Author: Mehmet Paksu, 09-5-2006

Islam arose in an environment in where individuals’ atrocities went beyond monsters’ and in an age when society was collapsed and degenerated.

The fortunate community that encircled the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was regarded as strange within their society. Their limited number, different behaviors from society, and being drawn from amongst a society that does not recognize the Truth gave rise to be seen as strangers. Eventually, some of the companions, with the permission of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had to leave the regions that they were living in to fulfill their religious duties freely. Therefore, they suffered the difficulties of being a stranger and foreigner increasingly. Later, as it is well known immigration to Medina eventuated.

Prophet Muhammad gives good news to the believers who obey to the God’s orders and who accept the difficulties of being a stranger and foreigner for the sake of God as follows:

“Islam began as something strange, and it will revert to being strange as it was in the beginning, so good tidings for the strangers.'' Abdullah ibn Masud asked, ''Who are the strangers?'' Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said, ''The ones who break away from their people (literally, 'tribes', for the sake of Islam)'' (1)

Many Islamic scholars made praiseworthy descriptions about the hadith. Late Hamdi Yazir, after giving the following comment on the Surah Al-Naml, verse 93 as, “The future of Islam is not night but day. It is not dim but glossy. It is at night when oppressions inflame, and these oppressions are experienced by Islam to let it rest and regain consciousness,” he cites the above mentioned hadith and says, “Many people set forth the hadith to horrify believers. They dragged people into grim and pessimism. But the hadith’s intent is to explain Islam’s being strange both when it first appear and later as it was in the beginning. The Arabic word given in the hadith ‘Fatuba’ (Blessed are the strangers) is to give good news to believers, not to horrify them, because those were fortunate people who spread Islam in the first place.

Today- in which the signs of the Judgment day become more visible, Elmalili Hamdi Yazir likens the believers who spread the truth of Islam by learning the heavenly lights of faith and follow the path of the companions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), to them. For, while some are trying to estrange Islamic truth from its original form and even coming to the point of denial, those issues are tried to be hearten with the truth of faith by those believers. In fact, at the end of the hadith according to Tirmidhi’s narration, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) states as, “Glad tidings awaits the strangers, those who have set aright, after I am gone, that of my Sunnah which the people have corrupted.”

Therefore, the strangers mentioned in the hadith are the believers who take the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as a guide. In the time of when Bid'at - is that thing or deed which was not done during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad but was innovated later, and superstitions overrun in everywhere, revitalizing one single sunnah is to increase the good deeds for the benefit of... In fact, including the believers of our time, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) gives good news to all believers, “In the era of when bid’at and depravities overrun the societies, the one who hold and serve to the Sunnah and the Qur’an will receive the reward of a hundred martyrs.”

In the time of when Islamic issues are seen something as strange and where there is few who live Islam thoroughly, to receive the reward of this sweet good news of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and to benefit from those good deeds, one should effort and be patriotic.

Sources:
1. Sahih Muslim, Belief: 232.
2. Hak Dini Kur'an Dili, 7:3713.
3 Tirmidhi; Belief: 13.
4. Kadı İyaz. eş-Şifa, 1:27.