Voice of New Muslims

Contributed By Nasirah Cavaney, Victoria.

The path in front of a new Muslim can sometimes seem to be paved with potholes, although you feel liberated within, you also feel anxious about having taken this momentous decision to become Muslim. How will it affect your life?

You have embraced a faith that has granted you the innermost peace. No money in the world could buy that feeling. You feel you are at last complete, whole, absolutely nothing missing.

Life is full of challenges for everyone, regardless of faith. By becoming Muslim it doesn’t mean that you suddenly have a carefree life, with all of life’s challenges fading away, it just gives you the strength to cope.

O mankind! There hath come to you a direction from your Lord and a healing for the (diseases) in your hearts, - and for those who believe, a guidance and a Mercy. (Quran Chapter 10:57)

The early Muslims had severe hardships, let me share a story of one the Sahabah [A companion of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)].

Jafar ibn Abi Talib

Jafar was a cousin of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). He and his wife were one of the first people to embrace Islam. In the early days of Islam many of the new converts faced harsh treatment from the local chiefs of Makkah. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was teaching the people to give up their idols (a majority of the people of Makkah were idol worshippers) for a god they could not see. Also the Kaabah was an income for the chiefs as it was a home to the idols. The new faith was also dividing families.

Some thought Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to be a soothsayer or a lunatic. Life got increasingly more difficult for his companions. Despite the hardship and as time passed, more and more people came to see the truth of Islam, and embraced it. In the end the Makkan chiefs made life intolerable for some of the new Muslims. Their life consisted of oppression and persecution. In the end with the permission of the Prophet (pbuh) Jafar led a small group of the Sahabah including his wife to Abyssinia. Abyssinia was ruled by the Negus, a righteous Christian King. However two men from Makkah followed them and demanded their return. The Negus summoned the Muslims and asked them;

“What is this religion which you have introduced for yourself and which has served to cut you off from the religion of your people? You also did not enter my religion nor the religion of any other community.”

Jafar ibn Abi Talib responded: "O King, we were a people in a state of ignorance and immorality, worshipping idols and eating the flesh of dead animals, committing all sorts of abomination and shameful deeds, breaking the ties of kinship, treating guests badly and the strong among us exploited the weak. We remained in this state until Allah sent us a Prophet, one of our own people whose lineage, truthfulness, trustworthiness and integrity were well-known to us. He called us to worship Allah alone and to renounce the stones and the idols which we and our ancestors used to worship besides Allah”.

"He commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to be helpful to our neighbours, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed, to avoid obscenities and false witness, not to appropriate an orphan's property nor slander chaste women”.

Then Negus granted the Muslims asylum. Jafar and his wife spent around ten years in Abyssinia. Later they migrated to Madinah. Jafar was known as a person who was concerned for the welfare of the poor and impoverished. For this he was nicknamed, the ‘Father of the Poor’.

Abu Harayrah said of him:
“The best of men towards us indigent folk was Jafar ibn Abi Talib. He would pass by us on his way home and give us whatever food he had. Even if his own food had run out, he would send us a pot in which he had placed some butterfat and nothing more. We would open it and lick it clean…”

Jafar is a great example of a true Muslim; any Muslim would show good judgment to use this great man as their role model.

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