HAVING REGARD FOR OTHERS

A Prophetic Practice

Make things easy for people and do not deal with them harshly. Give them glad tidings and do not make them hate you.
(Prophet of Islam, Sahih al-Bukhari)

THE above Hadith teaches us about having regard for others. If you study the corpus of Hadith, you will learn that it was the practice of the Prophet of Islam to have regard for others to the maximum extent. One should completely abstain from harshness, whether in word or deed.

Having regard for others does not mean being indifferent to people or leaving them as they are. Rather, it means, to adopt the right starting-point for the process of reform. The right method of reform is to make allowances for the external aspects of people’s actions and to focus more on the inner aspects of their actions. This is because reform of the inner dimension does not come about through reforming the external dimension. Rather, it is when the inner being is reformed that the external or outer dimension comes to be transformed too.

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Having regard for others is another name for a wise approach. And it is a fact that true transformation always comes about through a wise method, not through an unwise one.

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One benefit of having regard for people is that following the path of religion does not appear difficult to them. They would thus try to adopt religious teachings without feeling repulsed. As a result, a person is first reformed internally, and then, gradually, his external deeds and actions also take the religious form.

Having regard for others is another name for a wise approach. And it is a fact that true transformation always comes about through a wise method, not through an unwise one. The method that a religious reformer uses must always be that of having regard for people. The reformer’s entire stress should be on trying to inculcate the spirit of religion among people. As soon as this spirit emerges, people begin to behave and conduct themselves according to religion, something which a reformer who uses extremist measures may never be successful in achieving.