Once a man came to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and expressed his conviction in Islam and his willingness to perform all the ordained practices. However, he added that he had one major problem: he struggled to control his sensual desire for the opposite sex, and hence wanted to make a formal request for a Prophetic permission to indulge his licentiousness.
The Prophet looked at him for a minute. He did not immediately exclaim “AstaghfirAllah” in the man’s face, nor did he call him names or give him denigrating labels, nor even treat him with condescension or judgement.
Rather, that Prophet of God, who was sent as a mercy to all the worlds, and whose instructor was the Owner of knowledge and wisdom, ever so kindly and with Prophetic gentleness, indulged the man and, engaging him in a conversation, asked him:
“Do you have a mother?”
“Yes,” said the man.
“A sister?”
“Yes.”
“An aunt?”
“Yes.”
“Can you conceive of someone else doing the same to any of them as you are thinking of doing onto others’?”
“No,” said the man. And that was that.
The man later said that he had gone unto the Prophet hoping to get permission to fornicate, but that he came out of the Beloved’s presence with no deed being more odious to him than fornication.
Two lessons, at least, we may learn from this story:
- In this message is contained that universal principle for a peaceful, equitable and harmonious existence that’s found in all noble and Divine teachings: that a brother/sister must do onto others, of good, as he/she would have it done onto him/herself. How often do we communicate or interact with a non-mahram, in public or in isolation, and flirting with that all-too-known forbidden territory, sometimes with the kind of questionable intent which we know we would hate to find our own brothers and/or sisters or other loved ones involved in? May Allah save us.
- Sometimes it is not in the direct command of “do” and “don’t”, “should” and “shouldn’t”, that you can win over a man’s, or a woman’s, heart. The Prophet (SAW) did not chastise this man for his struggles, which, one way or another, we all have, some worse than others. We, being human, each have our various shortcomings, and we all need redirection from time to to time. How we get rectified, or how we rectify others, makes a whole lot of difference between acceptance and refusal. It is one thing to have knowledge or to be blessed with distance between oneself and certain sinful acts, but in trying to rectify others, wisdom, and not judgement or aloof condescension, is key.
May Allah bless us all with virtue and save us from vice. Where we are right, may He accept it of us; where wrong, may He forgive us.
***The above story is taken, with modifications and additions, from a Sheikh Hamza Yusuf lecture – Introduction to Logic on Deenstream
