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| A favor must be returned |
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| Abu_Atheek |
| 05/22/03 at 04:30:19 |
| [slm] Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh [center][color=Blue]GUIDANCE FROM THE PROPHET [saw][/color] A favor must be returned [i]By Adil Salahi[/i][/center] Islam attaches much importance to social ties. The Prophet took every opportunity to emphasize the need to cement social ties within the Muslim community. He spoke on numerous occasions about the duties Islam imposes on every one of us to be kind and dutiful to his parents and to maintain and foster his ties of kinship. He also spoke repeatedly about the need to maintain the best relationship with neighbors. That is not all, however. The Prophet also emphasized the need to establish strong ties within the Muslim community. He chose certain aspects for special emphasis on different occasions. Consider this Hadith in which Jabir ibn Abdullah quotes the Prophet as saying: "Anyone to whom a favor has been done should reward it. If he has nothing with which to reward it, he should praise the person who has done it. By praising him, he duly expresses his thanks to him. If he conceals it, he is ungrateful. A person who wears an ornament which he has not been given is like one who wears two garments of forgery." (Related by Al-Bukhari in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad, Ahmad, Abu Dawood and At- Tirmithi) The Prophet makes it clear that a favor should be rewarded. This includes gifts of all sorts. The wording of the Hadith makes it much more general than returning gifts. Any action of kindness should be rewarded by something similar, according to what the recipient can afford. Al-Bukhari relates an authentic Hadith in his Saheeh in which Aisha, the Prophet's wife, says: "God's messenger (peace be on him) used to accept gifts and reward them." The statement indicates that it was the Prophet's habit to do so. Moreover, it was the Prophet's habit to reward a gift with something much better in value. This is only to be expected from the Prophet who was keen to further social ties and to look after people's feelings. Indeed, he has made it a point of telling us that gifts and favors should be returned and rewarded because that helps cement social ties. When a gift is merely accepted and not returned when the occasion arises, the giver may start to think ill of the recipient, especially if this omission to reward a gift is repeated. The Prophet takes care to indicate one way of returning favors to which people of limited means may resort. It is a fact that not everyone who receives a favor or a gift is able to return it with something of similar or higher value, as the Prophet used to do. The Prophet tells such people of limited means that they can reward favors with thanking the person who has been behind that favor. Such an expression of gratitude is to be done in the absence of that person. That is how real gratitude is expressed. People would take praise of a person as genuine when that praise is made in that person's absence. It is in the overwhelming majority of cases free from ulterior motives. The man who is the subject of that praise is not present to feel that he should pay for that praise. Indeed, praising anyone in his presence is not acceptable in Islam. Such praise is an aspect of hypocrisy which Islam forbids. The Prophet says that by praising the giver in his absence, the recipient duly expresses his thanks to him. This puts a special color on thanking someone or expressing gratitude to him. No words of thanks addressed to the person directly are equal to one word of thanks expressed in his absence. Moreover, a. Muslim must not praise someone straight to his face. That is something the Prophet has spoken against, which means that it is unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. A good Muslim does not praise anyone to his face. If he has something good to say about him, he says it in his absence. It would then be genuine, free from exaggeration and easily accepted by other people, because they do not suspect that the praise is made in order to win favors with the person praised. On the other hand, concealment of a favor done by someone to us is a mark of ingratitude. A Muslim is never ungrateful for any kindness shown to him. Hence, to conceal a favor is, to the Islamic sense, repugnant. The last part of this Hadith touches on something different. It speaks on a deliberate action which aims at giving a false impression. This is expressed in the context of gifts being given. The example the Prophet gives is that of wearing some type of ornament which was not given to one, in order to create a wrong impression in the minds of other people. One common case of this sort is done by women who are married to the same husband. One wife wears an article of jewelry in front of the other wife in order to give her the impression that it was their husband that has given it to her. She thus makes her feel unjustly treated by her husband or that he favors his other wife. Jealousy is thus enhanced. Another example is that of a person who wears emblems distinctive of a certain group of people, such as a tribe or a society in order to give an impression that he belongs to that group. He will thus be able to deceive people, posing as a member of that group. All such actions are forbidden and the prohibition is expressed in a unique way. The Prophet describes such an action as similar to wearing "two garments of forgery". The Prophet mentions two garments because a suit normally consists of two garments. The metaphor serves to indicate that a person who does such an action is one who is full of forgery from head to foot. The Prophet was keen to emphasize these qualities on different occasions. Abdullah ibn Omar quotes the Prophet as saying: "Give refuge to one who seeks it with you, appealing to you by God. Grant the one who asks you something, appealing to you by God, his wish. Reward anyone who does you a favor. If you find nothing to reward him with, pray for him until it is known that you have rewarded his favor." (Related by Al-Bukhari in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad, Abu Dawood, An-Nassaie and Ahmad.) In this Hadith, the Prophet stresses that if one asks us to do something, appealing to us by God, then we should give him what he asks, whether it is something or some service he requests, or security that he seeks. This applies to everyone, regardless of his faith. If he appeals to us by God to give him protection so that he feels secure, then we should give him that. We do it because of his appeal to us by God. What we do, then, is for God's sake. The Prophet also stresses the importance of returning a gift or a favor. In the case that we cannot reward it, then we pray for the person who has done it for us. By praying God to reward him and to grant him his wishes, we repay him, because a prayer which we make in favor of a brother of ours in his absence is certainly answered. The last phrase in the Hadith indicates that such t prayers should be repeated time after time, until we are satisfied that we have repaid him his favor. [i]Islam in Perspective – Arab News – 27 November 1998[/i] |
| 05/22/03 at 04:32:36 |
| Abu_Atheek |
| Re: A favor must be returned |
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| Yasmeena |
| 05/25/03 at 23:16:19 |
| I was raised, in Christian tradition, that if someone does something for you, the greatest reward to give them is to give to those less fortunate than you. Is this allowed, or does it fall into the category of Zakat? |
| Re: A favor must be returned |
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| little._.sister |
| 06/03/03 at 18:57:27 |
| [wlm] that's a really good article, in showing that we should always be thoughtful to others :) [quote author=Abu_Atheek link=board=library;num=1053588619;start=0#0 date=05/22/03 at 04:30:19] Moreover, a. Muslim must not praise someone straight to his face. That is something the Prophet has spoken against, which means that it is unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. A good Muslim does not praise anyone to his face. If he has something good to say about him, he says it in his absence. It would then be genuine, free from exaggeration and easily accepted by other people, because they do not suspect that the praise is made in order to win favors with the person praised. [/quote] ... but does this part mean that we can't even give a compliment to someone? I can understand that saying it in the person's absence does make is sound more sincere. However, if you do mean it, isn't it alright to say something nice about someone in front of them? After all, it is a good thing to make another person happy, isn't it? I just had to question that, or maybe I didn't understand it correctly... wassalam :-* |
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