daily journal

A Muslim sister enters a taxi and sits in the front passenger seat, despite the back seats being vacant.  A Muslim brother walks past the Masjid while the call to prayer is being made and he doesn’t enter it to pray. Another man is greeted with,  "Assalamu alaykum" and he doesn’t return the greeting. As for the sister, she got into the passenger seat of her husband’s taxi.  As for the brother passing by the Masjid, he had prayed at another nearby Masjid.  As for the one who did not reply to the salam, he was a deaf man.  Don’t believe everything your brain tells you. Give people the benefit of the doubt. One of the righteous of the past said, “If I saw an alcohol beverage dripping from a Muslim’s beard, I would assume it was poured on him.  And if I heard a man on the top of a mountain saying, ‘I am your Lord, the Most High,’ I would say he is reciting a verse from the Qur’an.” The great scholar Ibn Alqayyim said, “It’s difficult to determine one’s own intentions, let alone the intentions of others.” Perhaps it’s time to change the lens you are looking at others with.