To my Muslim brothers and sisters. Please hear me speaking to you from my heart.
Both Judaism and Islam teach us of the potential destructive power of speech and our responsibility to use it properly and in the pursuit of good.
Who is the man
Who desires life
Who loves all his days
To see good
Guard your tongue from evil
And your lips from speaking deceit
Turn away from bad
And do good
Seek peace
And pursue it
-Psalm 34
“It is better for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace than to embarrass a fellow human being in public.” (Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 67b).
“Not a word is said except that there is a watcher by him ready to record it.” - Surah Qaf (50):18]
“Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should speak good or keep silent.”
-Hadith [Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim]
When you call a Jew a “Nazi” you are committing an unspeakable act of cruelty.
You need to never never do it. You need to never allow your leaders to do it. No matter how you much you disagree with Zionism, how angry you might be at Israel or its supporters, no matter what you need to say, to compare a Jew to the brutal killers who enslaved, tortured and murdered our grandparents, our family, our rabbis and humble scholars is out of bounds. We Jews live with a consciousness and awareness of those events which you may not understand. But please do understand, that comparing Jews to Nazis is not just “fighting words” or a rhetorical flourish, it is causing needless pain to another human being. There is no good in causing that kind of pain to another person with your words. To do so is haram.
The Quran teaches,
"Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction and argue with them in a way that is best! "
- Surah An-Nahl 16/125.
It seems to me that if “argue with what is best” applies to what you believe is the most important truth that a human being can know, for sure the same applies to whatever else of importance you need to communicate. Save your own souls and find other ways to say what you need to say.
I encourage you to spend a few moments contemplating the following thoughts presented by Sheikh Mokhtar Maghraoui.
The teaching concludes with the words
‘Gentleness beautifies everything; cruelty disfigures’
The world was created to express the beauty of its Creator. It is our job to further that expression through our thoughts, through our speech and through our actions.
I was just thinking of something close to that today. I was listening to lectures about the biography of Salahuddin and I heard about that a lot. We shouldn't respond to someone in their own way. We should respond in a way dictated to us by our own religion. For example, it was mentioned that nowadays, Israeli Military kill innocent Palestinians with bombs, rockets, ... etc. From a Muslim perspective, the solution is not to kill Israeli innocents with bombs and rockets. This was not the right way to respond.
ReplyDeleteI may have gone off topic but your article invoked me to think of it this way, not just in words but also in actions.
Thanks for the article, amazing masha'Allah. Can't wait for your next one insha'Allah.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely on topic. If we choose to act as we are supposed to it will change ourselves and it will change others. The next time someone comes at you with anger for any reason, try a wall of gentleness (rifk) and see what happens.