InshaaAllah I will strive more to make it a priority (even an obligation) to think positively of each person we meet, especially those close to us as we meet them more frequently.

Regarding the clothing being clean and ironed, I can easily see where that comes into play and for example, a brother who is near a masjid and feels it his obligation to pray all his prayers in Jama’h (in a group) but yet he finds all his clothes are clean yet piled in a basket and frumpy! Imagine his sadness if he were to be judged as “lazy” or “improper” because of this. And assume upon leaving the masjid, a non-Muslim sees him and thinks poorly of him and perhaps even throws out a comment, compounding the feeling.

Sometimes it is difficult for me to “erase” these immediate presumptions I can make when I see people, and if I become aware of these, sometimes I try to change my perception by “dramatizing” the situation. I.e. Imagine, what if his whole house burned down, and his wife and baby died in the fire and now he is just coming to masjid, hoping to pray in peace and perhaps even find comfort and warmth in his fellow Muslims… as a brother, shall we delay even 1 second to hug our Muslim brother in this case?

So many other trials that people face and that we do not, and that we not understand and, instead of being thankful (i.e. alhamdullillah I don’t have 10 kids to dress for Jumua’h!) sometimes I do find myself being subconsciously critical or judgmental, and the blame is on ME, not on the other person for not conforming to how I wanted to see them that day (which is of course a ridiculous thought itself)….

Regarding the accents, I very much related to that. I come from a small community worldwide of maybe 3-5 Million native speakers of a French dialect and I have felt shamed at times, when trying to speak “real” or “clean” French. Likewise, at times posting online or emailing, there will grammatical errors or typos or sometimes I do not know how to spell a word in Arabic, and there is a fear of “what will they think?” or I wonder will they understand what I’m trying to say vs try to judge who I am as a typist. At the same time, these thoughts are probably related to the fact that I also judge other people’s grammar, typing and such. And so the idea of getting back what I give is definitely present.

I’ve noticed that regarding certain faults that are not naturally mine, I usually fail to notice them (as in completely!), yet if I have a friend who notices them and tries to explain it to me, I will sometimes have a paradigm shift and be like oh WOW, so it is possible to see things like THAT. So for example, alhamdullillah I have not usually had the trial of feeling that “people are out to get me” or that another person would truly want me harm. And so if someone trips into me, my natural thought is that they made a mistake or I might think wow they are clumsy or more along those lines. However, I have a friend who truly believe that people seek her out, and bump her on purpose. If someone came with a gun to me, I would assume they were trying to shoot some else (!!!). The idea they would be there to shoot me would probably take me a very long time to process (time I might not have eh). And so sometimes perceptions of others can really affect our daily lives, our feelings about ourselves, and who we think we are.

One big fault of mine is not realizing that not everyone thinks or feels like me about the same situation. So if someone were cold in the masjid and they told me they were cold, I would still not really register the fact that they FELT truly cold. Mentally it’s sort of like I feel hot, so how would it be possible that you feel cold?

By pondering about obvious situations like these, I pray that I am inshaaAllah to be more empathetic and to become much less judgmental, ESPECIALLY about things that don’t matter. I.e. this is not someone I am considering in marriage, this is not my child whom I am responsible for, I often don’t even know this persons name! So I guess for me it comes down this: I need to learn to mind my own business. I need to learn to love others more freely and not act like it cost me something.

Umm Hamza

The point of the article is not that someone should not strive for excellence, but that as Muslims we should not look down on someone who we deem to be less than us because of their appearance, education etc. Not everyone has the same means or the abilities or opportunities. At the end of the day Allah will judge us on our iman and practice of the deen, to the best of our abilities.

“The second thing we look at is dress, and the cultural background of the dress. Is it ironed? Is it clean?”

From this thought in particular, I am getting the feeling that the author does not regard cleanliness as something that is part of our faith? Cleanliness is half of our Emaan.

Indeed Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer. Verily Allah has enjoined goodness (ihsan) on everything.

Somethings are beyond our control (skin color, height, etc); those are not what I am referring to. Being able to communicate properly, dressing nicely, seeking perfection in everything we do are in our control; Isn’t working on these part of our religion?

Hence, when we see someone who is seeking perfection in whatever he/she does, should we not look up to them in the hope that we may be motivated to improve ourselves?