Page 74 - The Mercy of Believers

72
THE MERCY OF BELIEVERS

ing or staggering can be made a mockery of.
However, believers never descend to such behaviour.
After all, they know that mockery is severely condemned in
the Qur'an and that it is conduct disapproved of by Allah:

You who believe! People should not ridicule others
who may be better than themselves; nor should any
women ridicule other women who may be better
than themselves… (Surat al-Hujurat: 11)
The criteria taken into account by believers while as-
sessing others are their faith, good values and sincere ef-
forts to draw nearer to Allah. This being the case, they
never humiliate or provoke anyone because of his physi-
cal weaknesses. On the contrary, these weaknesses evoke
feelings of mercy in believers and thus they make a sin-
cere effort to eliminate them. Similarly, believers never
embarrass others because they mispronounce a word,
stumble, or fail to deal with the kind of unfavourable sit-
uation which one may encounter at any time.
Moreover, believers never indulge in offensive behav-
iour, such as mockery, just to amuse themselves. They
take no pleasure from a joke, conversation or attitude
which is intended to offend people. They never lapse into
such behaviour. Furthermore, in any incident in which an
individual is mocked or humiliated, they can never re-
main silent. Believers are entirely on the side of the per-
son who is being harassed and never let others hurt him.
As a matter of conscience, they can imagine how such be-
haviour as they would never like to experience them-
selves, can also cause offence to others.
All this meticulous attention to proper behaviour is