A Response to "Growth + Times = Dilution of Islamic Practice? by Aysha Khanom"

It would probably help if you read the article first, eh?

I wasn't particularly a fan of the article, aside from the fact that I thought it did an excellent job of summarizing a viewpoint that I disagreed with.

Mostly, I disagreed with her contention that making Islam accommodating for others is "diluting" our deen; on the contrary, I personally feel like that it's upholding it. But, of course, there's things that are pretty set and there's areas that allow for wiggle room.

This is probably inadvertent, but I feel that her intro can be construed in a way to imply that the problems we face today weren't issues in the time of the Prophet (saw). While questions like "is this halal/haram" were answered by the Prophet (saw) (whereas in current times, we often face difficulty in attaining 'ismah on topics), even the community of the Prophet (saw)'s time was plagued with people who sinned regularly, were outright hypocrites, came to Islam for little more than political gain, etc etc (and Allah swt knows best what was in their hearts). How did the Prophet (saw) deal with them?

On the flip side, I completely agree with her in being disturbed by the trends where people feel the need to justify their "bad behavior" by changing the rules.... "hijab is hard for me" becomes 'hijab isn't fard" or "hijab is a bidah." However, I feel like this type of behavior comes about by the mentality where, "if you don't follow these rules, then you're not Muslim" -- rather than leave Islam altogether, people opt to change it. That being said, I still think it's stupid and toxic.

All in all, I think humility (in our own knowledge, actions and souls), when dealing with others and imposing our beliefs on the community is imperative... for both sides. Which is just... subhanAllah... especially bearing in mind the countless ayahs in the Quran and hadith warning us against arrogance and pride... For one:

The Messenger of God (saw) said, "Practice humility until no one oppresses or belittles another." [Muslim]

Finally, an excellent article that touches on this topic: "The Etiquette of Disagreement" by Dr. Sherman Abdul-Hakim Jackson.