Jabril How Does Archangel Gabriel Quiz Muhammad in the Hadith?

The Hadith (a collection of Muslim narratives about the prophet
Muhammad) includes the Hadith of Gabriel, which describes how
archangel Gabriel (also known as Jibril in Islam ) quizzes Muhammad
about Islam to test how well he understands the religion.Gabriel
appeared to Muhammad over a 23-year period to dictate the Qur'an word
by word,Muslims believe.
In this Hadith, Gabriel appears in disguise, checking to make sure
that Muhammad has received his messages about Islam correctly. Here's
what happens:
Answer:
The Hadith of Gabriel
The Hadith of Gabriel's tells the story: "Umar ibn al-Khattab (the
second rightly guided caliph) reported: One day when we were with
Allah's [God's] messenger, a manwith extremely white clothing and very
black hair came to us. No tracesof travel were visible on him, and
none of us recognized him. Sitting down before the Prophet, (peace and
blessings be upon him) leaning his knees againsthis, and placing his
handson his thighs, the stranger said, 'Tell me, Muhammad, about
Islam.'
The Prophet replied, 'Islam means that you should bear witness that
there is no god but God and that Muhammad is Allah's messenger, that
you should perform the ritual prayer , pay the alms tax, fast during
Ramadan, and make the pilgrimage to the Ka'aba at Mecca if you are
able to go there.'
The man said, 'You have spoken the truth.' (We were amazed at this
man's questioning the Prophet and then declaring that he had spoken
the truth).
The stranger spoke a second time, saying, 'Now tell me about faith.'
The Prophet replied, 'Faith means that you have faith in Allah, His
angels , His books, His messengers and the Last Day, and that you have
faith in fate as it is measured out, both its good and evil aspects.'
Remarking that the Prophet again had spoken the truth, the stranger
then said, 'Now tell me about virtue.'
The Prophet replied, 'Virtue — doing what is beautiful — means that
you should worship Allah as if you see Him, for even if you do not see
Him, He sees you.'
Yet again the man said, 'Tell me about the Hour (that is, the coming
of the Day of Judgment).'
The Prophet replied, 'About that he who is questioned knows no more
than the questioner.'
The stranger said, 'Well, then tell me about its signs.'
The Prophet replied, 'The slave girl will give birth to her mistress,
and you will see the barefoot, the naked, the destitute, and the
shepherds vying witheach other in building.'
At that, the stranger wentaway.
After I had waited for a while, the Prophet spoke to me: 'Do you know
whothe questioner was, Umar?' I replied, 'Allah and His messenger know
best.' The Prophet said, 'He was Jibril [Gabriel]. He came to teach
you your religion.'"
Thoughtful Questions
In the preface to the book Questions And Answers About Islam by
Fethullah Gülen, Muhammad Cetin writes that the Hadith of Gabrielhelps
readers learn how to ask thoughtful spiritual questions: "Gabriel knew
the answers to these questions, but his purpose of disguising himself
and posing these questions was to help others attain this information.
A question is asked for a certain purpose. Asking a question for the
sake of displaying one's own knowledge or asking merely to test the
other person is worthless. If a question is asked for the purpose of
learning in order to let others find out the information (as in the
example of Gabriel above, the questioner may already know the answer)
it can be considered a question that has been posed in the correct
manner. Questions of this kind arelike seeds of wisdom."
Defining Islam
The Hadith of Gabriel summarizes Islam's majortenets. Juan Eduardo
Campo writes in the book Encyclopedia of Islam : "The Hadith of
Gabriel teaches that religious practice and belief are interrelated
aspects of the Islamic religion – one cannot be accomplished without
the other."
In their book The Vision of Islam , Sachiko Murata and William C.
Chittick write that Gabriel's questions and Muhammad's answers help
people Islam as three different dimensions working together: "The
hadith of Gabriel suggests that in the Islamic understanding, religion
embraces right ways of doing things, right ways of thinking and
understanding, and rightways of forming the intentions that lie
behindthe activity. In this hadith, the Prophet giveseach of the three
right ways a name. Thus one could say that 'submission' is religion
asit pertains to acts, 'faith' is religion as it pertains to thoughts,
and 'doing the beautiful' is religion as it pertains to intentions.
These three dimensions of religion coalesce into a single reality
known as Islam."

