The big picture
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Oh did you just see Tania? What was she wearing today? So Out of fashion, like Oh my God! I would never even wear it while sleeping! oh that french braid doesn’t suit her at all. Looks like she is having a bad hair day..
Welcome, my friends, to your own sweet world.
I am Nida Ali, your travel guide for the day and I will show you your own world a little more closely. Please fasten your seat belt and get ready for the journey ahead. Warning: The enjoyment of the journey is not guaranteed!
Let me start from the very start. The dialogue you happen to read on the very top is from a very typical setting where girls get together and talk about “random stuff”. For e.g. the prettiest girl in school, Tania, is looking a little less pretty today and other girls couldn’t be more happy about it. They are having fun discussing her, aren’t they? And as long as Tania isn’t there, everything is fine. A few laughs wouldn’t hurt anyone.
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| Photo Credit |
Lets go to another setting. Looks like we have entered Mountainous region. Oh wait, these are books. Mountain of books! And look, there is also a skinny boy with glasses working over there. What is he working on? Wait over here while I go and ask about his project.
“What are you working on?” I ask
” Free lance assignment” says the boy, giving me a nerdy look.
“Aah, free lance assignment? You mean the assignments that you do for the students abroad who don’t want to do it themselves and then they pay dollars and pounds to get it done by somebody else and then submit the assignment in their own name?” I ask
“uhh.. Yeah”
“Oh Alright. Thanks buddy”
So he is working so hard to earn a little money. I don’t see anything wrong with it. Do you? The teacher doesn’t know but that’s okay. And he is only trying to “help” those students. Who knows what problem they have.Fair enough.
So now let us go to the third place in our journey. This place looks like a happy place. People are celebrating, laughing and enjoying. And there is this girl too over there. She is the bride-to-be. I think the household is having a pre party before the wedding. That room over there is extra crowded, thanks to the display of marriage dowry in that room. It is full of latest clothes, jewellery, shoes, bags.. what not. And relatives, neighbours, friends are all invited to have a look at all of this stuff.
Amongst everyone praising everything, I can see this girl , looking at everything wide eyed. . She doesn’t really look very happy. Somebody told me she is bride’s cousin. She lived a financially difficult life and didn’t go to big schools like her cousin. She is also about to get married soon. I wonder why she is upset.
my dear companions, I will take a break here and will take you again on the rest of this journey soon later sometime and leave you to analyze your journey from Islamic perspective. I hope you have a good time 🙂
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You just visited three different places and saw three different settings. You saw the case of girls talking about another girl, you saw a boy doing freelancing and you saw a house having marriage celebrations. If you notice closely, in all the three instances someone somewhere was being harmed.
The first setting is a pure case of backbiting that is existent in this form in our society today. In the face of it, nobody is harmed.but if the girl (Tania) comes to know of what was being talked about her behind her back, she would be hurt. Allah SWT has created everything in balance. However, when such ill words are spoken by anyone in the society about a fellow human being, some kind of dis balance appears in the society. Someone at the end of the whole chain is being hurt and Allah hates this act so much that He has said that until and unless the backbiters go and ask apology from the person against whom backbiten is done and he/she forgives, even He will not forgive. Just imagine how Allah wants us to take care of the third party even though he/she is not present there and that Allah wants us to look at the big picture.
Similarly, in next situation, even though the boy is working hard himself to earn money, somebody at the end of the cycle is being harmed. In this case, it is the teacher who is being fooled that the assignment was done by his student and not by anyone else. Only if the student informs about this “help” to the teacher and the teacher is fine with it would the act be justified. Otherwise, this is cheating.
Some may hold the opinion that the boy is putting his hard work and he is not doing anything wrong but then there is a very famous hadith of prophet S.A.W to counter this:
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Allaah has cursed alcohol, the one who drinks it, the one who pours it, the one who sells it, the one who buys it, the one squeezes (the grapes, etc), the one for whom it is squeezed, the one who carries it and the one to whom it is carried.” Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani as stated in Saheeh Abi Dawood, 2/700.
If we even take only one person’s role from this, for example, “the one who carries it”, we will understand everything better. The one who carries alcohol is neither selling, nor drinking alcohol. He is only putting his hard work into earning money. Why is he still cursed? Because he is facilitating the whole chain! Islam doesn’t want us to even facilitate this chain. Again, the big picture perspective is taken care by Allah SWT. You and I are not supposed to do any kind of work that will harm anyone anywhere in the society whether we know him/her or not. And in this free lance assignment, the teacher is at the disadvantaged end. In fact even other students since it is also not fair on them too.
The last situation is again where, unintentionally, someone is again being hurt. Islam dislikes all such ostentatious acts because it is the less privileged ones in the society who feel the pain, in this case the girl whose parents could obviously not afford to give her as much as was given to her own cousin. Unfortunately, most of such acts have become a part of our culture in Pakistani society and families do them, sometimes unwillingly. We should try our best not to let such happen as much as we can because we might never know who we end up hurting.
