“All of the strife in this world is due to three people: a newscaster, a news seeker, and a news listener.” This is quoted by Imam al-Ghazali, may God have mercy on his soul and sanctify his secret, in his book Tibr al-Masbuk, which is only partially his work. He quotes this statement from Ibn al-Qasim al-Hakim. When I first read this, I was deeply struck by the statement. The more I reflected on it, the more profound it seemed to me.

Recently, Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah pointed out a mistake in Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwa, a printing error made a hundred years ago that ended up in almost every printed edition since then. One exception was a quotation of it in a book by Ibn Muflih, a direct student of the Imam. Upon hearing about this occurrence, Imam Raisuni, the Moroccan Usuli scholar, said, “After this, we must be skeptical of any edition that is not critical and from a sound source.”

This is sound advice, especially given that we live in an age of too much information that moves too fast across the Dromosphere. Unfortunately, the standards of journalism fail to provide any assurance that the news will report the truth. Similar standards now pass muster far too often in academia with fudged citations, plagiarism, and even doctored experiments, giving a new meaning to the academic title, “Doctor” i.e. “one who doctors,” or tampers with something. So we need to question what we hear and read and see, and we need to scrutinize the sources.

One of the fundamental teachings of Islam is to be extremely vigilant about one’s sources. Our scholars developed the most sophisticated process of authenticating statements and formulated a basic rule: The onus of the source is upon the one stating the quote, and the onus of proof is upon the one making the claim. In other words, any statement that attributes words to another person must have sound proof that the words are indeed from that person; secondly, any claim made must be substantiated with a sound argument or, in the case of Islam, with a clear text from revelation that supports the claim. A person must always be ready and able to back up his quotes with sources and support his claims with sound arguments. If one is unable to do either, the quote must be withdrawn, and the claim should be abandoned. It is not acceptable to make public a quote or claim if one cannot authenticate it.

Even love has its proofs. A poet said,

You claim to love God, and yet you disobey God

This is a bizarre way of reasoning

Surely, the lover, if his love is true,

Is most obedient to the one he loves.

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The proof of love is wanting to please the beloved. In the age of the Internet, news and information posted online or broadcast globally reaches the far corners of the globe instantaneously. And if the information is incorrect, it’s almost impossible to correct it everywhere it reached. Early last year, when Hosni Mubarak’s regime was falling in Egypt, most major news organizations, including CNN, BBC, major British and American newspapers, all reported that he had stolen $70 billion from his country. This figure spread like wildfire in cyberspace and was amplified across the Muslim world. As it turns out, later reports put that figure closer to a few million or hundreds of millions. A billion is a thousand million. Hundreds of millions, undeniably substantial, is far from 70 thousand million. So what is the truth? Who knows, and that is the point. Muslims are sometimes quick to abandon our teachings and principles, especially when faced with “information” we find to our liking. On the one hand, many do not trust the news, claim it’s biased and conspiratorial, and so on. On the other hand, many quote BBC or CNN as if it was a Sahih hadith, especially if it substantiates a point we want to make.

In December, we heard that car bombs in Damascus killed 44 civilians. The news reports said it was done most likely by opponents of the Syrian government, which is arguably among the most vicious and unethical in the world. The government said it was done by Islamists. The great bogeyman of the West has gone East. While Bin Laden is dead, it seems his vast international network of shoe and underwear bombers are still capable of pulling off an extremely sophisticated scheme in the most controlled city in the world. I don’t know who masterminded the suicide bomb attacks, but I find it difficult to trust any official statements from the Syrian government. It is not a credible source. And as for the fact that the perpetrators were Muslims, it behooves us to keep in mind that Islam’s sacred law condemns suicide as well as murder, most likely with eternal damnation.

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Our challenge in this age of information overload is how to be informed without abandoning the principles and teachings of Islam, which require strict rules for authentication. We need to learn to question and examine what we hear or read, and not pass along anything unless we know the sources to be sound. I think we need news fasts just like we have food fasts. “If you are not careful,” Malcolm X said, “the newspapers will have you hating the people who are oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing.”  Henry David Thoreau, the inspirational mind behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, said, “Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.” The Qur’an says, “What are they asking about? The great news! About which they are in great difference” (78:1-3).

Mutannabi, the 10^th Century Arab poet, whose name is derived from the word for “news” and can mean “the forecaster,” wrote in a poem,

People differ to such a degree they agree on nothing,

Except death that is, and even on that they disagree.

Some say the soul goes on after the death of the body

While others claim the soul, with the body, dies too.

I believe that everything we hear, see, and read, even from our own tradition, with the exception of the actual text of the Qur’an and rigorously authenticated hadith, must be looked at with a critical eye. But the real crisis is that too few of us have done the work or been afforded the education to develop a sound critical eye. To quote Mutanabbi again:

How many a fault-finder in words

Only reveals his faulty understanding.

