2,500 roses. 25 people. Six locations. One aim: to ‘Love Muhammad.’
On a frosty Sunday, 18th January, a group of young British Muslims set out with raised banners and high spirits in the heart of London. Their one mutual purpose was to spread love in the name of Islam. How? By distributing beautiful roses, each with an inspirational saying from the Prophet Muhammad (saww) attached to it.
Unfortunately, the rise of terror groups in recent years has undoubtedly created an ever-growing burden on Muslims; suffering consequences of an adulterated, violent image of Islam. From siege to beheading to shooting, more and more non-Muslims are beginning to accept Islam as something it isn’t – hateful.
In fact, many Muslims know that it is quite literally the opposite – it is a religion of love, mercy and respect . It thus becomes our duty as Muslims to inform others about what Islam truly has to offer.
“To volunteer for such an initiative felt very spiritual,” says Mohammad Araghi, one of the volunteers for this initiative. “We were following the Sunna of the prophet and the Quranic tradition which says “in the prophet of Allah lies the best example” and we showed this by doing what the prophet would do if he were alive today.”
Naturally, the reactions amongst the general public varied from one person to the other, but their eyes were enough to say it all. From the astonished eyes to the eyes that swelled up with emotion and high regard, the team were succeeding in adding a little something extra to people’s dull, ordinary weekends. Sister Duniya, who also participated, described that “When I was handing our roses, I had a few people give me hugs and tell me it was a beautiful idea to get people together.”
But nothing rounds the event up as perfectly as brother Mohammad’s highlight of the day. “I had the last few roses and was giving them out so we can go home, when suddenly I was approached by a group of young teenagers who enthusiastically asked to have one rose each. There were too many of them, and I felt unhappy thinking I will not have enough for all of them and I did not want to disappoint any of them. With high hopes of luck, I started distributing them one by one without knowing the exact figure, but it so happened to be that there were exactly 7 people and I had exactly 7 roses – enough for all of them. I found this coincidence very touching as I managed to put a smile on all of their young faces.”
Both the givers and the receivers of love were satisfied, and this has been, and will continue to be, an initiative that is repeated annually – during the celebration of Prophet Muhammad (saww)’s birth anniversary. This is what Islam is, as our beloved Imam Sadiq (as) says, “is religion anything but love?”
Written by Kawther Ayed Al-Zubaidy
You can see a video of the day here: https://www.ius.org.uk/media/ius-london/video/love-muhammad-roses-campaign/
