By Dr Adekunle Mikail
”O you who believe! Why do you say which you do not do?;
” It is most hateful to Allah that you say that which you do not do”
Qur’an 61: 2-3
Perhaps if every leader of a society, every father of an household; every mother in charge of a child; every teacher given the responsibility to raise a student, every trader with her customers; every medical personnel with her patient ;every student with his study and every child with his life; will ponder the implications of the verses of the glorious Qur’an above, the life human beings will live , will be easier and a lot will be accomplished without much furore!
Imagine a world where every word spoken is accompanied with commensurate deed? Imagine if every promise of the people of responsibilities is made concrete from its abstractness by making sure it is put into practice by not reneging on it? Ponder o you dearest readers! If our words are our bonds and when we fulfil promises we make with the words of our mouths, or the one we put in writing ? Surely, we may have been living in Eldorado now and our promised Land!
The Exegetes of the glorious Qur’an agreed that the reason behind the revelation of the Qur’an 61:2-3 above, was as a result of the promise made by a team of the believers who were with the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam ,one day, and who were saying among themselves and in the presence of the prophet that :” If we know some of the deeds which are beloved to Allah, by Him, we will do them !” But when the commandment to engage in Jihad was revealed as one of beloved deeds in God’s sight , they hated it and chickened out and rejected its implementation!
To say the obvious, the dissonance between the people of responsibilities’ words and their deeds , is accounting for the problems of this era. The morality displayed by the people of the past eras in making sure that they didn’t promise others what they couldn’t fulfil seems to be lost among us these days. Though we often cited the examples of politicians in this regard but the disease seems to be afflicting all – from the head of the family to his wive and children, to the market women and artisans to health facilitators and many others. It looks as if the House has fallen and the center cannot hold again!
And the implication of the culture of a People’s deeds which are at variance with their words is exclusively pointed out in the verse :” it is most hateful to Allah that you say what you do not do”! What is indubitable is that what is hateful in the sight of God cannot earn man any good except woe! And one more thing, the implication of the implication stated here according to Allama Yusuf Aliy is that :” on all occasions when People’s deeds are not commensurate with their words , their conducts is odious in the sight of Allah, and it is only due to Allah’s Mercy if they are saved from disaster !”
Hardly Can a People Whose Deeds Do Not March Their Words Be Saved From Disaster
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This is what Allama Yusuf Aliy is saying in few words : hardly can a people whose deeds do not match their words be saved from disaster! The reason behind this is that if the culture of impunity whereby humans act the opposite of what they mean or when an head of state finds solace in lying; when a tutor is given way to fibbing ; when a mother is decked in the garment of look-at-my- words- and -not- my-deeds tactic, and when policy makers say something and mean other things, by that the masses will not take the men at the helms of affairs serious again and eventually, when this culture becomes commonplace, everybody will now become a liar and disaster will befall the country as it is the response of God to visit a lying people with a disaster.
To bar God’s woes and angers among their people, the practice of the prophets of God has been a strive to match their deeds with their words. Their conduct had been that as they enjoined their nations right conducts in one breadth, they had not forgotten to practise what they had
commanded in another breadth . In another words, the prophets of God had not pointed bread at people as an heathy food and ate secretly or in the opening, beans or condemned an act and went ahead and practised it like forbidding a fruit and still eating it!
The reason the prophets of God, (may the good Lord increase His peace on them) had not been found wanting for once in this regards, was that they had had a full grasp of the leadership positions that were bestowed on them by God! Since they were role models, mirrors and ideals to which their nations would measure their own 6yt goodness and morals with, they had made sure they had been true to type and did not construct their examples on falsehood .
We see this model in prophet Muhammad salla-llahu alehwasalam, for example, when he had travelled with his companions for the exercise of the lesser Hajj known as ‘Umura, in the sixth year of Hijrah at his place of birth, Makkah, but the Quraish had prevented them from doing so. So the prophet in conjunction with his companions had sitted with the Quraish to sign a reconciliation pact otherwise known as Sulhu-l-Hudaibiyah in Islamic science, though the companions were not so much well disposed to the pact for ,one, it had barred them from entering Makkah that year which had invariably meant no ‘Umarah that year too and , two, most of the clauses were repugnant to natural justice, but for the prophet’s peaceful nature and belief in God that what will be will be, he had allowed the pact to stand!
For the preparations here and there that had been made by the companions and the Prophet for that year lesser Hajj and the stance of the Quraish that the Muslims must not enter Makkah that year, the companions were infuriated and became implacable when the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, told them to shave their hairs and slaughter their Rams for their intention was already justified in the sight of God as those that did lesser Hajj ,despite the hindrance posed by the Makkah’s unbelievers!
