[AmroodWaala]

A sickness of some Muslims today is that they've gotten into the whole age issue. Much like racism and sexism, it's identifying people with quantitative measurements. We don't know how old many of the sahabi were. It wasn't an obsession. In fact, the Prophet (pbuh) tried to break the jahali concept by putting Osama ibn Zaid as the head of an army when he was only 17. Age in Islam is about having gray hair and not having gray hair.

If you don't have gray hair you're called a "shabaab" and you're supposed to respect people with gray hair. If you have gray hair you're called "sheikh" and you're supposed to have mercy and compassion on those who don't have gray hairs. That is a much healthier way of looking at it. In Islamic knowledge, we knew Ibn Malik was considered a sheikh which literally means "old man" when he was 17 years old. Islam doesn't box you into a category. Age is about where you are spiritually, not where you are numerically.

I think that 40 year olds should sit with 18 year olds, and in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood, learn from each other. The sahabi had 15 year olds in their Prophet's majlis with 60 year olds. Muslim schools were never segregated by age. "Allah created everything and He guided it in its own specific way and manner."

We are an Ummah of labeling and labels are from Western society. In labels, everything has a name and nothing has a meaning

-- Hamza Yusuf

..........