Speech: Personal Experience Not Dogma

Today Muslim does not know his or her religion, indeed severely exposed to American media cooks up a hodgepodge of Judea-Christian concepts of the contemporary Western retail media and (mostly) movies, grows its bread and puts a scarf on it and calls it Islam.

Today Muslim incessantly chatters half baked Arabic words he or she has no knowledge of, in every aspect of human life, daily life, and measure of Iman (Faith) is measured by the speedometer of the tongue: How fast blabbering nonsensical part-Arabic phrases.

First and foremost corrupter of the Islam of a man and a woman is his or her own words.

To incessantly utter Allah’s Grand Names as though personal gossip endeavors limitless foulness as opposed to piety.

If you enter a mosque, you notice the men in charge, no matter what you ask or say immediately respond with most profound Islamicalized blabber, usually centered around five to ten verses or Hadiths which they have no understanding of their Tafsir, their grammar nor lexicon.

Spectrum of this instant-blabber is wide ranging from Stem cell research to female hygiene. Knows no national boundaries Arab or Pakistani or Iranian, they just spew large amounts of most imaginative falsehood about Islam and the Prophet.

Our Sayyid The Prophet Peace be upon him said: The best of man’s Islam is his forsaking of what is not his business.

I apply that to my speech: Am I talking about what is directly my business or am I pontificating nonsense to an unsuspecting ear. Found mostly the latter.

Therefore I made these rules for DARA, not instructions to you and the Mankind, exclusively targeted guidelines in Dara’s  personal life for Dara’s speech:

  1. Speak when spoken to and talk about what is my immediate business or fall silent
  2. Speak about what I know, if I do not know say “I do not know”, and then make an attempt to research to learn with hugest verve, get back to the person and inform them accordingly, being it a long time later
  3. Shun any speech about what I do not do! Since Allah hates the actions of those who say what they do not do. I am not generous so I do not write about charity. I am not brave so I do not write about armed struggle. I have had difficulties in my personal life therefore I do not write about man woman relationship or marriage or sex.
  4. Seek yearn no compensation e.g. people following me or expect them to listen to me or call me some lofty title or publish my work or invite me for talks. So I think of my words as arrows, once they leave the bow better hit the target or I will harm someone, unintended target yet fully liable.

Obviously these advice(s) bear a dull life, no one interested to socialize with boring me or invite me to their homes or call me on the day of the Eid and probably the day of my passing no one will attend the funeral.

I ask Allah to aid me to win the battle against the demon in my mouth, the rest matters not!

 

Dara

 

3 thoughts on “Speech: Personal Experience Not Dogma”

  1. I wrote this as a response to himissomi’s post on our verbiage as Muslims.

    I have no authorization to tell him or her how to speak or to write, I cannot issue anyone any guidelines for their speech.

    What I can do and ought to do is to govern and curb my speech, not dogmatic guidelines for Mankind to follow me, but personal guidelines of conduct.

    So we Muslims should watch our mouths: This what I am about to say does it benefit everyone (Muslim or not), does it give them more peace, does it help them to prosper… if not then silence.

  2. لجنة البحث و استرجاع الاملاك الوقفية
    Medea AR
    Personal experience … expressed and shared … to benefit all around.
    I was once (once) touched and truly impressed by one speaker during a lesson between ‘taraweeh’ payers … but could not really say what was so different from the usual … until I inquired about the speaker … and learned that he was a Coptic priest who recently “reverted” to ‘Islam’: he was simply sharing his very personal and direct experience when reading, reciting, listening to the Quran … and its impact on his being/feelings. What was different – and appealed to me – was the absence of any “so and so said” concerning this and that verse … and instead he touched me with his ‘I felt, I understood, etc …
    Obviously, the method was different … and I suspect that the Prophet and his companions spoke similarly from their hearts, directly, expressing the impact of the Message on their being/hearts.
    That method, is now lost … but should be perhaps re-activated both in communicated with one another – from the same faith- and perhaps more importantly with the other – not so familiar with technical terms we use/misuse.
    This realization – about personal direct experience – allowed me to proceed where I felt I was actually stuck – because I lacked the knowledge and tools assumed indispensable , viz. the Arabic language, for experiencing the Quran.
    I had the rudiments of the language … and decided I only needed the bare minimum: my tongue, my ears, my eyes.
    Meaning, at that stage was not important … and it is true, I did not understand much … but kept listening to … my voice and this Quran: I really did not need a translation.
    With time, the very sounds I was uttering began to reveal their true nature, their interplay, their mystery … until I was convinced that some sounds actually announced to me upcoming sounds … Just sound … No meaning yet.
    With time, I now understand … without translation … Rather, my own translation is now happening …

  3. Sorry … First 2 lines have nothing to do wth comment … Is there a way for editing a posted comment ?

Comments are closed.