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Jan 30 2012

Can prophets deserve hellfire?

Prophet Ya’qoub a.s. (also known as Jacob in christianity) had 12 sons. 10 sons from one wife and 2 from another. Those 10 tried to kill their half-brother, Prophet Yusuf (a.k.a. Joseph). I think we’ve all heard the history of their lives and what happened after. The real question is…

…is Prophet Ya’qoub a.s. responsible for the huge sin of his 10 sons trying to kill someone?

Remember, they didn’t just try to kill anyone! They tried to kill their own sibling!

But wait a second, before you give me your answer, let me tell you of a saying, a rumour really, that I heard.

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Wait, what???!!

That’s right. That’s what they said.

There’s this belief that parents are also responsible for the actions of their children, and that husbands are also responsible for the wrongdoings of their wives.

If the wife doesn’t wear the hijab, the husband gets a sin. If the wife doesn’t fast, he gets another sin. If the wife doesn’t pray, then the husband will get a sin along with her.

Hmmm….

We know that a few prophets had wives who didn’t obey the commandments of God such as Nabi Nuh a.s. (a.k.a. Noah). If the previous concept is true, then would he also have to take on the sins of his wife? If his wife deserved hellfire, would he deserve it too?

There are prophets whose sons and daughters committed grievous acts such as Nabi Ya’qoub a.s. Is he responsible for their sins too?

Justice in Islam

That belief we were discussing just now? The concept is flawed. It breaks away from the concept of justice in Islam where you can only be responsible for your own sins. Such a belief directly conflicts with what is written in the holy Qur’an:

And no soul earns (sins) but against itself, and no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another;

[Qur'an 6:164]

So where is this idea coming from? And what do you do when you hear this idea from someone? And what if that person is someone who you trust completely?

You can’t contradict the Qur’an

Here’s your answer:

It doesn’t matter how credible they are, they cannot contradict the Qur’an.

Even if you found a hadith that supported this belief, throw it away, because that hadith has to be weak. Otherwise, it would never contradict Al-Qur’an. Nothing can or should contradict the Qur’an, not even a hadith. Not even a hadith, and not anyone else, no matter what his credentials.

Remember this well, because the Qur’an is the highest source of authority in Islam. And anything that contradicts it can’t be accepted.

So… do you get off scot-free?

No, the husband/father does have a duty. But his duty is simply to educate and advise those who are under his care. But this isn’t something that’s special to his role as husband or father. You have a role to educate and advise anybody that is under your care.

If the husband/father has done his duty to educate and advise his wife and children, he is then free of blame for any actions they might take.

What kind of justice would it be if you had to carry the blame and sins for what someone else had done?

I’m sad to hear that people actually believe in something that so clearly contradicts the Qur’an. I would be sadder if I found out that people are actually spreading it to others.

If this concept was correct, then wouldn’t it be wajib (compulsory) to disown your son or divorce your wife in order to free yourself from their sins? This concept is illogical and flawed and we should not (and cannot!) believe it.

So, let’s fix that sentence. Before:

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children.

After:

Fathers and husbands are responsible to educate their wives and their children. If they (the wives and children) still do not obey Allah, that is their sin and their sin alone.

It is a different story if you are the one who tells them to commit a sin. Then of course, you are to blame. Again, this isn’t something special to the role of husband/father. You would be to blame if you told anyone to commit a sin.

When you say that someone else also “bears your burdens” and bears your sins, you are saying something more as well. You’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand that a person should only be punished for his own misdeeds. You’re saying that Islam is a religion that is unfair to its followers and can place sins on someone for something they haven’t done! You’re saying…

…you’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand justice.

Back to the question

So the question was, “would Prophet Ya’qoub be responsible?”

And the answer would be NO. He already educated them and taught them what was right. After all, what are you going to do if your wife or daughter doesn’t wear hijab? Or if your son drinks? Divorce and disown them? Ridiculous.

If they fail to follow you, you must remember that it is only Allah that gives guidance, and we can only spread His message.

It is true you will not be able to guide every one who you love; but Allah guides those who He will and He knows best those who receive guidance.

