Self Development: Good Character And Productive Relationships.
Self-development is what we want to achieve- to live our lives to the fullest, to please Allah and to make it to the akhira as righteous believers worthy of jannah. For that to happen we need to know ourselves, to strengthen our character; keep up the good habits and change or improve on the bad. We need to know our purpose in life as muslims, our principles and our values. And it’s essential to have goals and an aim to reach them.
From the hadiths above we can easily say character is part of our deen. Islam demands that we are of good character, which means having good character is more than just for this dunya, it surpasses it, it’s a worship and we get rewarded for it. A smile can make a difference in a persons day, a smile can be the beginning of goodness and to top it up it’s sadaqa.
Our character influences our environment. And our environment is essential for our development. If we want to better ourselves we need to better our surrounding because it impacts us directly or indirectly. Our relationship with people says a lot about our character. How we treat people reflects who we are, positivity and negativity radiates. When we program our minds to see the worse in people or things, no matter what a person does all we will see is the absolute worse. And people with traits like this always have problems with people around them and in turn deeper problems with themselves. And that is no road for development. Islam creates a pathway for us to live in peace and harmony, giving us rights and duties to make things easy for us and to have productive relationships. And in these rights and duties our character is at play.
Right is a moral or legal entitlement to have or do something while duty is the moral or legal obligation to do something.
We are entitled to rights and we have duties upon us, which are;
The rights of Allah
The rights of the Prophet
The rights of parents
The rights of children
The rights of relatives
The rights of spouses
The rights of the governors and the governed
The rights of the neighbors
The rights of Muslims in general
The rights of non-muslims.
These are some of the duties we have to undertake and our rights.
The rights of Allah are that we worship Him alone and obey Him.
Rights of the prophet; love, honor and respect him and his household. And also accept and believe whatever message he brings.
Rights of parents; respect them, treat them with kindness and obedience (as long as what they demand is not against Islam), take care of them in old age and sickness and be thankful to them.
Rights of children; their parents or guardians should give them the proper upbringing in way of Islam. Cloth, feed and educated them and treat them fairly between their siblings.
Rights of relatives; maintain the ties of kinship; visiting, phone calls, kindness, respect.
Rights of spouse; respect and be kind to each other. The woman has the right to be fed, clothed, educated and treated fairly between her co-wives. The man has the right to be obeyed ( as long as what he demand’s doesn’t go against Islam), his property should be taken cared of and his secret should be kept.
Rights of the governors and the governed; it is the governors right to be obeyed and supported by the governed (as long as what they demand doesn’t go against Islam). And it is their duty and (the right of the governed) that they advise the governed on matters entrusted to them and to do what is best for the people.
Rights of our neighbors; treat them with kindness and preserve them against harm.
Rights of muslims; The Prophet (SAW) said, ‘The rights of one Muslim over another are six.
- If you meet him, greet him with salaam
- If he invites you, accept the invitation
- If he asks for advice, give him sincere advice
- If he sneezes and praises Allah, ask Allah’s mercy on him
- If he falls sick, visit him
- And if he dies, attend his funeral .
Rights of non-muslims
- Those fighting us have no right on us, nor protection nor assistance.
- Those requesting shelter have upon us a right of protection during the time and place set for their shelter, according to the word of Allah.
- Those who have an agreement with us have a right upon us that we may respect their agreement until the designated term between them and us
- The people of the book have the rights to receive good treatment, protection of life and honor.
Ya Rahman! Even non-muslims have rights on us, that means we don’t have a choice but to be good people of good character, to uphold our duties and stand for our rights. And this might not be easy especially since we leave in a world of oppression and evil. It’s tiring when you’re the one who makes the effort; try to keep in touch with family and friends, try to be the good neighbor, follow the authority, give your children everything within your power in the way of Islam, respect your parent. Yet, relatives and friends take ages to answer the phone, neighbors have no regards for you, the authority oppresses, steals from you, lie and put you in harm’s way. Nonetheless, it’s no reason to give up on our duties, if we can fight for our rights, then we fight for them. There is good and evil in everything, we choose where we stand, ask Allah for strength, guidance and patience.
O Allah guide me to the best of manners, for none guides to them except you. Remove from me bad manners. For none can remove them from me except You.(Sahih Muslim)
A man said to the Prophet (SAW), ‘I have relatives with whom I try to keep the ties of relationship but they sever relations with me; and whom I treat kindly but they treat me badly, I am gentle with them but they are rough to me.’ The prophet replied, ‘If you are as you say, it is as if you are feeding them hot ashes, and you will be with a supporter against them from Allah as long as you continue to do so.
However, without pretense, we are all guilty of playing one or more of these cards. Subhanallah, may Allah forgive us. We live in times where we have no regards for our parents. If we don’t respect our parent, if we are not kind to the people who bore us to this world, sacrificed more than we can ever imagine, then who is worthy of our kindness? And of course it makes sense that our children have no regards for us. It’s a circle.
We cry of oppression, yet given the slightest chance we become the oppressors. And in turn, all these bad characters has brought nothing but the opposite of peace, we live in sadness, pain and hate because we are wicked and evil to each other,we have deviated from the path of Allah. The path that is meant for us, to succeed and be the best of ourselves.
Bad characters are usually easy to take in and good is hard, but we were never meant to do things by ourselves. Allah is there for us, to guide us from ourselves. It’s very easy to want revenge but it doesn’t change anything. We need patience when dealing with people, hell, we need patience when dealing with ourselves, more patience than when dealing with others.
To solve a problem, you need to identify it, to identify it you need to accept that it is a problem. And acceptance doesn’t come until there is honesty.
To change our character we need to be honest with ourselves. We should learn to normalize accountability and be comfortable with honesty. Create a space where you love yourself enough to motivate yourself. Pat yourself at the back, yet, when you’re in the wrong, you call yourself out. Identify the flaw and look for a solution.
These are what constitute a good character. Kindness, humilty, patiences, truthfulness, forgiveness, calmness, compassion, love… And when we find this in ourselves, then we can truly grow; spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally in Allah’s way and in this dunya. And perhaps we might leave an impression on someone, inspire them, to be better and grow. And what is better than striving in the way of Allah and inspiring others to do so.
