Training One's Tongue Not to Harm Other People
Greetings all,
A sage in Islamic Spain, in an effort to obey his Creator regarding protecting the rights of other people, used a similar practice to the one below to train his tongue to stay out of trouble:
1. Carry a notepad and pen/PDA/Smartphone and write down the first few words spoken when you fall into one of the mistakes below:
- 1. ghiba (slander) - Saying something about someone he would not like to be said about him. (Unless advising someone regarding doing business with the person, or when asked regarding seeking marriage to that person)
- 2. namima (tale-telling) - 'spreading everyone's news'. Usually this is unintentional, but causes grief for the person, or causes enmity between people.
- 3. riya (Showing off in spiritual works) - Letting other people see one’s acts of worship or obedience to God, meaning to actually newly initiate an outward action, perceptibly doing something (not just thinking it)
- 4. sum‘a - Letting others hear of one's spiritual works or works of worship to God.
- 5. iftikhar - Boasting to others. (e.g. I am not only the strongest man in the world, but I am also the best cook!)
- 6. kadhib - Lying
- 7. khawd fi al-batil - Talking about the useless and the immoral.
2. If you fallen into one of these during the day and have written it down, pray the prayer of repentance at night before bed.
This is done for 40 days in a row without incident. The day you fall into one of these 7, you must start back at day 1. So, if you are one day 39, and one of the 7 above occurs, you go back to day 1.
The Prophet Muhammad(Peace Be Upon Him) said something to the effect that:
The Muslim is the one who people are safe from his hands and his tongue.
