It is the earnest desire of every human to have perfect things; perfect life, perfect job, perfect spouse, perfect children but have we ever tried to make our religion perfect? The following hadith from Imam-Al-Nawawi’s collection, Al Arbaeen Al Nawawi, states that on the authority of Abu Hurairah (RA) who said: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “Part of the perfection of one’s Islam is his leaving that which does not concern him.” [Tirmidhi]
Prophet (PBUH) tells us the easiest way to perfect our Islam is to stay away from unconcerned matters. Unconcerned matters, what does that mean? It applies to all matters that would neither benefit us in this world nor the Hereafter.
Matters of oneself are mostly of one’s concern but matters of other fellow being, are they really of our concern? Do they bother us to the extent that we spend most of our day either thinking or discussing or in fact, gossiping about them?
A Hadith which is narrated by Imam Bukhari R.A. and Imam Muslim R.A. that states “A true Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand other Muslims stay safe.” Our Prophet (PBUH) mentioned the tongue first, most importantly because a person finds it difficult to forgive someone who’s hurt their feelings more than someone who’s actually hurt them physically.
In another Hadith, Prophet (PBUH) stated, “If a man can give me guarantee of the things placed between his two cheeks (tongue) and his two thighs (private parts), I can give him guarantee of paradise.” SUBHANALLAH! Guarantee of Paradise, the dream of every Muslim!
Now for an instance if I tell you that in order to reach a specific destination there are five routes, four of them, very busy jam packed with traffic always but the fifth one, a very long route with no traffic at all, which one would you choose? Most of us will choose one of the four roads and seldom will someone choose the fifth route. We are ready to face traffic on small routes rather than patiently and smoothly cross the long route. Same applies in our daily lives, the four busy routes are the routes of our religious obligations like salah, fasting that most of us ALHAMDULILLAH fulfill but the fifth long route of good manners is mostly deserted.
Wait a minute, how many of us want to be treated nicely? Definitely, all of us! This takes us to our next hadith from the Imam-Al-Nawawi’s collection, Al Arbaeen Al Nawawi, on the authority of Abu Hamzah Anas bin Malik (RA), the servant of Prophet (PBUH), that the Prophet (PBUH) said : “None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself.” [Bukhari & Muslim]
All of us expect others to behave properly both in our presence and absence but what do we do? Do we keep up to their expectations? Can we be called “true believers” or more specifically even “believers”?
Imam Ghazali lists the type of sins uttered by the tongue namely lying, breaking of promise, backbiting, arguing, boasting, cursing others, wishing ill for others and making fun of others. He further adds that writings are also considered speech. One should be extremely careful and avoid the above mentioned sins while writing emails, messaging, updating statuses and commenting on social media, etc.
Moreover, Abu Hurairah (RA) reported that the Prophet said, “Three are the signs of a hypocrite: When he speaks, he lies; when he makes a promise, he breaks it; and when he is trusted, he betrays his trust.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Therefore, the beauty of Islam is to mind our own business. To be a strict judge to ourselves and a loyal lawyer to others. To use our tongue in the correct manner as to make others feel good, encourage them, give them good advice but best of all is to keep quiet as much as possible as it comes in a hadith that the one who is silent is safe.
All the above adds up to the fact that that in order to perfect our Islam, we should start off by loving for others what we love for ourselves and finally detach ourselves from unconcerned matters. MAY ALLAH GUIDE US ALL! AMEEN!
By Farhat Aziz
Student, 1st Year, Essentials Program