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A Lesson well Learnt
Umm Rashid
A while back, I read a newsreport about an incident in a posh mall. A girl, who was shopping in the mall, was being followed by a woman in a face veil, gloves and socks and a black abaaya. The woman called out to the girl, who stopped. Catching up with the girl, the woman reportedly complimented her on her pretty looks and enquired why she left her face uncovered, especially when she was wearing heavy make up which may be included in a woman’s zeenat [ornamentation/beauty].
After hearing the woman out, the girl apparently told the woman that she recognized her voice…and repeatedly requested her to uncover her face so that she could recall the woman’s identity. The veiled woman looked around to make sure no one was watching and uncovered her face.
Reportedly, the girl then spat in her face to show the woman what she thought of her unsolicited naseeha and walked away …leaving the bewildered woman standing there wondering what hit her.
This set me thinking, there must be at least a million ways in which the girl could have responded. What made her choose the most offensive one? What’s up with us today…what makes most of us hate naseeha –unsolicited or otherwise?
Notwithstanding the hadeeth that says ad deenu an naseeha [this religion is naseeha], people who speak their minds honestly are an endangered species. It’s not too difficult to figure out why.
The prevailing atmosphere is one of compartmentalization of faculties, of “you-do-your thing, I do-mine”. A person who wants to preserve the ties of relationships and friendships will more likely bite their tongue, than express their true feelings even with those who are closest to them.
On the other hand there is the undeniable prevalence of drop-dead advice – strong words administered in tones so severe that they have the power to sear the listener’s soul and leave them feeling that they’d be better off 6 feet under.
How to reconcile the two extremes? Not speaking out at all in the face of a blatant wrong for fear of being shot down? Or speaking up in scorching terms, all fire and brimstone, and end up alienating the other person?
Given that the injunction to enjoin good and forbid evil is mentioned in the Qur’aan almost as many times as the injunction to establish prayer and give zakaah – two important pillars of Islaam -- it is an important concern. Jaabir ibn Abdullaah, [RA] , said,
“I pledged allegiance to the Prophet [SAW] in that I would establish salaah, give zakaah, and that I would offer naseeha [sincere advice] to every Muslim.” [Saheehayn]
Imaam Zayn ad-deen ibn Rajab al Hanbali actually wrote a classic book called Al Farq baynan Naseeha wat Ta’yeer, The difference between Advising and Condemning with the express purpose of helping a person differentiate between the two.
However, we don’t need to scour scholarly tomes to learn the etiquette of giving naseeha gracefully and accepting it gratefully.
The Qur’aan says it all when it says :
the believers are ruhamaa [benevolent/clement/merciful] in their interaction with each other. Every time I see an unkind cut, I wonder, where did that mercy go?
Recently, someone sent me a series of daft definitions by e-mail, one of which defined naseeha as “does NOT mean saying something that makes another person feel terrible.” How did naseeha, which means sincere advice in Arabic become a synonym for hurtful speech?
For advice to be sincere it must have :
Ikhlaas: A person who says the basmalah before uttering a word of advice and then speaks out solely seeking the pleasure of Allaah, will in sha Allaah find the right words coming to their lips.
Ittiba’a: The Prophet [SAW] advised people with the kindest, most merciful manners and admonished others to do the same. He [SAW] said: “Kindness is not to be found in anything, but that it adds to its beauty, and it is not withdrawn from anything but it makes it defective.” [ Saheeh Muslim]
It’s ironic that we seek to emulate him [SAW] in everything, but neglect to pay attention to this.
Intention: A person who speaks with a pure intention, with a sincere desire that the truth be established will seldom use abrasive words. On the other hand if one speaks from a personal irritation/anger at another person or their actions, it is sure to trigger belligerence and will have an opposite effect to the original intention.
Regulating The Id: According to researchers in Qur’aanic sciences, there are nearly 28 verses in the Qur’aan where the word nafs is used to convey a sense of psyche or mind. According to Freudian psychology, a person’s psyche consists of the Id, Ego and Super-ego.
Id: the amoral, egocentric part of one’s psyche --which is fully developed at birth. It is ruled by the pleasure-pain principle and is considered the seat for instincts.
Ego: the part that tests reality and interacts with a person’s external and internal environment . It is considered the logical part of the psyche which influences behaviour and morality.
