Friday Nasiha

Living The Quran

Mutual Benefit
Al-Qalam (The Pen) Sura 68: Verse 24

So they departed, whispering to one another: "Let not a single needy person break in upon you into the garden this day."

The principle of "giving" or "spending on the needy" or "sharing" has been emphasized in the successive messages of God since early times. God calls on the human beings to worship Him only, and His messages, if truly understood, may take them away from their egotism and greed, and direct them towards sensitivity towards others and human togetherness. In the above verse, the owners of a garden combined their lack of God-consciousness with their refrainment from helping the needy. As their greed tempted them to forget God and to refrain from giving and sharing with the needy, they were reminded that God's will and might are above their planning. It was not only the poor and needy who could not receive their share of what God entrusted the garden's owner with, but the owners themselves were deprived of any fruits from the garden. The message is clear: the haves should give. It is a test for the rich and the poor, and God's guidance secures justice for all.

Everyone has to work hard to earn his/her own living, and those who may be deprived of any chance to secure their needs temporarily or permanently have to be supported by those who are prospering. The whole society contributes to the individual's wealth, and giving to the needy would add to the purchasing power and economic development. It is a circle of mutual benefit that is achieved by human co-operation and solidarity, whereas selfishness and greed lead to a deterioration of faith and morality as well as a decline and conflict in the society, and they result in human suffering in this life and the life to come. However, self-correction is always possible as long as one is alive.

Compiled From:
"Concepts of the Quran" - Fathi Osman, pp. 782, 783

From Issue: 1050 [Read original issue]

Understanding The Prophet's Life

Prophet's Abstinence

We receive Islamic legal rulings from the Prophet (peace be upon him) in three ways: his words, his deeds, and his tacit approvals. Ibn Rushd asserts in Bidâyah al-Mujtahid that this is one of the undisputed principles of Islamic jurisprudence. As for the Prophet abstaining from something - that is not one of the three ways. 

So what are the legal implications of the Prophet (peace be upon him) not performing an act? 

A faulty assumption some people have is that if the Prophet did not do something, then it should not be done by his followers. This can create great hardships for people in their practice of Islam. For one thing, such people reject the approach of making concessions for the purpose of facilitation. They argue that if the Prophet did not apply a certain concession in a certain way, though the need for doing so would have been present, this is proof it is unlawful to do so. However, this is contradicted by a considerable body of evidence. 

1. The unlawfulness of something must be established by a specific prohibition or by what encompasses evidence of a prohibition in its general import. The Prophet said: “Whatever I prohibit you, you must avoid it.” [Bukhari, Muslim] 

The Prophet’s abstaining from something is not a prohibition nor is it something that encompasses evidence of a prohibition in its general import. Quite the contrary, the general evidence in Islamic Law indicates that hardships are to be avoided. 

2. There are many authentic hadith that show the Companions initiating actions and saying things that the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not himself do or say. They were never criticized for this. The talbiyah is a case in point. The people followed the Companions in the wording of the talbiyah, as indicated by the hadith of Jabir, and no one objected to their doing so. [Ahmad, Abu Dawud] 

Their wording of the talbiyah was different than the Prophet’s wording, which shows that the Prophet’s abstaining from something does not prevent anyone else from doing so. Indeed, the Prophet at times praised the Companions for their actions and at times remained silent without criticizing them. This shows there is flexibility in such things. 

3. There is no implication that what took place at the Prophet’s time indicates abandoning everything else and that nothing is open to increase or decrease. Such a notion is very imprecise and suspect. Its logic is faulty. The circumstances at the Prophet’s time called for certain things, but circumstances differ at other times, sometimes becoming more intense, which requires Muslim jurists to exercise juristic reasoning (ijtihad) in accordance with the general precepts of Islamic Law. 