[Qur'an 28:56]

Postscript

Please do your research before spreading gossip. Because gossip is what this is. Unfounded rumors without any evidence to support it. It’s bad enough for you to believe in something that’s false. It’s many times worse when you try to drag others down with you. It is worst of all when you take down the image of Islam with you, and say that Islam is unjust.

So, from now on, when you hear that “fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children”, you know what to do! Tell them that the principle of justice, whether based on Islam or any instinctive universal value, will not place the mistakes of one person onto another.

 

Note: I only fully understood this after a very interesting discussion with my dad.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Reflections • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Dec 20 2011

The mistake you can learn from… and the mistake you can’t

We are so afraid of making mistakes!

Let me first tell you about my experience in teaching classes, then explore how not making mistakes affects us even after school is over.

Whenever I teach a class or teach a student one-on-one, my biggest obstacle is always to get them to start answering questions. And I know why. Normal school has taught us that if we can’t answer a question correctly, we shouldn’t answer at all!

Every once in a while, I’ll even have a student who has it so bad that I’m forced to reveal to them an amazing truth (it’s actually not that amazing):

You’re coming to this class because you don’t know the answer

It’s fairly obvious but it seems to have been forgotten by the students (and teachers alike). We come to the class and for some reason expect the students to give the correct answer straight away. Ridiculous. They should be expected to get it wrong at first.

However, it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault. If you’re a teacher, you’ll start off loving the job. It’s rewarding, it gives you freedom to choose the way you teach, you get feedback almost instantly… basically it has almost all the characteristics of an excellent job (except for the pay). What’s not to love?

Then after a year of having students who never put in any effort to study, you start to lose interest in trying to teach people who don’t want to learn. After 2 years, you start getting frustrated. As the years go on, you lose patience with those students who keep on giving wrong answers. That’s when you just start lumping them all together with the students who never want to study.

But there’s a fundamental truth about school. School is where you go to learn. Which, by definition, means that you don’t know yet. You can’t be angry at someone for answering a question wrong about something he’s not supposed to know yet.

Obviously, I’m talking about classes here, and not exams. Be as wrong as you like in class, and quizzes, and homework. At that point, the more important fact should be that you’re putting in the effort and learning to do things. You should be angry at someone for not putting in effort, not for getting an answer wrong.

But over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more people saying:

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

That’s all fine and well, but it starts giving people an excuse to make mistakes and screw up their life. Hey there! Wait a second… am I supporting mistakes or saying that they can screw up your life?

It turns out that there are 3 different kinds of mistakes that we can do (oh, did the title imply only 2? Oops). We should only really be allowing ourselves to make mistakes in 2. The last mistake is the one that leads us to regret.

The honest mistake

This mistake is the most basic. It’s the kind of mistake you do for trivial things, often because you simply forgot.

Mistakes like forgetting to buy the milk, or being late for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic.

These mistakes aren’t a big deal. They should be worked on though. Notice these mistakes and keep track of them. If you start noticing that you’re doing some of these mistakes over and over again, you’ll have to find a workaround that will fix it.

If you’re always forgetting appointments, get a calendar. If you’re always forgetting where you put your keys, have a designated place to put them and never put them anywhere else. If you’re always 15 minutes late to appointments, go out 15 minutes early.

But the honest mistake is the least of your worries. These mistakes aren’t usually the reason that you start to sit around with your friends wondering what you’re doing with your life.

The mistake that you can learn from

One mistake is the variety of a mistake that happens because you don’t have the skills, or you haven’t learned enough yet. These are fine and this is what is meant when they say,

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

OR my favourite way of saying it:

Fail fast and fail often

Failing in this way is an important part of learning. You don’t learn anything from the field until you get into the field. To put it another way, you don’t know what’s important to your project until you actually start the project. If  you do know, it’s because you’ve done it before (and failed and learned from your mistakes before) or you’re smart enough to learn from someone else, whether it be a person or books.

It’s linked very strongly with perfectionist paralysis and making a fast decision. Whenever I notice myself researching too long before making a decision, I know that part of it is the fear of making a mistake. The fear of failure.