Based on that, the prophet’s commandment was left unattended to and this got him angered. He later entered into his camp where his wive Ummu Salmah was staying and recounted his ordeal with his companions to her as follows :
” O the mother of Salmah, what had happened to the people? I commanded them but they had obeyed me not. Then, Ummu Salmah pointed to the prophet to stand up and shave his hair and slaughter his animal in front of his companions instead of telling his companions what he wanted from them with words of the mouth. And surprisingly, when the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, did as advised by Ummu Salmah, all the companions followed suit and did as he had done!
It is on this account that, the jurisprudence scholars of Islam have advised in leadership studies, that he who desires that his commands be obeyed must first of all be ready to follow the rules he wants others to obey while he matches his deeds with his words, for the companions had rushed to copy the prophet when they had seen him doing what he had commanded them to do!
They have also advised teachers to be most upright among the leadership packs for students easily imitate their teachers in all they do – if they are of morally breed, their students become their archetype and if otherwise, the students become debauched!
Likewise, human deeds weigh more on people’s consciousness than their speeches! This is always more impactful on the children than any other since they learn by imitating their parents. It follows that if the character of the parents are praiseworthy, the children grow to emulate it and they become praiseworthy too but if it is otherwise; if the parents character is devilish, cruelly and ogreish, then the children’s own will be fiendish, ghoulish and malicious!
As A Tutor Is So Is The Tutored
A story is told of a mother crab whose trade in stock is straddling in form of walking . Whenever the mother crab wanted to attend an outing with her children she used to staggered in style by combining it with a little bit of bending as if staggering was the only manner of walking she could demonstrate to her younger ones!
This was her regular style of moving in and out of her hideout until it became an habit everyone of her children could demonstrate without no guidance. The baby-crabs used to practise this form of movement until they were known with it like their mother in the neighborhood.
One day ,the mother-crab sent her children on an errand and when returning into their mother, the mother saw them for the first time staggeringly into the opening of their home in aghast ! When everyone of the baby-crabs had entered ,their mothers were quizzing and criticizing them on the manner of walking they were just exuding. But Alas! The baby-crabs in chorus quipped :” mother blame us not; you are the tutor we are just aping your strides in that regards! Unbeknownst to the mother-crab, she has not known that her babies have been understudying her movements until now!
The Deeds Of Abu-Hanifah Prompted The Islam Of A Fire Worshipper
Our predecessors in this Islamic faith were no doubt , men of their words! Their words had been their bonds for all the time they had lived and their preachment had not been limited to the words of mouths alone. Rather, they had religiously tallied their actions with their speeches and this had made them the natural leaders of men whom everybody, including those that were professing other faiths when they were living, was trying to emulate. This in turn had also encouraged many non-Muslims among them to convert to the Islamic faith and professed it!
One of these our forerunners in Islamic faith was Imam Abu-Hanifah An-Nu’main, who was a cloth merchant, a jurisprudent of a note, an Islamic legist, a lover of men and a real friend of God!
It was reported that Abu-Hanifah ( May the good Lord bless him the more), had a wealth with a fire worshipper which he had lent him. Imam Abu-Hanifah had gone to ask for this wealth from the fire worshipper one day when his shoe had mistakenly stepped on a mess and on lifting it up to remove it, the mess unintentionally landed on the wall of the fire worshipper!
Then Imam became lost on what to do to the mess on the wall of his debtor thinking that;” what should I do now; if I left it on the wall, it will deface it and if I try to remove it, it will despoil it for the wall was made of mud!
Then his moral guided him and he knocked on the door while a maid came out to answer him. Then ,he told the maid to tell her master ( the fire worshipper) that Abu-Hanifah was at his door. When the man came out, he was thinking that Abu-Hanifah would ask him of his debt and he started pleading and giving excuse that he couldn’t pay the debt now but Imam quipped instead : here is what is more pressing than the debt! He then recounted the story of his shoe, the mess and the wall of the fire worshipper! And now he asked the fire worshipper:” what should we do to cleanse it?
From the moral of Imam Abu-Hanifah that was just displayed, ( here was a man who was downplaying his wealth for a minor indiscretion on his side to that of his debtor); the light of Islam had just entered into the soul of the fire worshipper and he said to the Imam :” I’m the first person that needs to cleanse and purify my mind from the mess of paganism and he declared the statement of faith :” I testify that there is no god worthy of being worshipped except Allah and Muhammad is His apostle!”. And the fire worshipper embraced Islam through the deeds of Abu-Hanifah who had acted his words to others such as ”love your neighbor as you do to yourself”