Re: Practicing or Appearing?
At times it becomes difficult to decide which one is relatively a trivial matter. In short, in Islam everything that the Prophet SAW specifically termed important is important & vice versa . HE emphasized on appearance A LOT (many hadiths you would find on beard and hijab), so calling it relatively trivial compared to character wouldn’t be appropriate, as the Prophet (SAW) never made such comparison, otherwise he could have make it a step by step process. First character and then appearance, to emphasize the importance of one against the other. His teachings take both aspects in parallel. Don’t remember now the exact references, but the following two hadiths I heard from a scholar makes sense to me:
A momin is recognized from a distance (from his/her appearance that s/he is a momin)
Momin woh hai jisko dekh kar Allah (SWT) yaad aajaye. (His/her obedience towards Allah’s is evident from his/her appearance)
Once a Jew mentioned it after accepting Islam, that the biggest Dawah Muslims give quietly is through their appearance. If it weren’t that important the Prophet (SAW) would have never emphasized that.
never heard these ahadith before…the hadith I’ve been hearing since I was little goes li ke that, "momin woh hai Jis ki zuban aur haath say doosra momin mehfooz rahay’.
Wow how many times I have hurt people with my words?