To avoid making a mistake, we spend waaayyyy too much time researching and gathering enough information rather than acting and gaining feedback about the choice on the way. Whenever I do this, it’s because I want to do the thing right. And for some reason, that means to me that if I can’t do it right, I shouldn’t do it at all.

And so I go on this endless search for more and more information. Does this sound familiar to you?

But this search can only really be satisfied once I’ve found someone who’s gone through the exact same experience that I can learn from. So what’s actually happening here is that i’m learning from their feedback from the project. Sometimes this is feasible.

At other times, the project is just too new or there’s no one that I know who’s gone through the same thing. What do you do then?

This is when you start the project anyway and learn about the project as it’s going on. Because the truth is that the only way you’ll learn about what is important in a project and what’s needed to make it successful is to go through it, whether through someone else’s experience or your own.

This is when you should make mistakes. And this is when you should learn from them.

The mistake you should never do

So what is this other mistake that you can’t learn from? This other mistake that you should never do?

The mistake that I mean here is the mistake that you make with your life choices. I lied a little. You might actually learn from a mistake made with your life choices, but more often than not, it results in regret that eats away at the soul.

In the skills mistake, no matter how many times you fail, you won’t regret it because it’s all effort being put in the right direction. You’re trying to learn a new skill and failing while learning that is fine, because the goal you have is worth it. Failing in the right direction is a good thing.

But this mistake, this mistake about your life choices, it makes you look back on it, trying to see if you could have done something about it, blaming yourself that your current life is like this due to that ONE mistake.

Here’s the thing, it’s not actually true. People like imagining that if only they were rich, or thinner, or had a job, their life would be perfect just like those people they admire (and envy and hate) because their life is oh-so-perfect. It’s not actually true since having just that one thing probably WON’T solve all their problems. But our human minds will still obsess over that one thing, that one mistake, again and again and again.

So what kind of mistake do I mean when I say mistakes about life choices?

It’s the mistakes you make when you forget your principles and go against them.

It’s the mistakes you make when you go against your core values. If you felt strongly about the environment, how would you feel if you threw trash by the side of the road because you couldn’t find a trash can nearby? I know I know, you wouldn’t. But if you did, you would remember it, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Or if you thought you were a gentleman, but you made a girl cry. That would pretty much haunt you forever. What if you wanted to be a great parent, but you missed your daughter’s school show?

These are the kinds of mistakes that can go against your core values, whatever they are, and cause regret for a long long time to come.

But the truth is that this 3rd mistake is easy to avoid. You can either set a goal and know what you want or set your parameters and know how to guide your life. Have core values. Avoid regret.

Knowing what you regret BEFORE you regret it

At this point, my words might not seem feasible. To not have regret, you have to avoid the things that would make you regret. To do that, you would first have to make a “mistake” and experience it first. That’s the only way to know what you would regret. Right?

If you’re guessing that I said wrong, then congratulations. You’re starting to figure me out.

You can figure out what you’ll regret in the same way that you can figure out what will make you passionate. Notice what you feel strongly about. When you do something, or when you hear about somebody else doing something, notice what you feel strongly about.

For example, if you feel strongly about children, then it might be best to stay away from abortions. And if you feel strongly about your religion, perhaps it’s best to stay away from the sins your religion has. Do you feel strongly about honesty? Don’t lie to friends and family (lying on surveys is usually considered ok. I’ll forgive you for that).

Here are some ways to figure out what you feel strongly about:

  1. Go out and experience life. Notice how you feel about things.
  2. Talk to friends. Hear their stories. Notice what you feel as you hear them.
  3. When meeting people, ask them their stories. People love to tell you their stories. Most of the time they’re quite interesting.  Ask why they did what they did. Ask them if they ever regretted doing [fill in the blanks here]. Again, notice if you felt strongly about any part of their stories.
  4. Read books.

I’ve honestly learnt the most about myself from listening to stories of others. It doesn’t hurt that I love stories and that I love learning about people. Especially when a senior speaks, they have so much to tell from their lives that it’s always a joy to sit and listen to what they have to say. You can’t just let them talk though.

