Guiding with Insight

Of course, we live in a time where everybody has a voice and they can project that voice by way of comments or posting a video, or making themselves heard on any platform, any number of platforms. So now I have an ability to talk to the entire world. And so do you. And anybody who says or does anything, there's you know, there's there's there's every liquidity column Java, every every speech has some commentary, right? So now we have an ability to record our commentaries or mockery or disagreement or ridicule, or rage, or agreement or appreciation, all of it permanently on these records that are under every YouTube video or under every post or anything else. Right. So this is

and sometimes people do this in the name of I'm enjoying the good and forbidding the evil, by you know, calling they the listen to something or someone and they say, well, this person is a disbeliever, or this person is completely off of out of the fold of Islam where this person is calling to the wave shaper and etc, etc. Because we have to enjoin the good or forbid the evil, or they'll exhort each other, hey, why don't you speak against this? Or why don't you speak about that, because I want you to call this one out, or that one out. And all of this is done in the spirit of something we think we understand, for the most part, which is enjoying the good and forbidding the

evil. So let's take these words apart a little bit, and break them up one at a time. Let's start first with the word Amana that maroon which, in English translation I don't, I don't personally like the translation in joining because you don't normally use it, you don't use the word enjoying. In your typical speech, the entire purpose of translation is to use language that's closer to your experience. And that's not something you typically use. You don't enjoy your children to do the homework. You don't your boss isn't enjoying you to show up tomorrow on time, etc. Right? So this is an alien word already for most of us. So let's use language that's more familiar. I'm going to can

possibly be translated as a command. So one possible way of translating this word is commanding good, commanding good and forbidding evil, but even that has issues and I want to share with you why that has issues. The word armor in the Arabic language, you can think of it as an entire spectrum, one person is telling another person something, and if they have ultimate authority over them, like I have ultimate authority, let's say over my young child, that I'm commanding them to do something that can actually constitute as an umber. A general in a military is commanding a soldier, he's actually issuing an armor. But actually armor is also used for suggestion. Um, and it's also used

for advice in the Arabic language, in fact, not just in Arabic language and in classical poetry, but also in the Quran itself. When when Frauen was losing his power, he was losing grip over his own cabinet. And he thought that they might switch and turn it over to Musa they Salam side. He said, You read to a new creature coming out of the compensatory family, that moron, he wants to kick you out of your land. And he said, suggest to me what I should do. Give me your counsel, give me your advice. And the word for counsel and advice in that IRA is actually from other it's the same word we're just learning about right now. He's asking for a suggestion. Similarly, when will Saudi

settlements interestingly, in his story, when he had punched that soldier, and that soldier had died for Pablo IV, and the police authorities of Egypt, were secretly taking counsel with each other. And they figured out a plan and the plan was, as soon as we find Musa will kill him in the street. We're not going to bring him into trial. They had a secret meeting where they took each other's suggestions. And the word for that is in Mela. Yeah. Tell me your own epic. Lee to look the generals or the police chiefs are secretly taking each other's counsel and have reached the decision to try and kill you. This is the same word that speeds up the news from the same origin in cases of divorce

settlement between the husband and the wife, if there's a child involved, and how long this lesson should go on. Allah says but that mutal Boehner can be my rules, that you should take each other's counsel and figure out what you're going to do in a dignified way. So the point that I'm trying to get at not just from the point of view of the outside of the Quran, in Arabic literature in general, but also even inside the Quran, the word amor doesn't just occur in the meaning of commanding it actually occurs in the meaning of suggesting or advising or in you know, or encouraging or even on top of that, it can be in the meaning of commanding also, you know, so Allah azza wa jal says it for

example himself, yet Morricone, Allah commands you Allah instructs you unto a duly Amma naughty Illa idea that you give the rights to those who deserve them the trust to those who deserve them. Now, this is an important distinction. What that means then let me just give you an by way of an example because talking in theory can become hard to understand. Let's say it's the first day of class and I have a bunch of students third grade, some of them are well behaved some of them not so much

Right. And some of them are struggling with with discipline, some of them are not, I'm just beginning to understand these kids, it's going to take me a little while. And they're going to get used to my way of dealing with things in my discipline. And over time, I'm going to I will lay down the hammer at first I'm going to try to figure out how everybody behaves, and what their issues are, and where their anger may be coming from, where their violent behavior in class might be coming from, why they're always so loud, why they're always you know, get, you know, being obnoxious, etc. So I might take one of those kids after class and say, Hey, so I noticed you make a lot of fun of

your friends. Why do you think that is? You know, instead of embarrassing him in front of everybody, I'll take them to the side and talk to him a little bit. And then over time, I might see a change in that one student's behavior, right. And then over time, as I develop a relationship with that student, the next time he's misbehaving, I can just say, Hey, I love sorry, if there's only one in the audience, how much

and you remember what we talked about, and he could just get it? He gets it now, because we went from me slowly advising him beginning to understand him to a point where I can actually even just look at him and he'll know, okay, okay. Sorry, is that sorry, I know, I know, I know. And he gets it, it didn't happen overnight. It didn't, I couldn't do that the first day. And if I did, in fact, even if he obeyed me, on the first day, he would develop a resentment towards me. And it's not something that would benefit him, if if me as a teacher, I just want obedience in the classroom, I can get it. But if I want the student to actually transform, and to see the error in their ways, and

to actually feel like I care about them, I'm actually doing this for their own good, then that's gonna take some while. And I might not start with commanding, I might start with advising, I might start with suggesting I might start with putting my hand over their shoulder, but with some compassion, some listening also from them. This is an important part of the process, if I really have somebody else's well being in mind, but if I just want to make sure I win an argument, then I can just throw some things in their face, threaten them to go take them to the principal's office, and I'll be done with it. My job is still done. I still taught a class, I didn't do anything

illegal. Right. But the point is, I'm missing something very, very fundamental. So that's a little bit about the word on the and when we think about doing damage to something good. Who am I doing it to? Do I care about this person? Or do I just want to win an argument? You don't want to embarrass this person? Humiliate this person? Do I just want to show the world how wrong they are? What is my motivation for correcting them? What is my What am who am I saving? Right? And this becomes a really important question to ask myself when I'm embarking on a journey to correct somebody else, or to advise somebody else.

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