Do Not Despise The Sinners- Mufti Muhammad Taqi 'Uthmani

I first read this on MujahideenRyder's blog. I found it to be extremely beneficial, as it presented a way of looking at other people in a completely different way than I had ever thought about it before. InshaAllah it can be a benefit to all of us.

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “That person who taunts and ridicules his Muslim brother over a sin from which he has repented, will not die until he himself commits that same sin.” For example, you come to know that a certain person committed or was involved in a particular sin and you also know that this person has repented from it. To think low of him or to taunt or ridicule him because of that sin, by saying something like: “You are the one who was involved in certain evil actions”, is in itself a sin.

Through repentance a person has corrected his relationship with Allah Most High. Through repentance not only has the sin been forgiven, it has also been erased from his book of deeds! Allah Most High has erased it from his book of deeds but you, because of that sin, are thinking low of him and treating him with contempt. You are taunting and ridiculing him. This action is extremely despised by Allah Most High.

This is regarding a person whom you know has repented. If you don’t know whether he has repented or not, then there is always this possibility that he, being a mu’min (believer), has repented or will repent in the future. Therefore, if someone has committed a sin and you do not know whether he has repented or not, you still do not have the right to hold him in contempt. It is possible that he has repented. Remember! Abhorrence should be for the sin and not the sinner! Hatred should be for sins. Allah’s Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not teach us to despise those who sin.

On the other hand, the sinner is worthy of pity and compassion, for this distressed person has been overtaken by a sickness. If a person is overtaken by a physical sickness, do you abhor his sickness or the person who is sick? Does the sick person become the target of your hatred? Obviously, the sick person is not deserving of your hatred. Yes, despise his sickness. Concern yourself with removing his sickness, so make du’a. The sick person should not be the target of hatred. He should be pitied for the reason that this poor person is caught up in a difficulty.

If someone is a kafir (disbeliever) then despise his kufr (disbelief), do not despise him. Make du’a for him that Allah Most High grants him guidance. Amin. How much did the kuffar (disbelievers) not persecute the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace)? They shot at him with arrows, they pelted stones at him, and his body bled from various places, but the words that flowed from his mouth were the following: “O Allah! Grant my people guidance, for they do not know the reality” (of this din).

Take note that that he did not despise them because of their kufr, shirk(associating partners with Allah), oppression and transgressions. Rather, while expressing pity and affection, he made du’a for them that ‘O Allah! These people are ignorant. They are unaware of the reality; therefore they are treating me in this manner. O Allah! Grant them guidance’.

So when seeing someone involved in sin, have pity on him and make du’a for him and try to steer him away from sin. Advise and counsel him but do not think low of him. Perhaps Allah accepts his repentance and he surpasses you in the sight of Allah.

I have heard the following words of advice of Hakim al-Ummah Mawlana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi from my respected father, Mufti Muhammad Shafi’ and ‘Arif Billah Dr. Abdul Hayy ‘Arifi (may Allah have mercy on them): “I consider every current Muslim and every non Muslim, as far as the future is concerned to be superior to me.” “As far as the future is concerned” means that although the person is presently in the condition of kufr, maybe Allah Most High grants him the tawfiq(guidance) of repenting and he is freed from the burden of kufr. Thereafter, Allah Most High raises his status so high that he surpasses me!

“Every current Muslim” means that a person who is a Muslim, a person of iman(true faith), one whom Allah Most High has granted the wealth of iman. What do I know regarding his connection and status with Allah Most High? Every person’s relationship with Allah Most High is unique. How can we judge anyone? Therefore, I consider every Muslim to be superior to me.

In this statement of Hakim al-Ummah, “I consider every Muslim to be superior to me”, there is obviously no possibility of lies and deception, or that he just said it out of moral courtesy. He said it because he firmly believed it. Anyway, to think low of someone, even though it is due to his committing of sin, is not permissible.

This malady of regarding others with contempt is found mostly in people who have reformed and turned towards din (Islam). They were not concerned with dinpreviously but now have changed and became steadfast on salah and fasting. They have made their dressing and appearance in conformity with the Shari’ah. They have started frequenting the masjid. They have become regular in performingsalah with congregation.¹ Satan induces such a person with this thought that you are now on the straight path. These people who are involved in sin are ruined. The result of this thought is that he starts thinking low of them and treats them with contempt. He now starts criticizing them in a hurtful manner. This results in Satan involving such people in vanity, self-regard and pride. When a person suffers from self-regard and pride, all his good actions are destroyed.