A good example of this is the compilation of the Quran into a single volume. The Prophet (peace be upon him) never commanded his followers to do so. There was no need to do so during his lifetime. However circumstances changed after his time when many of the people who had committed the Quran to memory began to die off. This is why Abu Bakr ordered that the Quran be compiled in one volume. The Companions unanimously agreed to it. The same can be said for their congregating for tarawih prayer and increasing the number of prayer units they offered which took place during Umar’s reign. Likewise, Uthman added an additional early call for the Jumuah prayer when the city’s population increased. He also standardized the Quran which was compiled during his predecessor’s time and abandoned the practice of shortening his prayers during the Hajj. 

Those who have insight into Islamic Law make a distinction between the Prophet’s tacit approval of someone else’s action, which can be used to deduce a ruling that must be upheld, and the Prophet abstaining from an action, which only indicates that there is no objection to someone abstaining from it. There can be no further binding ruling, since circumstances govern such matters.

Compiled From:
"When the Prophet Did Not Do Something" - Abdullah bin Bayyah

From Issue: 803 [Read original issue]

Cool Tips!

Remedy for Sadness

Sadness is of two distinct types. The first type is the one that has a clearly identifiable cause such as the death of a beloved relative or the loss of wealth or something that the person greatly values. The second type has no obvious cause. It is a sudden distress and gloom that descends over the affected person preventing him, most of the time, from the exuberance of activity and the enjoyment of the usual pleasures of this world. The person afflicted is generally unaware of any clear reason for his dejection.

The causes behind the latter type of sadness or depression for which there is no known reason are related to bodily symptoms such as the impurity of the blood, its coolness and the changes in its contents. The treatment for this symptom is physical and psychological. As for the physical, it concentrates on purifying the blood, increasing its temperature and making it lighter. The psychological is limited to gentle encouraging talk that brings back some happiness as well as listening to music and songs and similar activities that emotionally give warmth to the gloomy.

One of the thought mechanisms to treat the sadness or depression that has a known reason i.e. loss of a loved relative or inability to obtain something one desperately wants is to weigh up the excessive bodily harm that continued sadness and depression can cause to one's body with the urge to mourn over his loss. Logical thinking would convince the person in question that his bodily health should be the most beloved thing to him. He should not accept to trade it in for any sum of money or relatives. The fact that a person feels sad and depressed for presumed loss is actually because he loves his body and soul and wants to please himself with what he failed to obtain or to stop the loss from happening. Destroying his health in agony over what has been lost, would be akin to someone selling out his capital to gain some little profit.

Another maneuver is for one to understand and realize that life in this world, by its very nature, is not the abode of perpetual joy and happiness, nor the abode of avoiding any loss of loved ones or sought after desires. One should look around to see if anyone has been spared such losses and bereavements. None will be found. If this is the way of things then one should deeply convince oneself that all the pleasures one obtains in life are but an additional gift that should be enjoyed with delight and that the losses one suffers and (those things) which one is unable to attain should not cause one much sorrow and bereavement.

A further mental approach is to realize that any hardship or damaging loss that besets one is similar or even less severe than the predicaments other people have suffered or are now suffering from. It is one of the characteristics of human nature to find solace in one's hardship when one discovers that it is shared by many other people. Furthermore, one should always remember that incidents that cause people to feel sad or to grieve are part of the engraved nature of this life.

Finally, by surveying one's own as well as other's experiences, one will come to the realization that all incidents of sorrow and grief are destined to be forgotten and that with the passing of days the agony would certainly diminish. One must take cognizance of the fact that the most saddening moment of an incident is its inception and that the days that come after will certainly reduce its painful effects until it is gradually pushed into forgetfulness. This kind of mental maneuver is bound to bring about a quick feeling of comfort or even happiness and pleasure.

Compiled From:
"Abu Zayd al-Balkhi's Sustenance of the Soul: the Cognitive Behavior Therapy of a Ninth Century Physician" - Malik Badri, pp. 48-52

From Issue: 977 [Read original issue]