Musleh Khan is a Canadian Saudi born imam affiliated with the Islamic Institute of Toronto (IIT) who serves also as a chaplain for the Toronto Police.
He served as an instructor in AlKauthar Institute in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
On his Facebook page Musleh Khan states he’s committed to spreading a message of wisdom and understanding through Quranic analysis which empowers Muslims to integrate within the broader community.”
Here are excerpts from Musleh Khan‘s lecture delivered in 2014 during the Islamic Awareness Week at the University of Saskatchewan organized by the Muslim Students Association (MSA):
My purpose here for you is to really take you through a journey. Basically, it’s a journey through an individual that is very dear to us.
A person that we love. A person, if he was to walk through that door this very moment, we would go and surround him. And if we could, we would pick up his shoes and carry it for him.
And we would try to replicate everything that he does. So if he sits down, no one, we would never sit down unless we see him do it.
And if he stands up then we would stand up as well. We would follow and mimic his every move. And so I want to take you through the journey of what it’s like to be in the house of this great man, whom we love the prophet Mohammad peace be upon him…
Eventually later on in his life when this wife [Khadija] she passes away, and [Mohammad] gets married again.
He [Mohammad] marries a woman by the name of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. Aisha was much younger woman [Note: according to Musleh Khan Aisha was a 9-year-old at that time].
So there’s a lot of interesting things about her that we learned and we we really get from his whole life story with this one particular wife.
Aisha, she was young [9-year-old girl]. So she didn’t really understand what marriage, what it took for a woman to be in a marriage. She didn’t really understand the maturity or the responsibility of being in a marriage.
So why is that important? Because what this should indicate that one party, so in this case it’s the husband [Mohammad]. The husband got to be somebody that’s very tolerant and he’s got to have wisdom. He’s got to have wisdom and how to speak to a person like this [9-year-old wife]. How to build a relationship with an individual like this[9-year-old wife].
So nobody had better wisdom in being a husband than the Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him.
So imagine now he has this wife [Aisha]. She’s young [married to Mohammad when she was 9 years old].
So one day. He’s riding a horse, and she’s riding a horse, and they’re beside each other, and he is, all of his followers his companions are all ahead of him. So he says to the companions: go ahead, move forward and go ahead. So they do. They go ahead and they leave the Prophet and his wife by themselves. So he tells his wife get off the animal, get off the horse. So she gets off the horse and he gets off the horse too. And he says to her: stand beside me. So when he stands beside her, he says to her: OK, ready, set go. And he starts to race her. Imagine, this is the Prophet of Allah and he’s going to race with his wife. So they’re racing and his wife beats him. She wins the race. So when eventually the prophet stops he is like OK no problem. Let’s get back on the horse and let’s continue.
A few months go by, they’re on the same journey, they’re in the desert and he’s on a horse, she’s on a horse, the companions are there. So the prophet says to the companions: go ahead and leave me and my wife alone. So they do that, and he tells the wife: OK let’s get down again. So they get off the horse a second time. So he looks at his wife and he says: on your marks, get set, go. This time the prophet wins this race.
What happened to his wife is that eventually as the months went by she started to gain some weight, she got a bit slower and she became older and so on. So the prophet tells her: this time I won and you lose.
So basically he wanted to sort of make it even. What’s the wisdom behind a narration like this? Why do we even read something like this when we study him as a prophet. The important wisdom that we get behind narrations like this is to show that this man [Mohammad] had a very playful and humorous side to his personality. That is absolutely crucial and essential for anybody to be a good spouse especially for the husband…
So brothers and sisters and my guests here today, the Prophet, peace be upon him, was not only an example for all of us, but I hope and I pray that all of you sitting here today could see that he [Mohammad] was also an example for all of you.
We love this person [Mohammad]. We love everything about him. We love the way that he was described and how he even smelled. He had, some of the companions describe that the odours that would come from the Prophet peace be upon him were sweeter than the sweetest musk that you could ever find on the face of the earth. His sweat was used as perfume. We believe that these are part of some of the miracles that the Creator gave him, certain attributes about him that separated him from everyone else.
We love this person [Mohammad] and everything about his character and his emotion, his patience… This is why we love the Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him… this great man was that walked the face of this earth…
For my non Muslims friends, thank you for being here this evening, and thank you for not turning on the T.V. to find out who we are, and thank you for not going on an internet website or opening a newspaper, or a magazine to see who the Muslims are.
Thank you for being here amongst Muslims. Thank you for being here amongst women who are proud to wear their scarves, and thank you for being amongst the brothers and sisters who are proud to say that I believe that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah and that the Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him is his servant and final messenger.