When a person’s gaze falls on himself that he is pious and others are bad then he is caught up in vanity. Vanity causes all good actions to become worthless. Only that action is acceptable which is done with sincerity for Allah Most High alone. After performing the action the person makes shukr (gives thanks) unto Allah Most High that He granted me the tawfiq to perform this action (if He did not grant me the tawfiq, I would never have been able to carry out this action).

Therefore, do not treat anyone with contempt. Do not think low of any non-Muslim or any sinner.

It is mentioned in a hadith that when seeing a person afflicted with any sickness, recite the following du’a:

اَلْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِىْ عَافَانِىْ مِمَّا ابْتَلاَكَ بِه وَ فَضَّلَنِىْ عَلَى كَثِيْرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقَ تِفْضِيْلاً

All praises are due unto Allah, who has granted me safety from that which he has afflicted you with, and granted me well-being over many of the creation. (Al-Hisn al-Hasin, p.349)

It is sunnah to recite this du’a when seeing an afflicted person. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) taught us this (Note: it should be recited softly lest the afflicted person is offended).

Shaykh Dr. Abdul Hayy ‘Arifi (may Allah have mercy on him) used to say: “Whenever I pass by a hospital, then, praises be to Allah, I always recite thisdu’a.” He would also make du’a that Allah grants the sick good health.

One of my teachers used to say that Allah’s Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) taught us to recite this du’a when seeing a sick person, but I also recite it when seeing someone involved in sin. Sometimes when walking on the road I see people lined up at the cinema houses purchasing tickets. I recite thisdu’a on seeing them. Then I make shukr unto Allah Most High that He has saved me from this sin.

The reason for reciting this du’a when seeing a person involved in sin is that just as a physically sick person is worthy of pity, so is the sinner worthy of pity and sympathy, for he is also caught up in a predicament. Also, make du’a for him that: “O Allah! Remove this difficulty from him.”

It should be known that those who are presently involved in sin and you consider them low and worthy of contempt may later on receive the tawfiq of repentance and surpass you! So for what reason are you boasting? If you have been granted the tawfiq of abstaining from sin then make shukr unto Allah Most High. If they haven’t as yet received the tawfiq, then make du’a for them that Allah Most High grants them guidance and grants them relief from their afflictions. Amin.

Anyway, despise kufr, despise sin and transgression, but do not despise the person. In fact, you should treat him with love and kindness. When you speak to him, speak with softness and affection. Speak with feeling and love so that it may have a good effect on him. This was always the method of all our pious elders.

I heard this story of Hadrat Junayd al-Baghdadi (may Allah have mercy on him) from my respected father Mufti Muhammad Shafi’ (may Allah have mercy on him). While passing a certain place, Hadrat Junayd saw a person hanging from the gallows, whose hands and one leg was amputated. He inquired from the people regarding this person. The people informed him that this person was a habitual thief. His hand was cut when he was caught the first time. His leg was cut when caught the second time. Now on the third occasion he has been hanged. Hadrat Junayd went forward and kissed the dead man’s foot. People said to him: “This man was such a big and habitual thief, and you kissed his feet?” He replied: “Although he had committed such a big crime and sin for which he has been punished, but he had a wonderful quality in him, and that is steadfastness (istiqamah). Although he used this quality in a wrong way, however, he remained steadfast on the manner of his chosen occupation. His hand was amputated but he never left his choice. His leg was amputated yet he remained steadfast on theft. His other hand was amputated and still he did not give up his occupation. He remained steadfast on theft until finally his life has been taken. It is now apparent that he had the quality of steadfastness in him and I kissed his foot because of this quality.” May Allah Most High grant us this quality in our worship and obedience unto Him. Amin.

Anyway, the pious servants of Allah do not despise people but despise the evils perpetrated by them. They (the pious) go to the extent of saying that if an evil person has any good qualities in him then those good qualities should be striven for! Concern yourself with trying to remove the bad qualities in a person by speaking to him with love and affection. Speak only to him and do not speak to others about him.

It is mentioned in a hadith: “A believer (mu’min) is a mirror to another believer” (Abu Dawud). If a person has a spot on his face and stands in front of a mirror, the mirror will reflect that spot on his face. The mirror is showing him his defects. In the same way, a believer is also a mirror to another believer. When a believer sees another with a defect, he should inform him with love and affection that you have this certain weakness in you, remove it.

