Page 122 - The Debased Culture of Superficiality

120 THE DEBASED CULTURE OF SUPERFICIALITY

assuage his curiosity by using falsehood and deceit. He
knows that Allah is beside him and that he will receive the
reward for what he does. He knows placating even a small
and insignificant curiosity will bring him anxiety and pangs
of conscience, and he would never risk this.
He fears Allah and respects His precepts. For this reason,
he will never pursue anything so superficial. He would not
even allow empty, insignificant conversations to be held in
his presence whose purpose was to placate curiosity. The
Prophet (saas) gives this advice in hadiths:
“Let he who believes in Allah and the Hereafter either speak aus-
piciously or else remain silent.” (Tirmidhi hadiths)
In another hadith, he says:
“A person’s abandoning useless, empty words is the foremost of
the beauties of Islam.” (Tirmidhi hadiths)
So a Muslim who experiences this beauty would never
yield to vain curiosity. Even if he wanted to learn about a
matter, he would rein himself in. To fall into such a situation
otherwise would be unbecoming. Everyone may try to
deceive others and use covert tactics to learn from them
what they want to know. But the important thing is whether
the person doing this can find room for such behavior in his
moral make-up. Can he reconcile this insincere, curious per-
sonality with his own moral understanding? If he is pre-
pared to do this just to obtain a piece of information, in the
knowledge that Allah sees him and knows what he is doing,
it is a sign that his fear of Allah is not strong.
However, that a person wants to learn something useful
that will supply his needs and make life easier has nothing