Saad Tasleem – Punishing Good Behavior

			Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Today I want to speak to you about punishing good
behavior.
		

			Now, you may say to yourself, why would someone do that? Why would someone punish good behavior? Or
why would someone punish someone for doing something which is actually good? Now, what the reality
is that usually when someone does this, usually when we do this, we don't do it consciously. A we do
it without realizing it, that we're doing it. And what I mean by that is that, for example, someone
makes a positive change in their life. And instead of encouraging them or being happy for them, or
showing them that we're happy, we may say something like, oh, what took you so long? Or we say
something like, finally, or we say, suddenly, like, I've been telling you to do this for such a long
		

			time? Or we may say to them, why can't you be like this all the time. So for example, somebody
starts praying their five daily prayers, or let's say, someone prays one prayer, and we say to them,
great, you're praying one prayer, but how about you pray all of your prayers, or someone starts
coming to the machine, and we say to them, finally show you show up to the machine. And we actually
see this happen a lot in the month of Ramadan, where someone starts doing something which is good,
or they start making positive changes. And the way we react to that is, oh, it took you so long to
do this, or, hey, we had to wait till the month of Ramadan for you to start being good, or we had to
		

			wait for the month of Ramadan for you to start praying, or you had to wait for the month of Ramadan,
for you to leave off this sin. And all of this, like I said, I know it comes from a good place. But
for the individual who is making good changes or positive changes in their life, this may come off
as criticism, you have to try to empathize with the person who's making these changes in their life.
You don't realize and we don't realize sometimes how difficult it was for them to make even this one
change. And the last thing that they want to hear is criticism. The last thing they want to hear is
Oh, finally you're doing this, what would be far more beneficial is words of encouragement, saying
		

			Mashallah, I'm so happy that you're able to make this change. May Allah bless you, and May Allah
increase, you May Allah help you get even better. And sometimes we don't realize right that our
words are coming off as criticism, rather than motivation. But for the listener, for the person who
is receiving this, they have that perception of criticism versus motivation, and criticism and
motivation. They have two very different effects. And that is why we find the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, he wasn't a critic, he was a motivator. This was the way of the prophets of Allahu
Allah, he was sending them when he would see someone doing something which is good. He wouldn't say
		

			Oh, finally you started to do this. Rather, he would encourage them in the good that they are doing.
So they would be motivated to continue. We have instances where we see someone doing something and
maybe some people start to criticize this person and the Prophet settle I sent him replies and it
says, this is a person who a lot and His Messenger love. Imagine hearing those words that Allah and
His Messenger, they love this person who Other people may think is not such a great person. What
does that do for that person? Well, that's a motivator. We hear the prophets, I send them saying to
me rather than the 11 by a law, I love you these types of words, they're words of motivation and
		

			encouragement. And so when we see someone doing something, which is good, instead of cutting them
down for taking so long, or cutting them down, because, you know, they didn't do it as fast as we
think they need to do or they haven't done enough. rather give them words of encouragement,
especially in this month of Ramadan where people are making positive changes. We need to be
conscious and aware of that. So when we see someone doing something, which is good, we need to help
motivate them. And what that means sometimes is to praise that person. And look, a lot of times I
know we are afraid to praise someone, but praise is a really big motivator. So when you see someone
		

			for example, who leaves off a sin in the month of Ramadan, praise that person that praise could be
encouragement, saying something like Mashallah, I can imagine how difficult was for you to leave
this sin, but I see that you have and that is amazing. Or someone for example, you know, with the
prayers, I'm going to start praying, we say that Look, I don't know how difficult it may have been
for you to get to this place where you've started praying, but this is amazing. It's such an amazing
thing to see from you. Once again, we want to be motivators rather than critics and allows penalty I
don't know as best until next time, I sit on what Aiko what I put the light on what I got there.