble.
May we increase our taqwa and become more humble as we increase in knowledge.
[divider]Fadhuli Taufek
Fadhuli is an aspiring writer and believes in putting in the time and effort into meaningful causes. He strives to improve himself as a person and as a Muslim.