Treating People Right: The Path to Paradise

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

The crowd in the masjid is quietly contemplating the words of the Friday Sermon while Jamila stares in silence at the carpet beneath her. The Imam is giving a reminder on the evils of lying. Jamila thinks, “I know exactly what kind of person the Imam is talking about. Batool lied to my face about why she showed up late to the party last week. Unbelievable. And she’s not even here to listen to what the Imam is saying…” 

For several days after attending this sermon, Jamila rolls her eyes at the mere mention of Batool. Eventually she finds excuses to talk about Batool’s faults to a few people she knows. Soon, Jamila and her friends discuss the latest drama about Batool whenever they’re together. Talking about Batool when she’s not there becomes so enticing to mention and it sometimes even feels exciting to be in on the latest gossip. Jamila never realized that Batool had a completely valid reason for being late to that party, and Batool felt embarrassed to discuss it in front of everyone when she asked. Ideally, Jamila wouldn’t have concerned herself at all with Batool and her shortcomings. Jamila should have been worrying about her own habit of backbiting.

That said, if Jamila felt hurt by something Batool did, it would have been fine to confide in someone she trusts to sort out her own feelings about the situation. But she still has to be careful about jumping to conclusions or vilifying Batool, who is actually a friend of hers at the end of the day. Backbiting is a serious crime, so we can’t let small excuses make us get carried away. Shaytaan is constantly looking for the smallest opening to get us to do wrong and cause a rift between people.

Being a good person includes treating people well, starting with family, then our friends and fellow Muslims, and even extends to our neighbors. There is a high reward for treating the people around us with respect. One hadith of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ summarizes this well:

“The most beloved people to Allah are those who are most beneficial to people. The most beloved deed to Allah is to make a Muslim happy, or remove one of his troubles, or forgive his debt, or feed his hunger. That I walk with a brother regarding a need is more beloved to me than that I seclude myself in this mosque in Medina for a month. Whoever swallows his anger, then Allah will conceal his faults. Whoever suppresses his rage, even though he could fulfill his anger if he wished, then Allah will secure his heart on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever walks with his brother regarding a need until he secures it for him, then Allah Almighty will make his footing firm across the bridge on the day when the footings are shaken.” – Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

The very last event on the Day of Judgement – before the believers are allowed to enter Paradise – is the exchanging of deeds. At this place, any wrong that anyone did to another person will cost them their good deeds. Any slander, lies, and other abuses of people that someone committed will automatically send the good deeds to the person that was wronged, and in exchange, the offender will take their bad deeds. Some people will be sent to Hell as a result of this exchange, and others will rise in their ranks in Paradise because of what they endured. 

I think about this a lot, the fact that I might be doing good deeds like prayer or charity or fasting individually, but if I overlooked another person and harmed them or their reputation, that will snatch those good deeds away from my record. At the end of the day, we can’t pry open a person’s heart and discern their true intentions or know if they are secretly asking Allah’s forgiveness in the moments when no one is watching. We might never know the status of a person in the eyes of Allah, so it’s better to treat the people around us with dignity and honor – and worry about rectifying our own shortcomings before pointing fingers at others.