Learning to read is much more difficult than what is taught or naturally acquired in early education. Reading involves coming to terms with the writer, i.e. understanding his words. It involves a familiarity with what is referred to in logic as material fallacies; they crop up in modern thought more abundantly than weeds in a wasteland. Critical eyes need refined minds, and the place to refine them is at school. But our schools have failed most of us, and the rapid decline and fallen state of our popular culture is proof perfect. More refined minds would demand more refined pleasures to entertain them when pleasure and repose is called for, but more refined minds would want to spend what precious time they have concerned with matters more elevated than constant entertainment. (For the thirsty, I would recommend reading Tolstoy’s masterful essay, “What is Art.”)

The birthday of the Prophet, God’s peace and blessings be upon him, is a great blessing for our community and, indeed, for all believers. So if we know the day, it should renew our joy manifold times. The Mawlid (his birthday) has traditionally been a time to reflect on – and be grateful for – our Prophet, peace be upon him, and his life, miracles, and the sacrifices he made on behalf of his community. Most of our scholars have considered celebrating the Mawlid as a good practice based upon the sound hadith, “Whoever establishes an excellent practice (sunnah hasanah) in Islam has its reward and the reward of those who act upon it.” This hadith, as some less perspicacious have thought, does not contradict the narration of Lady Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, in which she relates that the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said, “Whoever introduces something in this matter of ours that is not from it will find it rejected.”

The latter hadith refers to blameworthy innovations that are not from Islam. Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, a polymath master of Islamic tradition, says that this hadith is foundational and that it rejects any innovation in the religion, and then further explains,

As for those matters that branch off of the roots and do not depart from his Sunnah, peace be upon him, this rejection does not apply to them, such as the copying of the Qur’an [with its innovated orthographies], and the various juristic schools that emerged as a result of the excellent study and thought of our mujtahid scholars capable of seeing the connection that the branches have to the roots, which is what the Messenger, peace be upon him, has transmitted; not included also [in this prohibition] are the later books of grammar, arithmetic, inheritance laws, and other sciences that have their basis in the words of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and his dictates. None of that applies to this hadith.

Celebrating the Mawlid, as great scholars such as Imam al-Suyuti have shown, does not depart from the Sunnah and is a branch from the root of love of the Messenger, peace be upon him.

Loving him is clearly from the Sunnah, as illustrated in the hadith in which when Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, expressed his love saying, “O Messenger of Allah, you are more beloved to me than everything except my own soul,” he was then reminded by the Prophet, peace be upon him, “None of you truly believes until I am more beloved to him than even his own soul between his sides.” At that point, Umar said, “By Allah, you are more beloved to me than my own soul between my sides.” The Prophet, peace be upon him, then said to Umar, “Now, O Umar, now!”

At that moment, Umar’s faith was completed – when his love matured from natural love to willful love. Natural love is the love of a child for a parent or the love of a devoted student for a teacher. This emanates from a simple truth, as stated by the Prophet, peace be upon him: “Hearts are inclined to love those who do good to them.” In other words, the human heart has no choice in the matter of natural love – love simply flows. Willful love, on the other hand, is of a higher order; it is love attained after deep contemplation of the beloved and a profound awareness that the object of one’s love is perfect, as in the case of God, or after the realization of the immense debt one owes to the beloved, as in the case of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Willful love is a matter of choice and introspection. Umar realized that his own soul that he loved so much was nothing, a cipher, without the blessing of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. It was at that moment that his willful love occurred; it took precedent over the natural love that everyone feels instinctively and without musing or meditation.

The celebration of his birthday, peace be upon him, is a matter of willful love, as it is from the religion to honor him and remember him, and part of the remembrance of Allah is to pray upon our Prophet, peace be upon him. Anything that helps us to do that, and is not an innovation, is good. Ibn Lubb and others have defined innovation as “what obliterates a sunnah.” Encouraging the community of believers to reflect on the Prophet, peace be upon him, on the sacred day of the 12th of Rabi’a al-Awwal, the day of his birth, is not destructive to the Sunnah that he brought. Moreover, the day itself is auspicious – it was the day of the Prophet’s arrival to Medina after his migration (hijrah). The day he died was also the 12th of Rabi’a al-Awwal. These are not coincidences. So let the lovers love in peace. The Mawlid is a national holiday in every Muslim country in the world except for one. May you use this time to read sirah and reflect on the blessings of his birth.

In closing, I would like to share a poem written by one of my favorite scholars, Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi, who died a martyr in the battle of Tarifah defending the lands of the Muslims:

I desired to praise the Chosen One and was hindered

By my own inability to grasp the extent of his glory.

How can one such as I measure an ocean, when the ocean is vast?

And how can one such as I count the stones and the stars?

If all of my limbs were to become tongues, even then –

Even then I could not begin to praise him as I desired.

And if all of creation gathered together in an attempt

To praise him, even then they would stint in his due.

I have altogether ceased trying – awestruck, clinging to courtesy,

Tempered by timidity, glorifying his most exalted rank.

Indeed, sometimes silence holds within it the essence of eloquence,

And often speech merely fodder for the faultfinder.