A mere reflection?

*There are a few things that I have always hated in people; one of them is pride. I absolutely despise proud people because I believe that nobody deserves to be proud as no one’s perfect and only Allah Ta’ala’s perfect.*

On my first day of university, I became friends with a girl (lets name her Rashida) in the point (university bus) who happens to be one of my closest friends at the moment. Then through different courses and events, I also became friends with other wonderful people. One day as Rashida and I sat together, we started talking about different friends of ours and our predispositions about them. So Rashida laughed and asked, “Should I tell you what I initially thought about you?” and I told her to go ahead. I am always interested in such conversations; actually I’m interested in almost all conversations. She told me that when she initially saw me, she thought I was proud. I burst out laughing because I have always loathed proud people and how could I possibly be proud when that is something I hate in people?

Being thoroughly entertained with Rashida’s remark, I shared this incident with around 5-6 friends of mine and to my surprise 3-4 of them said that they felt the same way when they first saw me. Suddenly, Rashida’s remark didn’t seem so funny anymore and I got extremely confused as to what was happening. How could it be that people saw something in me which I hated so much myself? Anyway, with much discomfort and without further probing into the matter, I let go of this comment, disregarding it as a nasty coincidence, up until recently.

Recently, as I was wondering how to kill time while sitting in one of my classes, I think it was the class of Productions and Operations Management, one of my dearest friends started telling us about the things she had heard in a recent Islamic lecture she attended. (The fact that we were not studying in class and were discussing Islamic matters instead, does not mean that this is the right thing to do. In fact, the right thing to do is to fulfill all our obligations; which means that I should have been listening to my teacher and scribbling down important notes fervently, but I am just a Muslim who isn’t perfect and needs to correct many things in myself.) She said that the speaker told them that many times when we judge people or notice something in other people it is because that very same thing is present within our own selves. She highlighted this through a petty example so that no one took it personally, she said, that usually if you notice the people who are always catching other peoples’ mistakes in a language are usually those people whose own skills at the language are not so impeccable.

I thought that this theory was really cool. Alongside, we were also studying in some detail the use of projective techniques in a course of Methods in Business Research. In simple terms, these techniques allow a person to describe his/her own personality while describing someone or something else. You would have thought that I must have made the connection by now, but I am not so good at catching my own flaws. Therefore, it took me some time to realize that this was exactly why many people had thought that I was proud since the only reason I could notice it in other people was because I was a victim of it myself. I wasn’t sure what to do about this problem as I knew that I have nothing to be proud of and that all the blessings that I have are only due to Allah Ta’ala’s Mercy and Kindness.

So I decided to eliminate pride by not judging people anymore. And yet again, just like I was unaware about the seeds of pride in my heart, I was also unaware that I judged people. But then I started noticing; I noticed that I would sometimes hear some people talk about Islam and I would feel that their words didn’t slip down their tongues and that their words were devoid of all actions. But this time I did not sit down to pity them, instead I felt sorry for my own self; because this judgment was not a judgment at all, instead it was a mere reflection. It takes absolutely no effort to like Islamic posts on facebook or get into religious debates with people but it takes all the effort in the world to correct one’s own actions. I sat down thinking about all the posts I have ever liked or all the good things I have ever said and compared it to my actions and the contrast was simply nauseating.

Therefore, the next time you look at someone and make a judgment, stop and reflect as to whether the same is true for yourself or not. We are quick to point fingers at others, while the truth is that nobody’s perfect and we’re all just struggling in one way or another. Cut other people some slack and give them the benefit of doubt. Judge yourselves if you must because that is the only kind of judging that will benefit us and the people around us. Next time you look at someone else, know that you are in fact just staring at your own self, so see the good in them and ignore their faults. Maybe just this one act of ours might be enough to invoke Allah Ta’ala’s Mercy upon us.

Anything good herein is from Allah Ta’ala and all the faults are of my own.