There is something wrong with us, we think (as Muslims) it is prohibited to be good to non-Muslims even though the examples that our Salaf (righteous three generations after the Messenger of Allaah) has set are contrary to this thought! All of us know how is our behavior towards our neighbors especially if its a non-Muslim neighbor. When it comes to our neighbors whether he/she is a Muslim or a non-Muslim, it doesn’t matter in sharee’ah, rather your responsibility towards him/her is more than that of a Muslim neighbor (to present the message of Islaam in your character). Among the ‘inspiring behaviors‘ of the Messenger of Allaah (ﷺ) is that, he would not pretend to be a good person when he would see a non-Muslim so that the non-Muslim will get inspire and will accept Islaam. Rather he was nice to everybody; it was in his nature.
‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mubaarak (may Allaah have mercy upon him), one of the greatest scholar this Ummah has ever seen. His neighbor was a Jew. Before he became a scholar of Islaam, he actually wasn’t very scholarly. In-fact he was very away from the deen of Allaah, very rich and inherited huge amount of money from his father. He used have parties in his home and he used to engage in major acts of sin and disobedience to Allaah. Then Allaah guided him (this is a whole story in itself) and he became the ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mubaarak that history knows today. Students would flood his home and flood the mosque and anywhere he went there was a crowd to study from him. So after he became this great scholar and everyone knew who he was, all of his students wanted to move next to him. They wanted to buy the home that was next to him who was a Jew (non-Muslim Jew).
And every single day ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mubaarak would buy some something for his family, before he would go to his own house, he would stop at his neighbor’s house and he would give them things they needed. Now students went to his neighbor and asked him, ‘how much do you want for this house?’ His neighbor replied: $1000 for the value of this house and $1000 for having ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mubaarak as your neighbor. Let’s learn from this!
Written by: Admin
February 10, 2013 at 9:18 am
As a revert, I encourage all Muslims to interact and connect with non-Muslims. We (talking as a representative of non-Muslims in this instance) are just people if sometimes uninformed. And it was a Muslim of high character who was kind and open to sharing his faith me that helped me to find the path to Islam. Alhamdulilah. By being open and kind to our neighbours, who knows what can happen.
February 10, 2013 at 2:17 pm
We welcome you in the Deen of Allaah!