Q: “Should we be gentle or strict with Muslims who don’t follow rulings like prayer or eating halal?”

 

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Q: “Should we be gentle or strict with Muslims who don’t follow rulings like prayer or eating halal?”

A: Start with a simple test of the strict approach. Being harsh and yelling at someone will not bring them closer to Islam, so ask yourself: if a person prays only because you yelled at them, did they pray for Allah, was it sincere and did it count for anything? This religion is worthless to someone who does not believe in it and it is worthless to someone who performs an act without the right intention, which means the appearance of obedience is not the goal.

The deeper principle is that behaviors are byproducts of beliefs and attitudes. When someone is not practicing, the real question is whether this is a behavioral problem or a belief and attitude problem, because becoming strict with the behavior through yelling, humiliating, bullying, guilting and shaming, while ignoring the underlying worldview or emotional state, is exactly the wrong approach. You cannot change someone’s worldview by being harsh with them. Sometimes the motivation is intellectual, sometimes it is emotional, as in someone who says they are angry with Allah and so they do not pray and often it is both at once.

What actually helps is empathetic, reasonable conversation. Process the feelings honestly and work patiently toward a point where the person can say for themselves that their feelings cannot dictate what is true and what is false. We have to stop being obsessed with the appearance of compliance and become obsessed with the spirit of it, because the only question that finally matters is whether the heart is getting closer to Allah. This was never a dictatorial religion, it is a religion of thought and a liberated heart and people are drawn to that far more than they are ever driven by force.

This is from the Live Bayyinah TV Q&A with Ustadh Nouman. Have a question about an ayah like this one? Ask it directly in our new Revealed app: https://byna.tv/revealed6

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