Muslims in Americ

"Growing up in America, Eddie lived the American dream. He achieved it
all before the age of thirty—money, cars, women."
These are the narrator's opening words to the ground-breaking
documentary film about how Eddie Redzovic, founder and host of the
worldly-renowned The Deen Show, came to Islam.
However, the narrator's next words are those thattruly open this film:
"But beneath the surface…"
And "beneath the surface" is the story of one man—a troubled and
broken soul—who makes the streets his battleground and the nightclub
his place of refuge. Yet, as he repeatedly throws himself into throes
of violence and death, he discovers that his most dangerous
battleground lies within…
The story of troubled Eddie—who was born in Buffalo, New York, to
Yugoslavian immigrants—begins while Eddie is inChicago, where his
parents moved while he was still a child.
With two working parents and lots of time on his hands, young Eddie
fills his days with what could only be described as every parent's
nightmare: bad friends, complete disregard for school, and,ultimately,
gang membership.
"Children are like a garden," Eddie's uncle reflects regretfully on
what happened to his nephew during those years. "If you miss [even]
one week of watering, it's overcome with weeds."
Like so many troubled souls before him, it is within the somber
solitude of a jail cell yearslater that Eddie realizes that his life
is in disarray. Ironically, it is the absence of his closest
companions—his fellow gang members, his "family"—that inspires this
realization.
"I'm in a jail cell thinking…These people don't care about me."
Then comes the ultimate question that every soul must surely ask
itself at least once upon this earth, "What am I doing with my life?"
Yet, even after his release, the light still doesn't come on for Eddie…
It isn't until he sinks deepinto the insobriety of self-indulgence
that the fault lines begin to make way to redemption…
But even after he embraces spirituality to feed his ailing soul,
Eddiefinds that his battle of the self is not yet over…
"You have three types of brothers…" Eddie tells theattendants to a
lecture at a school he visits after accepting Islam and founding The
Deen Show, "blood brothers…brothers in humanity…and brothers in
[faith]."
And this film offers a moving story for each and every one of them—the
members of our families, our brothersand sisters in humanity, and all
people of faith.
In a world of Islamophobia, media-hyped "Islamic extremism," and
spiritual depravation, this documentary is a "must-see" for every
journalist, every writer, every intellectual…And every soul.
This film will touch each differently. But each will be touched.
This movie truly is, as the commentator said of Eddie himself, "an
example of redemption."

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Everything is possible for those who believe

Nourish your dreams. To achieve anything requires faith in Allah,
belief in yourself, imagination, vision, persistence, hard work, and
sometimes blood and tears.
The will of Allah and the power of your heart and mind make an
unbeatable combination.Everything is possible for those who believe –
anything you can envision, and many things you can't.
I'm thinking of a ragtag group of desert Arabs, who, in the course of
a single generation, transformed the world forever. I am speaking of
course of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his companions.
What they did was impossible – there's no other word forit. But
through the powerof Allah, and the tremendous determination of one
man, and the faith of those who followed him, the impossible became
possible. Because of theirfaith and sacrifices, you and I can utter
the words, " Laa ilaha-il-Allah " and put them into practice in our
lives.
Your dreams don't have to be that grand. Whether you dream of building
a new masjid for your community, writing a novel, competing in sports,
becoming a doctor, doing charity work overseas, memorizing theQuran,
or any other goodand meaningful goal – it can be achieved by the will
of Allah. But you can't just sit back and wait for it to happen. Feed
your dream as you would feed a newly planted seed. Care for it, devote
time to it, don't give up, and watch it grow before your eyes.