I’ve learnt to ask the questions I want so that they tell me about what their life was like, and why they chose what they chose. I don’t know why friends of my age (25-ish) are bored listening to their elders. I love it.

By listening to them tell their tales, I can then notice the times when I have the urge to stop them and say,“No! You should have done this instead.” But you see, that was their life. That was how they wanted to live it. And now I know that if the same situation ever happened to me, I’d know which choice would feel right to me. Which choice would fit in with my core values.

Over time the picture of your core values, of your principles, becomes clearer and clearer.

Once you figure it out, making a choice becomes much easier. If a decision ever goes against any of your core values, reject that decision immediately. It’s that simple. No more thought required. The moment you go against your core values is the moment you start to regret your choices.

And when you regret that choice, you’ll learn a little something about yourself, but it’ll just be too little too late.

Don’t screw up your life. Don’t make mistakes that you’ll have no time to learn from (and even if you did, would be useless because it’s too late). Learn what would make you regret.

Then…

…DON’T make that mistake.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Reflections • 2 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Oct 23 2011

I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions…

The world is fast-paced nowadays. There’s barely enough time to get everything done, much less enough time to double-check everything and make sure that you know what you’re getting into. It’s a world of do, do, do.

Step back and smell the roses

You hear them say it, and you know you’d like to, but you just don’t have enough time. The next big project is just around the corner, and there’s another debate this weekend, and you already have 3 deadlines on the horizon and on and on and on… And so, when decisions come around, we sometimes don’t research them properly.

We feel smart. We feel like we know what we’re stepping into. Changing jobs? Buying a house? Furthering your studies? Getting married? Most people I know will research how to do it. I believe very few ever try to find out how it is to live in the shoes of someone who woks in that company. Or is a house owner at that location. Or is doing his post-graduate studies. Or is married. You get the picture.

I know the facts. I’ve got Wikipedia.

We’ve turned into a society of

I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions…

because with all the world at our fingertips, with all the articles and expertise of the world on the internet, we’ve started to feel like we know it all. Wikipedia has given us data and facts about every possible subject, and we’ve confused having the facts with being  smart and knowledgeable. We don’t bother reading the fine print to understand the consequences of our choices. Rather, we just press ‘NEXT’ and expect the world to have prepared a way for us. Newsflash: sometimes… there isn’t a way.

Sometimes, you step into your decision and only then realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. Well then, too late. You already agreed to them, didn’t you? The terms and conditions of making that decision in the first place.

It’s a wide world out there. Before I graduated and stepped into that wide, unforgiving world, I was lucky enough to have a sister who was candid enough to tell me how the world really was. Specifically, the working life. I’d heard stories before of people going back from the office late and having to work weekends, but they never really bothered me. After all, they were stories.

Thank God for my sister

But my sister made me understand what those stories really meant. It meant late nights pleasing a boss who couldn’t care less about you (seriously, if you were fired, do you think he’d keep your position empty in protest? Hah, good luck with that), weekends spent in a cold office, far away from the light of the sun, and 2 hours of commuting back and forth daily (that’s 2 hours out of 18 waking hours, thankyouverymuch. More than 10% of my valuable time). Lucky for her, she didn’t have to go through all that, but she told me stories of those who did. It’s a miserable existence, when the whole purpose of getting a job is to help you live a happier life in the first place.

So the question was, before I entered the workforce, did I read all the terms and conditions of my choice? Or would I join the industry expecting an ideal job, only to be rudely awakened by the harsh realities of life? I did my research. I didn’t ask about salaries and how fast I could get promoted (although that was important too). I asked about working hours and commuting distances and whether I could ever live with myself doing that job. It wasn’t for me. I read the terms and I didn’t like them. I just couldn’t see myself as a salesperson selling technical things or as a technician installing products at the client’s offices. I wanted to be an engineer dammit! I wanted to do research and make new inventions, I wanted to find problems in society and find new ways of solving them, I wanted to be an engineer!

Facing a decision

So, facing a decision, I made my choice. And it’s a choice I’m happy with so far. It let’s me do what makes me happy. And I’m glad for that.

By Lutfi Torla • Making Plans • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

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