|
On this point, she and her husband repented
before Allah and made a vow to observe the custom of
"Koonda", if they are released from the jail. After they
made such a vow, the whole scenario of the events changed
suddenly. The king released the Prime Minister from the
jail and reinstated him on his former
position.
As it can be seen by any reasonable person,
this story is totally forged on the face of it. The
person who has coined this story did not even know that
Madinah had never a king nor a Prime Minister. All the
Muslim rulers were named as Caliphs and had no Prime
Minister at all. In the days of Umayyas, their capital
was Damascus and in the days of Abbasis, their permanent
seat was in Baghdad. It is ironical that the story of
such a woodcutter is not even known to anybody in Madinah
nor in any city of the Arab countries. No Arabic book has
ever referred to it. It has no mention except in an Urdu
book Dastaan-e-Ajeeb', the author of which is unknown.
One can easily see that a custom based on such a
fallacious and mythical story can never be an Islamic
custom. Islam has always been far away from such
superstitions.
Therefore, this baseless custom should
completely be avoided by the true Muslims. Some
historians have opined that in fact, this custom has been
coined by some Shi'ites because the date of 22nd of Rajab
is the date of the demise of Sayyidna Mu'awiyah whom they
take as their biggest enemy. They took that date as a
happy occasion and made the Sunni Muslims also to
celebrate it on the pretext of the above mentioned
story.
Be that as it may, it is evident that such
customs have crept into the Muslim society by their long
association with Hindus who commemorate different
historical events of their religion in the like manner.
The Muslims must be careful about these customs, because
they are not only an invention of ignorance but also the
imitation of non-Muslims in their religious rituals. No
doubt the '"lsal-al-thawab' to the soul of a deceased
Muslim, and particularly to a pious person is not only
permissible but also a commendable practice but the
Shari'ah has not prescribed a particular date, nor a
particular mode to do so. If someone wants to make
"'lsal-al-thawab" to Sayyidna 'Ali (RA) or to
Ja'far-al-Sadiq (RA), he can do it any day & by
performing any act of worship, like Salah, Fast, Sadaqah,
Dhikr etc. There is no reason why it should be restricted
to a special type of meal or bread distributed in a
particular date. What makes this practice worse is the
fact that the people accustomed to this practice deem it
as necessary as a fard (obligation); rather they treat it
as more necessary than fard because they do not care to
perform the obligatory Salah or to fulfill the rights of
men obligated on them, but they are very strict and
punctual to perform these activities. Moreover, if a
person does not observe this practice, they reproach him
and call him with bad names. Such behavior makes this
custom a bid'ah which is condemned by the Holy Prophet
(SAW) as a misguidance. Therefore, the Muslims must
abandon all such practices and should not cling to it
only because it has been the practice of their society
for many years. A Muslim is supposed to follow the
dictates of Shari'ah and not the practice of the society,
if it violates any of its principles.
Conclusion
The upshot of the above discussion is that
the Shari'ah has not prescribed any specific way to
observe the month of Rajab or to perform a specific mode
of worship or a ritual in any one of its dates. However,
being a prologue to the month of Ramadan, it should be
availed of for preparing oneself for Ramadan and one
should pray to Allah to make him reach the blessed month
and to benefit from its unique merits.
The meaning of Rajab - The lexical
definition of Rajaba is "to respect", which is where the
word Rajab has been derived from.
|