Good Akhlaq. Where does it come from? Its not and should not be just ‘our love’ for the other person. I think we all know thats just not going to work out! (Especially when the smoke starts to come from our ears lol)
Good akhlaq has to come from our love and our fear of Allah(swt). It has to be for the sake of Allah.
Personally I don’t see any other way I can continue to be kind, generous and forgiving to ‘ALL’ people.
I don’t know how to control my anger at times except for the fear of Allah and hope of his mercy to me.
I don’t know how to be patient with some extremely…… people, except for remembering that Allah(swt) is patient with me all the time, hoping for his mercy and fearing his punishment if I were to lose my patience
I don’t know how to not yell and blast out at someone who has been unjust to me, except for Tawaqul, my trust in Al Wali, remembering that Allah(swt) is the master of the day of judgment, He is Al Haq, The Just One
I have no idea how to help out that friend in her time of need, who so deeply offended me just a little while ago, there is only one reason that can motivate me to do so, the hope for the mercy of Allah, the hope for his forgiveness and gratitude for his gifts.
Why would I want to keep quite even when I know what my parents are saying is actually wrong, except remembering the mercy and patience my Lord shows me every single day. The humility I feel every time I bow down to him, knowing the million times I was wrong and he showed me mercy.
When the mother says get a glass of water in the middle of your favorite tv show, why would you get up? Perhaps because of gratitude you feel towards her, but what if just before that she yelled at you? Would you be able to feel that gratitude? Probably not so much now. But the most powerful gratitude is the gratitude towards Allah(swt), and that power may help you get up. Or even perhaps the fear of his punishment on ignoring mother, might help forget all about the momentary enjoyment of that tv show.
The power of this love for Allah, the gratitude we feel towards him, gives us the power, the motivation to keep giving our best to the people around us.
Our love for people can run out, but our love for Allah (swt) should NEVER run out, this is the most powerful love we can ever feel. This is the love that gives us the strength to be merciful to all others, even when our love for them runs out.
The fear of Allah(swt) stops us, when our desires start becoming bigger just too much
Our trust in Allah(swt) helps us have patience and forgive those who we feel have angered us, whether it maybe a grave injustice or a small one like he broke my toy or he said she said such and such about me :). We know he is always watching and he will give me justice, so I forgive hoping for his mercy to me and leave the justice to him.
Good akhlaq to people is simply generosity. As the Prophet (saws) taught us, smile is charity.
So are the kind words to those who offend us and so is our silence quite in anger.
Generosity clearly is a form of mercy for the people. We show mercy in hopes of mercy from Him and in gratitude of mercy from Him(swt)
To summarise
Trust in Allah, Gratitude, Fear of Allah and Hope in Allah
Brings about mercy in our hearts, making us generous to others
Our mercy and generosity to others is what makes us Patient and forgiving to them.
Our humility towards Allah(swt), humbles us towards people
These fundamentals of our emaan, are the pillars on which our Akhlaq stand.
Build them in children, then remind them of that as you teach them Akhlaq
Good Akhlaq is not just for the sake of having good akhlaq.
These pillars are power sources of good Akhlaq. Good Akhlaq should only be for the sake of our love for Allah.
But there is something even more crucial, on top of which these pillars sit. What is it?
Knowledge!
Knowledge is what will build these pillars, and as they build, beautify them with by building beautiful akhlaq
Keep raising the pillars higher and higher to reach the highest of the levels in Jannah 🙂
Further on this and teenagers next InshaAllah…
Leave your comments below if you find it beneficial, I would love to hear what your thoughts InshaAllah 🙂