Sadullah Khan – Developing a Qur’anic Personality To be and What not be. #19
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the challenges of being critical of criticism and how it can lead to negative consequences. They suggest that individuals should take advice from others and not just criticize them. The speaker also mentions a famous anecdote about a young man walking by a marketplace and advises individuals to be constructive and empowering others.
AI: Summary ©
In today's ever connected and easily accessible social
media world,
where anybody can be in touch with everybody,
and almost everyone seems to be a critic.
If you spend any time on social media
or on the blogosphere,
you will soon find multitude of critics.
Critics was killed in turning
the smallest non issue into a major issue
of the day.
Not only that,
since social media is a global phenomena,
the critic can convey
his or her criticism or condemnation
to the whole wide world on the world
wide web at the press of one button
on the phone in their pocket.
And it reaches everyone,
anywhere in the world.
Wise ones have said,
any fool can criticize
and any fool can condemn.
And some otherwise people said, most fool most
fools do exactly that.
You see,
it is easy to be a critic. Critic.
It is much more challenging to be an
activist.
Critics, there are many.
Activists, there are
are few. Activists are like builders.
And negative critics are like demolishers.
It takes builders months to build a building.
It takes demolishers one day to destroy a
building.
You cannot build a building in a day,
but you can destroy a building in an
hour.
This does not mean that we are against
criticism.
Not at all.
There are those who provide constructive
criticism,
which is highly appreciated.
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasalam at the battle of
the ditch or the battle of other infect
also.
He he he asked because they stand in
some place and one sahabi said, you Rasulullah,
is this purely your opinion or was this
wahi from Allah? He said, no, this is
my opinion. He said, you Rasulullah, we are
few in number. The enemies are so many.
Let's go beyond the well of Badr so
we have water on our side. They don't
have water. They may have to turn back
because they're outnumbering us,
but we have water on our side. They
don't have
opinion.
He gave a critic of the prophet's opinion
and he prophesied, let's go with that. And
that's what the prophet in the Sahaba did.
So no. Criticism is not bad in itself.
And there are those who provide,
like the Sahabi,
constructive criticism which is highly appreciated.
And those who ensure that they provide advice
on Nasihah
without causing resentment or hurt
or deliberately
undermining
or hurting anyone.
They are not of those who merely say
something to find a fault,
but rather to
provide
provide some form of correction, to provide some
form of resolution, to provide some form of
improvement. However,
in rectifying anyone, and this is for us,
by the way, however, in rectifying others, if
we are being critical of something which we
are entitled to,
you must take the advice of Sophia Nathouri,
Rahmatullah,
one of the great luminaries of Islam. He
said,
Nobody has the right to rectify
people. A command which is right but wrong
towards other people unless he has three characteristics.
But you must be
kind in how you do it.
You must be knowledgeable about what you are
doing,
and you must be just
in doing so. Then you go ahead and
then be a critic.
There's a famous anecdote that clearly indicates
the futility, of course, of trying to appease
critics.
There are so many of them by the
way.
So incident,
annecdoche, Johar went with his grandson to sell
the donkey in the marketplace.
So they decided, look, let's go. And they,
the old man, the father, drove the donkey
and the grandson was walking next to him.
And as they were riding, people said, look
at this old man. He's so cruel.
The poor child is walking and he's riding
comfortably.
So Johan jumped off. He asked his grandson,
you jump on and I'd rather walk. They
went by a group of people. People said,
look at this place, children. A poor old
man is walking and this
young boy is on riding the the donkey.
How
inconsiderate of him.
So Johansen, let's both ride the donkey. They
both jumped on the donkey. They passed by
a group of people. People said, look at
these guys.
They it's the Muslim people and they're overloading
the donkey. What kind of people are these?
So they said, look here, we are near
the marketplace. Let's jump off. We walk. So
both walked and they entered the marketplace.
Everyone laughed at these 2 idiots. They got
a donkey and both of them are walking.
So whatever you do, someone will find fault
with it. Whatever you do, someone will find
fault with
So for us,
we ask Allah, may we be of those
who are constructive
when we are critical.
That we are building someone, not destroying someone.
Empowering,
not demeaning.
That we do what is best.
Without letting the negativity of others prevent us
from doing what is good.