A few months ago, I read a story which did not seem to make any sense.
In a book about the greatness of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon
him), in a chapter about his playfulness, I read the following story:
The Prophet (peace be upon him) ordered Sa'ad to shoot a disbeliever with an
arrow. When he shot him, the disbeliever fell over and his private parts
became exposed. The prophet (peace be upon him) laughed till his molars
were exposed.
This story did not make any sense, I
will not lie that it worried me. In what was a really good book, this
one story stuck out as the only story that did not make sense and could
easily be used by Islamaphobes to make the Prophet (peace be upon him)
look bad.
Anyway I completed the book and continued doing what I
always do after that, read another book. So now I am reading
Ar-Raheeq
Al-Makhtoom (The Sealed Nectar) and today while reading about the Battle
of Uhud, I came across the same story in its proper context and it made
perfect sense, here is full story in my own words:
During
the Aftermath of the battle of Uhud, a female companion Umm Aiman was
walking around the battlefield giving the wounded water to drink. Hibban
Bin Al-Arqah saw her and shot an arrow at her. The arrow hit her, she
fell over and her Awrah become exposed. Hibban started laughing at her
and the prophet (peace be upon him) became very angry.
He gave
Sa'd Ibn Abi Waqqas and arrow without an arrowhead and told him to shoot
Hibban. Sa'd did so and Hibban fell over and his awrah became exposed.
The prophet (peace be upon him) laughed and said, "Sa'd has avenged her,
may Allah always respond to his supplications,"
(See
Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtoom, p: 330)
So
this is the full story. The half-story made it seem like the prophet
(peace be upon him) had a man executed and laughed at the man's embarrassment when his private area became exposed. Yet the full story
was about defending the honour of a women, a brave woman who was
unjustly shot, exposed and mocked at and the prophet (peace be upon him)
could not tolerate a Muslim woman being treated so badly.
So
this was a very good story about the honour and respect that Islam gives
to women, yet a half told version of it can be easily misunderstood.
We
need to realize that there are people out there looking for faults in
the prophet (peace be upon him) and will misinterpret any story to make
him look bad. While we can't please these people and there will always
be issues they make up and misinterpret, at least we should be careful
to not give them extra ammunition.
When stories are
mistranslated, half told or quoted out of context, they can be very
easily misunderstood and misinterpret. We need to be very careful in
making sure that whenever we narrate a story, we convey it properly
leaving no room for misinterpretations.
I just wanted to present
this as an example of what happens when we half-quote a story out of
context, and how different the story can sound.