By M.M. Hassan Abdulhadi Al-Lami
As long as you are alive, you will encounter different types of people and various temperaments. The poet said:
People are diverse when you experience them … they are not equal, just as trees differ.
Some bear sweet-tasting fruit … while others are bitter, offering no sweetness.
Between an envious person exaggerating in their hostility and a flatterer overlooking your faults, people lack a fair standard of judgment.
If you make a mistake, their tongues will grind you with the molars of criticism, tearing your reputation apart by digging up your flaws and mentioning your faults, as if there’s no good in you:
They expose the shirt of your sins as if they never wore it;
And they fold away the robes of your virtues as if your star never shone in the skies of excellence and perfection.
As the poet aptly said:
Whoever invites people to criticize him … they will blame him rightly or wrongly.
Criticism travels to its target … faster than a rushing torrent.
Even the best of creation did not escape people’s words! And even God Himself—they crossed their limits toward Him, the Almighty.
They do not hold back their vicious tongues from people of virtue, nor do their arrows and spears miss those of ignorance and foolishness.
What’s worse is that some of them may praise you and spread your virtues to the public, but as days pass, life’s turns and twists may change their stance. They may disregard you, carry no concern for your matters, and even conspire against you, plotting schemes and accusing you of the worst traits, attaching disgraceful and repulsive labels to your reputation.
To evaluate yourself away from their opinions and realize that their judgments hold no weight unless they align with reality, you are the one who should examine the truth of your condition and what defines you. If you hold a “walnut” and they say it’s a “pearl,” or vice versa, does their statement have any value if it doesn’t match the reality of what you hold?
This is what the scholar Imam Musa bin Ja’far Al-Kadhim advised Hisham bin Al-Hakam when he said:
“O Hisham, if you held a walnut in your hand and people said it was a pearl, it would not benefit you while you know it is a walnut. And if you held a pearl and people said it was a walnut, it would not harm you while you know it is a pearl.” (Tuhaf al-Uqul: 383)
Completely ignoring people’s words is an extreme of negligence, while paying full attention to all their words and taking them seriously is an extreme of excessiveness. The criterion is your trust in what God has bestowed upon you in terms of intellect, awareness, and insight. Examine their opinions with a scrutinizing and impartial eye. If what they say is true, then a conscious believer should hasten to correct and amend. But if what they say is false, how can it harm you when you are righteous, pure, and free from their accusations? Indeed, what harms may turn out to be a blessing in disguise!
“They want your downfall, but God will turn their words into a path to people’s hearts and their love for you”:
If God wills to spread a hidden virtue … He grants it the tongue of an envious person.
