Sadullah Khan – Developing a Qur’anic Personality To be and What not be. #19

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.