There once was a man who was born and raised in the United States, but left to pursue an education in Islam in the Middle East. After that he dedicated many more years to further his education in Islam at one of the United State's most eminent universities. Not only that, but he has constantly been helping to improve the condition of American-Muslims communities. This is the story of Sheikh Bohot Acha, who is shown above.
Now what would you say if random person comes out and questions Sheikh Bohot Acha in a rude and condescending matter? You may say something like, "What a jerk!" or "Who does he think he is?!" What ever you may say, we would all agree that acting in such a way, even if the issues brought up are valid, is plain annoying and not consistent with the manners taught to us by our religion.
That's why I was very surprised to see this behavior at Muslim Matters in the comments section of a post about a New York Times article on Yasir Qadhi. Now we all know how comments sections are on most websites (a hotbed of internet trolling), but this is going on a Muslim website and is about Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, a very intelligent brother who has done so much for our community. What was even more annoying was that these comments were:
1. Off topic or on a very insignificant issue (one person even complained about the sheikh's weight!)
2. Lacked any manners and were even questioning the sheikh's intentions and
3. Acting like they were the head scholars of Mecca (which I'm pretty sure they weren't).
It was a relief to see that such comments were in the minority, but there was enough of it to prompt Yasir Qadhi to write a response article. This article had similar comments, which once again prompted the sheikh to write another (and hopefully final) response article. Alhamdulillah, as expected, Sheikh Yasir handled all the overzealous criticism very professionally and respectfully.
Now I'm not saying that we should blindly accept everything our scholars and community leaders do, or keep our mouths shut if they are doing something wrong. It is important that we keep our leaders accountable. I'm saying that we should humble ourselves first, respond respectfully with the intent to understand (not questioning for the sake of questioning) and if there are still differences, agree to disagree.
Remember, our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “The one who possesses half of mustard seed of Kibr (arrogance) in his heart shall not be granted admission to Jannah (Paradise); and the one who possesses half of a mustard seed of Imân shall not enter the (Eternal) Fire" (Muslim). This is no small matter. If you are criticizing someone out of arrogance, your arrogance is probably worse than his sin. His sin is visible and can be identified and changed easily, but arrogance is burrowed deep within the heart, so much so that we may not even know we have it. So next time we have the urge to criticize someone, we're better off catching our tongues.
So what do you guys think about this? How do you keep yourself from acting arrogantly? How do you treat with people who are disrespectful to you?