Allah and His Messenger are the lights in the darkness of this world

Matthew Arnold, the English poet, wrote:
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
In this poem, Arnold envisioned the world as aplace of darkness,
conflict and confusion, with no light to show theway out. To him the
beauty of the world was just an illusion, a dream; and the reality of
life wasone of struggle and pain.
Indeed, the world seems to become a more dangerous and hopeless every
day. The news is filled with dire stories about war and starvation,
the inexorable destruction ofthe natural environment, pollution of the
oceans, terrorism, and crime. Most recently we have been reading about
the "Arab Spring", in which the people of several nations have risen
up against their dictators. Asinspiring as these events are, in the
midst lie acts of horrific cruelty. In Libya it is rumored that 100
officers who refused to order soldiers to fire on protesters, were
burned alive. La hawla wa la quwwata il-laa billah. How horrendous.
Wouldn't a sane person be afraid of such a world? Wouldn't an
intelligent person be consumed with anxiety, and wouldn't a very
intelligent person be plunged into despair?
The thing about fear, anxiety and despair is that they flourish in
spiritual darkness, just as some species of mushrooms can only grow in
the dark. They might be represented by the image of a monster hiding
in the corner of a dark room.
What do you do when you're afraid there's a monster in the closet, or
creeping quietly toward you? You turn on the light.
The Light is Allah
For us, the light is Allah, and the Quran through which He
communicates with us. Our guiding lightis the natural bond we have
with Allah, and our instinctive yearning to know our Creator. Let's
cherish that bond and strengthen it, and it will fill us with light.
Allah's light is our salvation from fear of theunknown; fear of
failure; fear of loss and pain; fearof poverty, illness and injury;
fear of enemies who want to hurt us; fearof strange things; fear of
death.
"Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His
light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lampis within glass,
the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a
blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil
would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah
guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for
thepeople, and Allah is Knowing of all things." - Quran, Surat An-Nur,
24:35
An Illuminating Lamp
And what about the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)?
Allah says in the Quran, Surat Al-Ahzab, 33:45-46,
"O Prophet, indeed We have sent you as a witness and a bringer of good
tidings and a warner, And one who invites to Allah, by His permission,
and an illuminating lamp."
The Messenger too is a source of light. He is an illuminating lamp,
which is what you hold up so you can see the way ahead. His Sunnah
gives us a brilliant path to walk. It shows us the waypast all the
evils that lurk in the darkness, including the evils of racism,
nationalism, anger, selfishness, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and greed.
I'm not saying that all we must do is read the Quranand pray, and
those dire problems that I mentioned earlier will evaporate. Not at
all.
But the solutions to thoseproblems lie within the Quran if we look.
The Quran is the light that shows us the way out outof the gloom that
we have created for ourselves, and example of the Messenger (peace be
upon him) is a beaconthat lights the way forward.
Light in Our Hearts
The verse I quoted above,from Surat an-Nur, mentions the example or
similitude of Allah's light. The Sahabi (companion of the Prophet)
Ubayy ibnKa`b said, 'The similitude of His light [takes place in] the
Muslim's heart.' [Ibn Kathir, 3:464] Faith, dhikr, love of Allah and
compassion toward all creatures, cause that light to grow in our
hearts, until it spreads and appears on our faces, our hands, in our
eyes, on our tongues, and even in our homes. As Allah says, "Or is one
who was dead, and whom We gave life and made for him a light by which
to walk among people, like one who is ina darkness from which he
cannot emerge?" [6:122]
Other people can sense this light, and some will be guided by it,
while others reject it. Those who reject it might even be angered by
it, becauseit represents a refutation of a lifestyle based on narrow
material concerns.
Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: "When the Messenger
of Allah got up to pray at night, he would say:
( O Allah, to You be praise,You are the Sustainer of heaven and earth
and whoever is in them. To You be praise, You are the Light of the
heavens and the earth and whoever is in them. )
When life starts to feel like a burden, and your vision contracts so
that all you see is darkness, don't give up. Don't despair. Remember
that there is a light to show you the way. The light is Allah. His
light is expressed through the Quran and through His Messenger. Turn
to it, and it will grow in your heart and bring you peace. It will
give you strength and joy, and willtransform you and all those around
you.

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