OrGaNiZeD KoNFuSioN

The Tableeki Man...

So at our uni we have a weekly halaqa on Wednesdays where the Imam of the local Masjid comes and gives a dars. I never can make it to these halaqaat unfortunately because I have a class at the same time. So this past week a brother goes to pick up the Imam and unfortunately he cant make it so he tells the bro to take this one brother with him. The brother who he brings is a hardcore Tableeki Jamaat uncle who was just visiting from Pakistan.

So I walk into the room after my class has ended at the end of the halaqa and as soon as I step in all I hear is this brother asking the kids 'who is going to sacrifice one weekend for Allah?"

I'm thinking to myself 'O God' and I go to the restroom to make wudu hoping that by the time I get out the brother would have finished and people would be lining up for salah.

I was wrong.

I walk out and as soon as I step into the room this uncle confronts me.

"Salama laykuuuum (hugs) what's your name?"
"Ibrahim"
"Ma shalla where are you from?"
"Pakistan"
"Really? What part of Pakistan?"
"Karachi"
"O wow...Have you ever gone for Tableek?"
"Never"
"Why not?"

Now at this point my tongue and brain were no longer working as a team. My brain is saying "ok, this brother has had this conversation like a million times so you have to give him an answer that will shut the conversation down." My tongue had other plans.

"I don't have time."

Now anyone who has been approached by a tableeki uncle knows that the cardinal sin of rejecting Tableek is saying you don't have time. These guys are trained for that answer. They give khutbahs about that answer. So immediately I tried to clarify myself.

"I don't have time for Tableek because I work with other organizations and do work for the deen in other ways."

To the uncle this clarification somehow only clarified the fact that I do not want to do work for the deen.

"So if Muhammad PBUH were to be here today you would tell him you don't have time?"

This infuriated me. This brother is trying to call me out. We are not in private and he is not speaking softly, he is loud and in front of my MSA. This sister in the back realized I was absolutely about to tear this guy apart and she began to shush the uncle because the Mu'atthin began the call for prayer. He complied and said 'after the athan.'

Immediately after the athan the uncle got what he had coming to him.

"You know what your problem is uncle? You for some reason think that if a person isn't working with the Tableeki Jamaat then he isn't working for Islam, when there are scholars who have given other ways to work for the deen here other than going for Tableek."

Now this was supposed to crush this uncles spirits. I was patting myself on the back thinking that I had done something no other person had ever done. I spoke to him with the strength of all those kids who had been too scared to talk back to a the Man. But this guy was not a rookie.

"Oh ok, well...Will you come with us this weekend?"
"What? Look uncle IM not saying that the Tableeki Jamaat is incorrect, and if anyone in the Jamaat needs my help I will help him, but I will not go for Jamaat."
"Ma shalla, well then I need your help."
"What do you need?"
"I need you to come to Jamaat"
"R you serious? No IM not coming for Jamaat."

At this point a Tableeki bro from my campus explained to the uncle what I was saying to him, but I guess he must have used sign language or something because it seemed as though he understood him.

"ma shalla, well then I need your help."
"o..k (very skeptical at this point)"
"Come to isha at the masjid tonight"
"Uncle I don't live around here, and I don't go to this masjid for Isha"
"Well try and come in shalla"
"I will try insha Allah"
"Because I will need your help, I will need your car"
"...?"
"I will need your car so we can go and pick up two other brothers for Jamaat".

At this point this brother had become a joke to me, I laughed it off and we prayed. But subhan Allah I thought to myself, this brother must be getting commission or something. The Tableek is like a pyramid scheme! Each brother he brings for Jamaat must earn him like a loongie and some miswaks.

But may ALLAH preserve this uncle because it is brothers like that who have energy for this deen that get the Tableegh done. If people like him didn't exist, everyone would be passive and lackadaisical when it came to giving Da'wah.

Iboo

posted by Iboo LaL @ 6:20 PM Comments: 7