Selfie Nation

Assalamualaikum.

 

This might be a little overdue but I'd like to talk on Shaykh Hamza Yusuf talks here in Malaysia the past few days. For me, he's one of my favourite Muslim scholars, along with Tariq Ramadan as well as Nouman Ali Khan. If I remember correctly, I heard the news he'll be in Malaysia last June. I was since, very much looking forward to hear his talks here in KL.

However, I managed to attend to only two of his talks but Alhamdulillah it was more than enough. The first one was in PWTC and the second one was in Masjid Wilayah. I wouldn't be elaborating what he said in this post because lots of people are sharing his words of wisdom in FB, Twitter and the like. What I'd like to share is what I learn from his way of engaging with people.

 

During the talk in Masjid Wilayah, SHY come down to meet with the audience and engage with them. You can imagine people are bursting towards him, taking pictures and even try to take a selfie with him. And then, he stopped and he asked of them not to take pictures of him. Then, he said, and this might not be a direct quote; this is a God given image to me. You can't just take them without my permission. In the African society, they felt that you're stealing their soul when you take their pictures without permission.

And if you attended one of his talks these past few days, you know this is true. This particular scene struck me for quite a while. Because it's what becoming of us these days. I'm not generalizing but I see that some people are, how do I say this.. becoming too star struck. I see a beautiful hikmah behind this. We should treat a scholar or the like with respect. To apply what we learnt or share their knowledge with the society. Not like treating them like a celebrity. There's quite a trend of people attending kuliahs and talks right now which is very good. But at times, I see these people are treating those who they follow like a celebrity which can be deviating ultimately.

 

Like having a selfie with a scholar is like the main goal. And I had experienced this hands on last Friday. Last Friday prayer, there was a well known ustaz in my usual masjid. And people were not noticing him until the prayer is done. And people are pushing to take pictures with him so much that he looks uncomfortable. And mind you, he seemed like rushing to go to somewhere. Not a good thing to look at.

This is strictly me, but when a respected scholar come to you, would it be better to ask questions that lingering our mind? Or thanking him for giving an good talk and what not? Wouldn't that be a lot better than taking a selfie that we may not even look for a third or fourth time? But don't get me wrong I'm not purely advocating that it's nonsense to take pictures with a famous people. It's just that we need to take the middle road instead of rushing to be the 'ones who managed to take a selfie.' We don't need to look like having a picture with some shaykh is our ultimate goal.

Like Hamza Yusuf always said in his talks in Malaysia, let's be a society with adab and respect. Let's not put our wants to be overrule our sense of manners. As we as a society are beautiful with our humility and respect with one another, and let's preserve that. I end this with a quick story. A friend of mine was a volunteer for the whole SHY program. And one of the volunteers asked whether they could have a picture with him, and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf simply said "take a picture with your heart."