It is just like when a person has a worm or any insect crawling on him, then out of concern you inform him that there is an insect crawling on him, so remove it. Similarly, if a Muslim brother has a dini defect in him, then with love and affection, inform him that he has this defect in him, because a believer is a mirror to another believer.

Mawlana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi says that this hadith teaches us that when you see a fault in another person, then inform only that person of this fault, do not tell it to others. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) compared a believer to a mirror. The mirror only exposes the spot on the face to the person standing in front of it and not to others. Thus, the duty of a believer is to inform the person involved that he has a certain weakness in him and not to inform others of his weakness. If a person also tells others then it implies that he has acted upon his own evil desires and this will not be an act of din anymore. If he only informs and advises the afflicted person with love and concern, then this is what iman(true faith) and brotherhood demands. But to despise or think low of him is not permissible under any circumstance.

May Allah Most High grant us the understanding and the guidance to practice on this. Amin.

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1. Obviously this is not always the case. There are those among the reformed who are not like this. Also, there are those who have always been regular on their din but suffer from this malady. The respected author is saying that this malady is mostly found in such people, but not always. (Translator) ↩

Source: http://deoband.org/2009/10/general/guidance/do-not-despise-the-sinners/

Tips On Memorising Qur'an

As promised, here's a post dedicated to tips on memorising Qur'an. It is by far an a comprehensive list. In fact, this list has little worth seeing as I'm only gonna be listing things that help me when I try and memorise. But nonetheless, maybe someone else will be able to benefit from it.. (and I'll get some of the reward... x70 because it's Ramadan :) - LOL just kidding).

• Pick a specific time every day to just sit down with the Qur'an and try to memorise. For a fixed time as well (I'd say ideally an hour, but you might be able to do more or less). Recently, when I went to India, I found that the first night I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I woke up at Fajr, and then just stayed up. So I went and picked up the Qur'an from the shelf, and sat at my musallah (I think I sat for more than an hour the first day, I was feeling quite eager :)). I did this for about 3 days, and managed to memorise Surah al-Qiyamah (I'd already memorised some ayaat before I had got there). For some, that may seem like a long time, but for me it was a pretty big achievement. I found that in each hour, I managed to commit to memory around 7 verses. Alhamdulillah, I found memorising that way to be extremely beneficial, it's unfortunate that I never kept it up after that. If you do stay up after Fajr to memorise, why not just stay seated on your musallah until the time for Salatul-Duha? That was my intention in India, but I didn't know the correct time or fiqh of praying it (I had, and still have, never prayed it before - in my defence, I had no access to any books or the Internet to figure it out, although I'm sure I still could have made more of an effort to have prayed it...).
• Load your iPod (or whatever MP3 device you inevitably have :)) with what you're trying to memorise. Personally, I like editing that specific track on my laptop before, so I can just get it to repeat a few verses at a time, and then when I've learnt it, I'll make it repeat over the next few verses (it's easy to do on iTunes, right-click, Get Info..., Options, Start/Stop Time - it's a bid fiddly).
• Listen to several qurraa'. Be it on YouTube or on your iPod again. I always find that that particularly helps with pronunciation, and it's nice to hear different styles at once - it helps you to develop your own style.
• When you've commited a portion to memory, recite it in your salah. This is a good way to make sure you don't forget anything. When I'm trying to memorise something, I'm constantly reciting it to myself throughout the day. And I mean constaaaantlyyyyy. The wajib length of recitation of a surah after al-Faatiha in salaah is the equivalent of 3 short verses (hence the allowance for reciting ayat al-Kursi, which is longer than, for example, surah al-Kawthar, which is only 3 verses long).
• Even after you've committed some ayaat to memory and moved on, make sure to refer back to what you've learnt every now and then. It's really easy to miss out some of the finer details, like holding down that shadda, stopping at that hamza, elongating that mudda, etc.
• Finally, make du'a to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to aide you. I must admit that this isn't something I remember to do all the time, but as the hadith goes, "prayer is the weapon of the believer", and how can we expect to be able to memorise the book of Allah wa ta'ala without requesting His help. This is definitely something I need to remember and do more often also.

A lot of these pointers I got myself from this article: http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/27/13-steps-to-memorize-the-quran-by-yasir-qadhi/. There are a few extras there which will undoubtedly be helpful, so I highly recommend checking out that link, even before reading this post (hmm, maybe I should have put it at the beginning... well, I'm too lazy to cut and paste so it can just stay where it is).

