Alhamdaulillah, last wekeend I was walking aorund with Sh Faraz at the ISNA Canada Bazaar when someone approached him with a pesonal issue. I stuck around for a bit and lo behold I heard a real gem from Sh Faraz. He said, when people say things to us we should not only hear what they are saying, but more importantly, we should try to gauge what they are expressing. (we read something similar in that lovely book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus)
So the meaning behind words is not whats in the dictionary but its whats in the heart. So when a husband who promised to be home at 5 PM from work returns at 7 PM only to see his begum (wife) in fury ( with a frying pan in her hand), he should not just see the external fury his wife has, but also see why she is in fury. ( It may be because she loves him and wants him to spend more time with her and the kids).
Sometimes when we respond to words with words we lose the meaning of what we hear and what we say. How many a times we have been between two people who argue for hours only to find that they were essentially saying the same thing using different words.
The other issue is that we sometimes assume the worst when it comes to meanings behind words. If you don't know what someone means then we should ask! The lack of time ( or our perception that we dont have any) means that we like to jump to conclusions about what what the other person is really saying. Plus, perhaps, the communities around us have become so externalized that the meanings of things have lost their value. We like to be judged and like to judge, not based on what we mean but based what we do (or what we have).
May Allah help us understand those around us and help those around us understand us.
Allahuma Ameen!
1 comment:
Bhaiya... read this a few days late but there is wisdom behind it as I really needed to read this advice now.
Take care, keep smiling, and wasalaam alaykum wa rahmatullah
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