I recall that once a lecturer was speaking about the art of discussion.During the lecture,he mentioned something from the story of Yusuf – peace be upon him.When he reached the verse, “And two young men went to prison with him.One of them said, ‘I dreamed that I was pressing wine.’ The other said,‘I dreamed that I was carrying upon my head bread whereof the birds were eating.’” he stared at the audience for a while in silence, and then said,“And two young men went to prison with him… which of them entered the prison first?Yusuf,or the young men?”
Someone from the audience shouted,“Yusuf!”
Another one said,“No! The two young men!”
A third person said,“No! It was Yusuf!”
A fourth person, who thought he was clever, said, “They all entered together!”
A fifth person then spoke, which caused such clamour that the original topic was completely forgotten! It seems that the lecturer did this quite deliberately. He began staring at the faces of the audience as time passed by. He then smiled, asked them to quieten down,and said,“What was the problem if one of them entered before the other? Does this issue require all this discussion and argument?”
If we contemplate on our reality, we will find that we often become burdensome for others by interrupting them when they speak. Someone may be in the middle of relating an interesting story, only to be interrupted by another who would ruin the punch line in the story by commenting on something that does not even affect the main storyline.
Do not be burdensome on others by commenting on everything you hear. I remember once when my brother, Su’ud, was seven years old, he entered the mosque for the ‘Isha prayer. It seemed as though he was in hurry and the Imam had been slightly late for leading the prayer.
When he could bear the wait no longer,he went towards the mu’adhin, who was an old man with hearing problems, and stood behind him. He then pinched his nose to alter his voice and said, “Give the iqamah”, and ran away!
As soon as the mu’adhin heard this, he got up to say the Iqamah, but other attendees who were present stopped him and informed him of what happened. He sat down and began to look around in anger, hoping to see who the young boy was so that he could punish him.
This was a very odd incident, but this is not the reason I mentioned it. I only mentioned it because one day I was sitting in a gathering where someone mentioned this incident and said, “Su’ud was in a hurry because he wanted to go to the sea with his father...” knowing that Riyadh is in the middle of a desert and not by the sea.I began to think,shall I ruin his story by commenting,or is this piece of information not important enough to affect
the story? Should I therefore not comment and thereby avoid making an enemy? I chose this option and remained silent.
Sometimes you may comment on something without any comprehension.The person you may be criticising may have an excuse.
Ziyad is a very kind person who is always eager to advise others. One day he stopped at a traffic light and noticed the sound of Western music. He wondered where the sound was coming from. He looked around and noticed that the sound was coming from the car next to him. The person in the car had turned the volume up so much that anyone from near or far could hear the music.
Ziyad began to horn in order to attract his attention so that he could ask him to turn the volume down.But the person didn’t respond at all. Perhaps, he was so drowned in the sound that he didn’t realise what was going around him. Ziyad tried to see the face of the driver since the side of his face was covered with a headscarf. After trying hard, he finally saw it and found that he had a thick, bushy beard!
He was amazed to see a person with a beard who was listening to loud music instead of the Qur’an!
The lights turned green and the cars moved.Ziyad was eager to advise him,so he started following him.The man stopped his car outside a shop to buy something. Ziyad stopped his car behind it and looked at the man to discover that he even wore his garment above his ankles, whilst his beard filled his face.Various strange thoughts began to rush into his mind, and he thought that the man would probably emerge from the shop with a packet of cigarettes. But the man came out with an Islamic magazine in his hand.
Ziyad could bear it no longer, so he gently called to the man, “Dear brother! Excuse me!” The person did not respond or even turn around.
Ziyad raised his voice slightly and said, “Brother! Brother! Excuse me! Brother, please listen!”
The man went to his car and sat inside without turning around to Ziyad.
Ziyad furiously got out of his car,went up to the man and said, “Dear brother! May Allah guide you! Can you not hear me?”
The man looked at him with a smile and turned his car on, and as soon as he did so, the cassette player turned on playing loud music. Ziyad was livid. “Dear brother! This is Haram! You are annoying everyone!”
The man began to smile even more whilst the music was playing extremely loudly, which made Ziyad all the more angry. His face turned red and he began to shout.When the man noticed that the situation was getting worse, he began to point to his ears. He then took out a pocket notebook, the first page of which stated,“I am deaf. I am unable to hear. Please, write your message.”
A general view...
Allah has said, “Man is hasty”. Be careful not to allow your hastiness to overtake your thoughtfulness.
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