Enhance the good in people.
I remember in the past I came across a someone at Uni who shared his anti-Arab sentiment with me. He's a student like myself. The stuff that he was coming up with was exactly the kind of information you would find in colonialist literature; portraying us as if we were warmongering people who had 10 wives stealing peoples riches on our conquests. I was FUMING for days afterwards that I had even complained to people about him! The same anger arisen when arguing with someone on the Woolwich incident. It was a really heated moment. Then a friend kindly pointed out to 'advise with hikmah' i.e. advise in a patient manner and with wisdom. There was a great lesson to learn from what she advised me.
Going back to the first person, I realized i was so focused on that one bad aspect of him that i totally disregarded everything else. He was an intelligent historian, he was on the deen, he was sociable and would do favors for others without asking. Such a shame that he held such prejudiced sentiments- but that could have been fixed. If I had advised this brother in a proper manner, then there was a possibility that he would have abandoned such beliefs and become a better person. Instead I disregarded him altogether along with the good qualities he had in a moment of blind anger.
There was once a time when we all were worse off, but then someone had the patience and the faith in us to advise us to take the higher route. We didn't develop into better people on our own, we had some form of help and advice along the way from someone who overlooked OUR faults and believed in us! As Saudi Sheikh Muhammed Al-Arayfi said; "Perhaps there is 90% bad [in a person] and there is 10% good. So expand this 10% and treat it as 50%. Don't say [to such a person] that you are a sinner/transgressor. Because that will decrease the 10%. Consider the good to be more. Perhaps Allah shall rectify this person at your hands."
See full video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38bUWI_7rGQ
Marhaba, I am a student at Modesto High School, and am a a member of it's Performing Arts Academy. The Academy has about seventy students, and they all have the same teachers for science, history, english, and their elective so, there's a time when you start to feel like family. Ofcouse there were people whom I didn't like, but I later saw the good in them, and I felt bad for talking behind their backs. Since then I'v considered the good in people to be more because, if I don't then I won't have the patience and faith to advise someone to take the higher route. What you said.
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