There are a few websites I sometimes use also when trying to memorise Qur'an. The websites can all be found on my Islamic Link page, but here they are anyway:

• www.quranbrowser.org
• www.searchtruth.com
• www.mounthira.com
• www.tanzil.info

Like I said before, this is by far a comprehensive list. Who am I to give pointers, I'm too ashamed to say how little of the Qur'an I know by memory. Nonetheless, maybe something I've written will be of benefit for you, and that in turn will also be of benefit to me. InshaAllah.

Ramadan Goals

I don't know how many people already do this (you might do it without the formality of sitting yourself down and thinking about it), but I think it would be a good idea to set some goals for this holy month. Attainable and realistic goals, but goals that will still push us a little... and that we'll try to surpass. These goals could be a number of things, such as:

• re-memorising some surahs (the real plural is suwar, as I learnt from Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Philips, so I'll use that from now on) that you may have forgotten.
• learning a certain number of shorter suwar if you dont't already know a lot (the number you pick totally depends on the amount of free time you have, but be a little ambitious).
• if you already know quite a few of the shorter suwar, try memorising the entire juz' 'amma.
• learn some longer suwar, or segments, who's rewards have been specifically mentioned in the ahadith of our Rasool sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, such as the first 5 and last 3 verses of Surah Baqarah (there are numerous ahadith discussing the virtues of various ayaat of this surah) , the first 10 verses of Surah Kahf (protection from ad-Dajjal), Surah Ya-Seen (a surah to recite when somebody is near to death), Surah ar-Rahman (has got to be the most YouTube'd surah), Surah Mulk (which will intercede for one on Yawm al-Qiyamah if they have memorised it), and so many others.
• waking up to stand and pray tahajjud as much as one can.
• praying Salatul-Tasbih as much as one can (inshaAllah I'll try to write a post about the method and benefits of Salatul-Tasbih).
• learning a new (prophetic) du'a a day.
• praying all of your sunnah and nafl salaah.
• increasing other superogatory salaah, eg. praying 2 rak'ah when entering the masjid (Tahhiyatul-Masjid), or praying 2 rak'ah after making wudu (Tahhiyatul-Wudu).
• trying to stay in a constant state of wudu, (even going to sleep with wudu).

These goals don't have to be limited to 'ibadah (although this is where most of our focus should be). We can seek the pleasure of Allah 'azza wa jal in so many other ways, from helping our mothers prepare suhoor and iftaar (this one's for girls AND boys :)), to just simply practing a bit of sabr in this month of jihad when the people around us run short on theirs. Even just keeping the TV off would be beneficial, think of the blessed minutes that we would be able to reclaim and spend in worship, rather than sitting glued to a (religiously questionable) box (inshaAllah one day maybe I'll write a long-winded post about how I feel about TV). This list is by far exhaustive, but I just wanted to throw a few ideas out there. I know some of the ones I wrote are a bit ambitious, and I know that I won't be able to do most of them, but I just thought of a list that would be suitable for people of different capabilities.

The goals I have made for myself are to complete memorising Surah ar-Rahman (I'm about 30ish ayaat through), and inshaAllah I want to try and memorise Surah Mulk also. That second one I think is a bit ambitious, but inshAllah if I make the effort Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala will make it easy for me, as He will for all of us if we make the effort. There is a hadith qudsi (the words of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but unlike the Qur'an in that they are expressed in the words of our Rasool sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam rather than being the direct words of Allah 'azza wa jal) where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us "Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you." SubhanAllah. Knowing this, any goal would seem a lot easier. InshaAllah I intend to write a post in the coming days with some tips that have personally made it easier for me to memorise Qur'an. InshaAllah, it'll be beneficial for you as well.

As a last point, I just wanted to include a hadith on the performance of Tahhiyatul-Wudu. It is recorded in Bukhari and Muslim that Sayyiduna Abu Hurairah radiAllahu ta'ala 'anhu related that the Messenger of Allah sall-Allahu 'alayhi was-sallam said to Sayyiduna Bilal ibn Rabaah al-Habashi, "Tell me from which of your acts you are most hopeful (the act with which you hope to receive the most reward from Allah 'azza wa jal) since your acceptance of Islam, because I heard the sounds of the steps of your shoes in front of me in paradise." Sayyiduna Bilal radiAllah ta'ala 'anhu replied, "I do not consider any act more hopeful than whenever I make wudu at any time of day or night, I offer salah for as long as was destined for me to offer." SubhanAllah, the wording of course is not an exact translation, but nonetheless I hope I was able to somewhat convey the beauty of the hadith.