Super-ego: the moral monitor which is responsible , among other things for a sense of god consciousness. And normally, is considered unconscious..
Here’s the interesting part: Psychologists say that the id is born with the individual – in that everyone has inherent good and bad instincts – but, it is capable of being modified or moulded by the ego [external forces like naseeha] and the super-ego [god consciousness or taqwa].
Simply put, we can put an end to drop-dead advice and it’s almost Pavlovian shooting-down response, if we manage to regulate our minds into an accepting mode.
How?
By abiding by the etiquette of giving and receiving naseeha, following the example of the Prophet [SAW] and the early Muslims.
Private admonishing as opposed to public scolding: Hafidh Ibn Rajab wrote:
“When the salaf intended to give naseeha to someone, they admonished them privately, to the point that some of them said: The one who exhorts his brother between him and himself , then it is naseeha. The one who exhorts him in front of people, then it is merely scolding!”
Fudail Ibn Ayyadh said,
“A believer covers up and gives naseehah, whereas an evildoer exposes and humiliates.” Ibn Rajab commented on Fudail's saying, “It is naseehah if it is with a cover, while humiliating is with broadcasting.”
Seek to offer guidance, not exercise control: A person who intends to guide another, stops at offering sincere advice. It is not his right to compel, command or coerce others to follow his advice as well – that is the right of the Muslim ruler upon his subjects or a judge in his jurisdiction. Ibn Hazm writes that one should not give naseeha on the condition that it must be accepted, otherwise he will be oppressing not advising, and seeking obedience and control instead of guiding.
A proper time and place:. Strike when the iron’s hot , that is, offer naseeha when the person is in a receptive mood and in a positive frame of mind. Abdullah ibn Mas’ood [RA] said,
“Hearts (sometimes) yearn and are attentive, but (sometimes) they go through lapses and feel repulsion. So take from them when they are (in a state of) yearning and are attentive, and leave them alone when they go through lapses and are feeling repulsion.”
Humility: Offer advice with a feeling of gratitude and humility before the One who taught man what he knew not, Who gave us the Criterion of distinguishing between right and wrong.
Purify one’s heart: Rejecting and reacting angrily to naseeha is a sure sign of arrogance – one of the diseases of the heart. The Prophet [SAW] said:
“Arrogance is to reject the truth and despise the people (who say it).” A person who is constantly in a struggle to purify the heart will find it easy to accept naseeha, because he knows that a waajib (obligatory deed) is being performed, and will usually respond positively.”
Umar ibn Abdul-Aziz said: The one who gives naseeha to his brother in matters of his religion and concerns himself with mending affairs of this life; then, he has granted an excellent gift and fulfilled a wajib that was due on him..."
The analogy is worth thinking over. If we were giving someone naseeha as a gift, would we throw it in their face? Would we dump it on their doorstep with a take-it-or-leave-it? No, we’d probably take care to wrap it in the most attractive paper and hand it to them ourselves, watching their faces light up while they unwrapped the gift and said: Thank you so much…that’s just what I needed.
There was a time when naseeha was a right of brotherhood, when giving naseeha actually improved relationships between Muslims and earned the giver gratitude. But that was back then, when ikhlaas ruled hearts and the desire to earn Allaah’s pleasure reigned. To go back in time, we must travel on the radiant wings of sincerity.
In his book Al-Fawaa`id an Niyyaah wa’l Ikhlaas , Imaam ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, writes: If your soul directs you to seek sincerity, then first turn your attention towards your own selfish desires and slaughter them with the knife of renunciation. Then, turn your attention towards praise and commendation and forsake it with the asceticism of those who loved the world for the sake of the Hereafter. When your slaughtering of your desires and the renunciation of praise and commendation becomes firm, then attaining sincerity will become easy for you.
The next time we give someone a piece of our mind, we would do well to think,: how would it be if this gift is returned-to-sender, another day, in any other way?
The next time we are giving back a gift unopened, we would do well to check out its contents, and if it has something that we needed, keep it with a hearfelt "jazaakum Allaah khair for that".
Allaahummaa inni as’aluka an taj’alani minal ladheena yuhibboona li ikhwaanehim maa yuhibboona li anfusehim.
[O Allaah! I ask you to make me of those who love for their brothers what they love for themselves]
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