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An important thing to note is that just the way Allah dislikes any act which harms anyone anywhere, Allah also likes any such act which will benefit anyone anywhere. The acts of Sadqa-e-jariah is the perfect example.So I may burrow a seed in the soil today, and hundred years later, when I am not even alive, someone comes and stands under its shade and eat its fruit, I am still rewarded. SubhanAllah!
Islam takes the 360 degree approach to everything. We are so human that we cry on the things Islam has forbidden forgetting about the wonderful ways in which we can be rewarded too. And even when Islam asks us not to do something, it is because of a reason either our eyes cannot see or our little brains couldn’t comprehend. We should pray to Allah to help us understand Islam. Ameen
Indeed, Allah is Al-Aleem (All knowing) and Al-Hakeem(All Wise)
Good analogy!
Alhamdolilah 🙂
Good read 🙂
Masha Allah well put
these three settings are right from our world. loved this piece. the hadith is an excellent reminder for all of us: it applies to all these three settings in a way. even if we're not part of such things directly but participate as silent spectators the blame falls on us too. it's just like the backbiting hadith where the Prophet (SAW) advices us to leave the company of backbiters. mashAllah this is well written.
Why dont you and other relegious people condemn something that is really bad and happening all around us? minor girls being raped in pakistan, people being killed for just differing ideologies? why dont u ppl have the guts to condemn such extremist behaviors that so called muslims are displaying? why do u just confine your bashing sessions for the cosmetic and trivial issues like u just discussed!
what i mean is, u ppl and ur concept of self righteousness is totally wrong. u just like to pick trivial issues and do not condemn the real bad tings muslims do in the name of islam like killing and spreading anarchy!
Nice post Nida …….
@ Taha: Salam
Though this post is not mine but i think u are correlating two different scenarios with each other. However, for your sake the problems u mentioned is related to these so called petty issues.
First example when goes longer create 'Jealousy' factor in our houses. For me, jealous people can do two harmful acts:
– Either harm others by stoping u from ur just reward
– Create unlawful and illegal opportunities for themselves to get more wealty and well of ………… Result …….. Corruption and Social crimes ……. Big Big issue
Second example …… Small boy doing other works …….. Dont u think the same is happening in our society. Dont u think, people are killed by someone for not his sake but for the sake of other. In our soceity, the easiest thing to be done is to use killers, robbers for our own sake. See the recent example of Justice Javed parents. Their own child killed them by sending robbers. We are in the society where selling our Imaan is the easiest thing.
Last example, i dont need to give any explaination, when there is a need there is a will. When one person doing job knows that he has to get sufficient amount of fund for his Child. The only thing he needs to do is Corruption.
So isnt these small issues have harmful effects ……..??
@taha
thats because people like you and I are involved in trivial issues. Tell me how many friends you know who have committed murders or adultery or kill other people for different ideologies.
All of us commit sins at the grassroot level. And if those are not eradicated, then it turns into bigger sins like you just mentioned.
InshaAllah we will also discuss bigger issues too but smaller issues are also important.
Last thing …….. What our society is facing is not religious issues ………. these are related to lack of knowledge, lack of harmony and lack of trust.
U can compare The first and second world europe with Pakistan. Same issues same behaviour same killings. But they realize after loosing many many of their innocent people. Now they are developed. Everybody involved in First and Second World War is now Developed country. Coz they know the effect of their wrong doings.
However, we are unfortunatly at the stage when we are shifting the onus from Religious to Liberal and Liberal to Religious but the problem is social 🙁 ……..
I agree. there are many sins we commit, but eradicating at the very grassroot levels is also important.i think the biggest issue is that we've stop even recognizing the sins that we commit. and if we stop recognizing them, then there is no chance of taubah, which indeed is very scary. though not in this context exactly, but this was in of of Sheik Kamaluddin's lecture. as to how the issue with reformist Islam is that they've allowed people to stop recognizing sins which are difficult to let go of.
Thank you for the blog Nida. i'm keen to read more.
jazakillah nayma. I absolutely agree. ignorance of your sins is the most dangerous thing!
I LOVE THIS.
MashAllah 🙂
MashAllah. very well written 🙂
Alhamdolilah 🙂 jazakAllah for the kind words
Amazing write up nida! You have touched upon so many issues in a single post. MashaAllah well done! Especially the issue of free-lancing, I was shocked to find out what massive level this is being practiced at. And the writers don’t even consider there’s something wrong with the $$ they are making. Loved the article!
love and duas,
your ammah mate
jazakAllah dear Farheen, good to see my ammah mate reading up on my blog.. I wrote this quite a while ago! patanahee kya likha hai 😛