Fair-mindedness

In Islam, we are called to be moderate in everything we do. We are asked not to eat too much or too little. We are asked to to be extravagant or too humble. We are also asked not to just focus on the hereafter nor the worldly affairs alone. But there is always the middle pathway of everything.

I think we all know this, but one point that really hooked me up when I was attending the Fiqh Ummah convention recently is that sometimes are not moderate when it comes to labeling ourselves. Have you ever noticed how we are so obsessed at putting labels (or too ignorant in using labels in life) in everything we do? One of the speakers was my old lecturer when I was in my previous university for bachelor's degree. He said that in Malaysia, we Muslim Malays have this thing that he called as, "Melayu Islam, Islam Melayu..." He asserted that in everyday life, we often unconsciously associate being a Muslim with being a Malay. For example, he said that Eidul Fitri, which is an Islamic holiday, is always associated with the image of ketupat, or lemang, or baju melayu, which are all elements of Malay culture, not Islamic culture.

Sometimes, we can also be too obsessed with not letting labels define who we are. In the same convention by another speaker, he gave an example of a man in the time of Prophet, who wore poorly, even when he was one of the rich men in that place. Prophet asked him to change his appearance to the one that suited his status, rather than appearing poorly just because he wanted to show that he was a humble man (I'm not sure the right word in English for zuhud though - so I used "humble").

So, I was thinking, labels are one of the reasons why there is prejudice and racism in the whole world. It is because we are too obsessed to put certain labels to certain race or ethnicity, which leads to stereotypical thinking. But I understand that sometimes we do this without realization and we often inherit these behaviors and mindset from our ancestors. But I hope there are more educational programs like this convention because even if the topic is such a cliche, it can give us insights we have never thought before.