Everyone Acts According to His Own Nature

A faith-rooted, educational meditation on bearing the harm of one's peers with patience, and on how the talk of peers is folded away and not retold once the marks of caprice appear in it — together with a balance that preserves the door of sincere counsel. By Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Ali Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy.

No wound is like the wound of a word that issues from the mouth of someone close. The arrow of a distant enemy misses its mark or is parried; but the blade forged by your equal in the craft, your rival in the field — that one pierces through, for its bearer knows your vital spots and knows how to place the accusation just where it hurts. The bitterest part of it is that you stand caught between two helplessnesses: you can neither refute the slander, for that would exhaust you, nor refute those who speak it, for that would corrupt your heart; so you hold the pen bewildered, and bow your head with the bowing of one weighed down. In this very moment — when the earth, for all its breadth, grows narrow about you — the light of a verse descends upon the heart, restoring it to its right mind and releasing it from captivity to preoccupation with adversaries.

The Qurʾanic Anchor: ﴿Say, each acts according to his own nature﴿

God Most High said to His Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace: ﴿Say, each acts according to his own nature﴿ [al-Isrāʾ: 84]. The "nature" (shākilah) — as the people of exegesis have determined — is the way, the bent, and the disposition upon which a person has been molded. Ibn ʿAbbās said: "according to his bent"; Mujāhid said: "according to his own way and disposition"; Qatādah said: "according to his intention"; and Ibn Zayd said: "according to his religion."^[1] People, then, are like mines, and every vessel oozes with what it contains: whoever's nature is goodness does good, and whoever's nature is hinting and taunting hints and taunts, and nothing issues from a man but what resembles his root. So once this settles in your heart, occupy yourself with the craft of your own good conduct, and entrust those people and their nature to the Knower of secrets; for the verdict is neither in your hand nor in theirs — rather, the judgment has been raised up to the One who knows the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal: ﴿So your Lord is most knowing of who is best guided in way﴿ [al-Isrāʾ: 84]. And in this closing there is a comfort vast enough to embrace the universe: so long as the Judge is God, what toil is there in establishing the proof against His servants?

A Standing Way That Befell the Summits

Then consider: affliction by tongues is no novelty in time; rather it is an ancient way (sunnah) from which no summit has been spared. The prophets — and they are God's elect among His creation — were accused of sorcery, madness, and lying, until a Qurʾan was sent down on this matter, consoling and affirming that this is the way of the messengers.^[2] And the Mother of the Believers, ʿĀʾishah the Truthful, daughter of the Truthful, was slandered in the purest of matters; the revelation withheld itself from her for days that lay heavy, as though they were an age, until her vindication came down from above the seven heavens, to be recited until the Hour stands. So if neither a sent prophet nor a pure, truthful woman escaped the arrows of tongues, who are we — may God preserve you — to covet a well-being that was not attained by one a thousand times better than us? In this knowledge alone half the pain is eased; for the afflicted one knows that he walks upon a path leveled by the feet of the great.

The Scholars' Rule: "The Talk of Peers Is Folded, Not Retold"

The people of knowledge have, in this matter, a fine and precious balance: that one peer's disparagement of another is not heeded once the marks of rivalry, caprice, or envy appear upon it; they made it like tainted water, neither to be drunk nor to give drink. The Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī — may God have mercy on him — uttered a word that became a foundation inherited by the critics: "The talk of peers against one another is of no account — especially when it appears to you that it is out of enmity, or schism, or envy; and none is saved from it but whom God has protected. I have not known any era whose people were spared from this save the prophets and the truthful ones; and were I to wish, I could string together quires of it."^[3] See, then, how the imam made the pivot of rejection or acceptance the intention of the speaker rather than the surface of his words; for if the scent of rivalry is caught in it, it is folded up like a closed register, and made neither a breach in anyone's honor nor a slight upon his knowledge. By this balance the honor of the imams was preserved from being torn down, one by another, over a word spoken in an hour of anger.

Tales from the Record of Knowledge

And because parables are more eloquent than plain assertion, and the recounting of what actually happened is more firmly fixed in the heart than the abstract rule, here are three tales from our scholarly history, all of them bearing witness that the froth goes off as scum, while what benefits people abides in the earth.

First — The Imam of the Traditionists in Naysābūr: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī came to Naysābūr, and its people went out to receive him two and three stages' distance away. His pupil Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj says: "I never saw a governor nor a scholar treated as Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl was treated." When his standing grew great and the students thronged about him, a hidden jealousy stirred in souls, and then a foothold was found for it in the question of "the pronunciation of the Qurʾan": for al-Bukhārī held as his creed that the Qurʾan is the uncreated speech of God, deemed the acts of God's servants to be created, and refrained from an ambiguous phrase by way of blocking the pretext. His words were taken in a sense other than their proper one, and things he never said were spread about him, until people cut themselves off from him and he was harmed; so he left Naysābūr, suppressing his grief and bearing it with patience.^[4] Then behold the handiwork of the Subtle, the All-Aware: He folded that trial into lines that historians recite as a lesson, and left for the Ummah "al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ," the soundest book after the Book of God, to which mounts are spurred and which is received with acceptance in every land. Where, then, is the talk that was uttered? It went off as scum, and the knowledge remained, abiding in the earth. All of this took place together with the eminence of the country's master, the imam Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī; the matter is of the kind that arises among the great ones, with no slight upon anyone.

