Two Sides of the Scale

From the Editor

I saw from your answers to the question, "Where is the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in your lives," that my question activated your hearts before your minds. I asked what first comes to your "mind' when you hear "Muhammad" and the answer came from your "hearts;" you said sincerely, "without knowing why, tears appear before the mind takes over."

While you wove your answers loop by loop, I felt firsthand the love for the Prophet behind this sincerity. I read smilingly how this love turned into possession in a child's perception: "My grandfather described the Prophet in such an animate way that I thought that Islam and Muhammad only belonged to our family..."  While thinking that the answers from the question, "How did you perceive the Prophet as a child?" would decrease our ball of questions, it grew like a snowball: "Because different aspects of the Prophet were described in my childhood, I couldn't get a clear picture of what kind of person he was. I wasn't able to reconcile his participating in wars, on the one hand, and his giving his condolences to a small child for a dead dove, on the other hand."

Are not these two opposite poles that can not be reconciled in a child's mind equivalent to "balance" in our minds? For when we grew up we learned that we could give priority to his "balance and moderation" when describing Muhammad to people who are not familiar with him. Hands continued to be raised to describe him; some said: "Virtue," "Love," "Mercy!" The trait that even amazed those who do believe in him, "al-Amin," adorned the lips of others. What kind of consciousness his being a servant of God who "worshipped all night long even though he had received the glad tidings of heaven" turned into should have been explained.

And we wanted to dream about meeting the Prophet. If we did meet, what would we ask him? Maybe "we couldn't ask anything because of our shyness." Or would we?

"How is the life we live?"

"What is the difference between people today and the Companions?"

"What does it feel like to receive revelation?"

"What happened on the heavenly ascension?"

While the mind is busy producing questions, love is developing its own methods in the excitement of seeing the Prophet in a dream: "I performed numerous acts of worship and went to bed many nights with the hope of seeing the Prophet in my dreams. But because I woke up throughout the night due to my excitement, I was unable to remember clearly." This was one of the answers to the question, "Have you seen the Prophet in your dreams?"

We saw that we are trying to balance both sides of the scale. We are tying to weigh emotions with the mind. We set a task for ourselves from your answers: we should continue to turn love of the Prophet into a conscious love and mix knowledge with love.