Question #09-11-03

"I am concerned about emails that Muslims are sending out to "everyone on their lists." It seems that a lot of them are not really based on the teachings of Islam, that is the Quran and authentic hadeeths. What should we do?" (I am including a sample that just came to me and would like for you to confirm or refute the contents of the "Dream of Shaykh Ahmed in Madinah."

re: Fowarding Emails That LIE About Allah & His Messenger (peace be upon him)

In a message dated 9/14/2003 6:14:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Muslim sent this email out:

DONT DELETE! IF YOUR A MUSLIM! PLEASE READ THIS!

This is true.

From Madina Sheikh Ahmed has sent this news. On a Friday Sheikh Ahmed fell asleep reading the Quraan. Then he dreamt the Prophet Muhammed (saw) standing in front of him and saying that in one week seven thousand people died but not even one was a true Muslim.

None did what ALLAH wanted. He also said now is a bad time. These days Wives dont look after their Husbands, Girls go round without being covered they do not respect parents or others, Rich do not look after the poor, they do not give gifts or money or do not give fulfil zakaat.

He also said to Sheikh Ahmed make people understand to give zakaat, To do prayer and to keep fast. The day of judgement is near. When There is a single star in the sky, straight away the path of forgiveness will close. The writing in the Quraan will disappear (vanish). The Sun will lower itself with earth.

The Prophet said

whoever reads this news to someone else, " I WILL ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT MAKE HIM A PLACE IN PARADISE, AND IF SOMEONE DOES NOT BELIEVE THIS NEWS TO BE TRUE THEY WILL BE BANISHED FROM PARADISE"

If a poor person gives out this news to other people his/her good wish will come true.

Sheikh Ahmed said if this is not true then my death will be of a Non-Muslim. The Prophet said "KEEP FAST, DO PRAYERS, GIVE ZAKAAT AND GIVE KINDNESS TO THE POOR"

Whoever Forwards This will get his/her reward in three days.

One Person forward it to 40 people he had 8,000 thousand, take prophit in his buisness. One Person did not believe this news and his son died.

One kept Saying he will forward it today, tomorrow but never forward this news he died as well.

PLEASE DO NOT THINK THIS IS NOT TRUE.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE!

Obviously, no Muslim should forward this or anything like it. For the clear hadeeth narrated by our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, says, "Whoever attributes to me something that I did not say, let him reserve his seat in the Hell-Fire."

How do you deal with something like this? Same as any other situation. We keep calm, think things through and then patiently present the correct information to the best of our abilbities, inshallah. Let us consider the following way to present ourselves and Islam in the proper light to the people.

Thank you for writing to me. I would like to reply back to you regarding your recent letter. But, before we begin let us remember some very important points to keep in mind:

1. As Muslims we cannot lie about anything, especially about our religion.

2. We can always prove what our religion teaches because we have original recorded sources of our religion:

A) The Quran
B) Teachings of Muhammad.

This is a very unique part of Islam, not available in any other ancient religions.

3. Sometimes "questions" contain misinformation. We must qualify what it is that someone is saying against what they are implying.

4. If you find the answer to your question makes you say, "I didn't know that" or "This is good" are you ready to worship your God by submitting your choices to His Will?
This what Islam is really all about.

The most important subject is the worship of Almighty God, without any partners or associates or "gods" besides Almighty God.

Having stated our intentions, we now go to the answer:

Bismillah Rahman Raheem - Answer #03-09-11 3:45 P

Thank you for asking about these types of emails and this one (Dream of Shaykh Ahmad) and for putting such confidence in our ability to be able to provide answers.

Actually, we have written on this subject a number of times. It is not permissable according to Islam, to forward these types of emails without first verifying and confirming the content, especially when there is mention of "the prophet, peace be upon him, said . . ", nor to mention them, nor to forward emails about them.

This is not the proper way to handle the situation. In fact, this is exactly what the enemies of Islam want us to do. In many cases they pretend to be Muslims or friends of Islam who are supposedly "helping Islam and the Muslims."

To those who are not familiar with some of the basics of dawah in Islam, these may not seem like a big problem. However, it is never acceptable in Islam to try to accomplish some good by doing something haram (forbidden). It is never, ever possible to spread Islam by lying or using deceptive practices.

Thank you again for writing to me, and I pray to Allah for you and me and everyone to be guided by Allah to the very best of this life and the very best of the Next Life, ameen.

---

Why would anyone do such a thing?

Good question.

Because of Muslims promoting the wrong message.

Think about this: Muslims continually send out messages like the one that you just sent and then they tell everyone to do the same thing. Right?

Remember that the devil only has ONE GOAL - to put as many of the sons of Adam in the HellFire as he can. That is it. He does not really care how they get there.And it works - for the enemy.

Shayton (the devil) knows that most Muslims are ignorant of their religion and think that they know enough that they don't need to ask anyone about what they are doing. Or else, he counts on the fact that they will consider that it looks like something that will "help" the ummah (Muslim community) to do good deeds, even if it is a "little white lie."

But keep in mind that by lying about what our prophet, peace be upon him, says (whether in a hadeeth or a dream by some mystic shaykh, supposedly in Madinah), it is still a lie and could cause the one who sends it on to others to go to HELL, FOREVER.

And it is working!

We must discourage this practice of just "forwarding this to everyone on your list." You see many Muslims today do not really know a lot about Islam and they are easily confused by these people who know how to make up things to fool us or mistranslate or misrepresent the verses of the Quran and the hadeeth of the prophet, peace be upon him. As a result I have a number of emails coming to me from different countries wherein the youth are asking me about things that have really messed them up, all of it stemming from these teachings.

For the above reasons you can see why it is haram to forward these emails?

What should we do?

Good question:

First, when you receive email with any statements about dreams or visions - DO NOT FORWARD IT TO EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST.

Second, send a copy to our office here in Washington - email:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Third, begin to visit and promote the websites that are dealing with the real issues of being a Muslim in this place in these times. This is critical.

Finally, DO COPY & EMAIL this to everyone ON YOUR LIST!