Respecting others…

I was listening to a lecture on Muharram and the scholar was emphasizing on the fact that Muharram reminds us of respecting the honour of our fellow Muslims. Then she narrated a Hadith of our Prophet (s.a.w) which stated that the honour of a Muslim is greater than the honour of the Ka’ba.

This statement really shook me from inside and I  felt really really struck… as if by lightening… my heart seemed to just stop as I thought of kaaba and felt the love that seemed to fill my heart and the awe and reverence that we all have for it and yet we are so so so ignorant of the true worth of a human being… we torment and make life miserable for our most near ones… the weak ones… and we back bite and spread bad opinions for the ones who are too strong for us to speak out in front of them… why are we like this? Because we never realize that Allah is not going to accept any good deeds except that we fulfill the rights of people…

How ignorant we are that we think that rights of family are just that I cook and clean for them? How do I talk to them when they irritate me? How do I talk about them to my friends? Do I save their honour? This is something we never ever give importance to… and it’s the same thing which has soured our relationships. When we are yelling to our kids because of some mistake they might have made we never think that his mistake doesn’t earn him an insult… on no account can we attack the self respect of any individual.

If it sounds impractical then just for a moment we can remind ourselves of any incident where someone insulted us… how did that feel? Could any amount of compensation wipe that out of our memory? Can any amount of happiness erase the wounds of the heart created by unkind words or degrading attitude?

So I just pray to Allah to never let us be off guard… May He always help us to remember that the honour of a momin is greater than the honour of the Kaaba… ameen