Second — The Imam of the People of the Sunnah in his ordeal: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was tried in the affair of the doctrine of the Qurʾan's createdness. He was summoned to a single word which, had he uttered it, would have eased his body and pleased the sultan; but he refused to say of God what he did not know, and so there befell him of imprisonment and lashes what mountains would buckle under — patient, unyielding, saying: "I will not assent to what I do not know." When people lost all patience with him, and the conjecturers supposed that his voice had been hushed, God refused anything but to raise his renown by him; for when the affair came to al-Mutawakkil the ordeal was lifted, and the man's rank rose until he became a banner for the people of the Sunnah, pointed out as an example, and the world was filled with his praise, while the words of his adversaries were buried beneath the feet of time.^[5] He was patient for an hour, and so inherited a renown that never wears out. Thus does God deal with whoever is true with Him: He grants him for patience what He does not grant for speech.

Third — Imams whom the tongue reached, then it was folded away and their knowledge remained: Here is the Imam of the exegetes, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, author of "Jāmiʿ al-Bayān" and "Tārīkh al-Umam." A quarrel arose between him and some of his contemporaries, and the ignorant among the common folk hurled at him that of which he was innocent, to the point that he was prevented from being buried by day, so he was buried by night in his own house. Then consider how time and fair judgment vindicated him, for al-Dhahabī said of him: "The imam, the standard-bearer, the independent jurist, the scholar of the age… he was among the singular men of the era in knowledge, intelligence, and the abundance of his works; rarely do eyes behold his like."^[6] And here is the Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī, who said in his lecture a brief word in enumerating the attributes of prophethood: "Prophethood is knowledge and action." It was taken in the worst possible sense, and grave charges were hurled at him, and he was expelled from Sijistān; then his word was carried back to its sound meaning, the people of knowledge clarified his intent, and God preserved for him "al-Ṣaḥīḥ" and "al-Thiqāt," which circulate in the circles of learning to this day.^[7] All of these are witnesses to a single way: that the talk of peers is folded away, while pure knowledge abides.

The Educational Fruit

How greatly, then, do the reformer, the scholar, and the caller need to make this wisdom a provision for their road: that one proceed upon one's own goodly nature without turning aside, neither drained by refuting every slander, nor depleted by tracking down every speaker, nor making his compass the pleasure of people but rather the pleasure of the Lord of people — certain that God guards the pure of deed, hurls the truth against falsehood and crushes it, makes the froth pass away and keeps what benefits: ﴿As for the froth, it passes away as scum; but as for that which benefits people, it abides in the earth﴿ [al-Raʿd: 17]. And just as he guards against the wound done to him, let him guard — and this is more fitting — against being himself the wounder of his brothers; for whoever asks God to fold the tongues of people away from him is the more deserving to fold his own tongue away from his peers, neither hinting at a rival, nor taunting a competitor, nor building his glory upon the ruins of another's; for that is the chivalry of knowledge and the adornment of its pursuit.

Yet fairness requires a balance that does not tilt: not every word from someone close is calumny, nor is every dissenter envious, nor is every criticism a baseless wound. For among the talk of peers there is counsel backed by proof that is to be accepted even if it comes from a rival; only that is folded away in which the marks of caprice appear and which is devoid of evidence. So let a person not take this wisdom as a shield with which to ward off honest review of himself, nor as a door he shuts against advice that would benefit him; for it is part of understanding one's own soul that you weigh a saying by its proof and not merely by its sayer, and that you accept the truth from whoever brings it, be he who he may. By this there is joined for the servant both a good opinion of himself when he is wronged unjustly, and a sound scrutiny of his own faults when he is sincerely counseled.

Conclusion

Be at rest; for the One who undertook to preserve the Remembrance has undertaken to preserve every pure deed raised up to Him — with Him not so much as an atom's weight is lost. Proceed upon the nature you would be content to meet God upon, and let the tongues say what they will; for they are but foam upon the face of the torrent, bound for ebbing and vanishing, while your righteous deed is like a clear spring, bound for endurance and extension. He who slanders will not harm you so long as between you and God there is truthfulness; so make your concern the perfecting of the deed, not the silencing of the adversary. In the caravan of the great — from the prophets to the imams — there is an example and a consolation, and in God's promise there is a serenity that spares the heart the burden of reply: ﴿And say, "Work, for God will see your work, and His Messenger and the believers"﴿ [al-Tawbah: 105].