Hadith Lessons: On Being an Immigrant
It is related on the authority of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As that the Messenger of Allah said: "The true immigrant (muhajir) is a person who leaves behind everything that Allah has forbidden."
This hadith was related by Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, and Nasai
Lesson: External and Inner Meaning
The nobility of an immigrant (muhajir) is enshrined in the early Muslims who left their homes in Makkah to establish a new life in Madinah where they could freely practice their faith.
The outward context of migration is physical, but the hadith shows that immigration has an inner significance.
Any person who migrates in the outward sense of leaving home to settle elsewhere but pays no heed to the inner significance of abandoning all that is against the divine law loses the virtue of being a true muhajir.
The hadith has a lesson for everyone who is immigrating from country to country or city to city in search of a better life must keep in mind this inner dimension of adopting God Conscious values.
Adapted from "A Sufi Study of Hadith" by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi. Translated by Shaykh Yusuf Talal Delorenzo
Topics: Hadith And Sunnah, Hijrah (Migration), Immigration
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