Correcting People Based On Religious Teachings

Every individual yearns to develop a personality that would be acceptable to God and appreciated and admired by people. Still when it comes to taking advice in this direction, one has one’s own reservations. The ego is so sensitive that it’s always wary of getting wounded and wards off all attempts that are regarded suspiciously as aimed at hurting it. Hence it often happens that advising is perceived, (by the one being advised), as an attempt at fault-finding with the intention of exposing his drawbacks and humiliating him. The adviser is perceived as an "attacker" and a "criticizer" projecting himself in good light to gain a position of authority or to assert his / her superiority.

The form that advising takes, depends on the intention and motive behind it. If your intention is pure (as Islam teaches us to have), i.e. based on a sincere wish to provide suggestions for improvement in the person’s perspective and relationship with others, you should be careful about how you proceed. Your manner and words should ensure that no wrong message is conveyed. If the person gets the impression that you’re telling him what to do and what not to do, because you regard him as ignorant or immature and are exposing his defects or inferiority, your advice will not only have no positive effect, but will probably cause resentment and distance him from you.

To avoid the possibility of your advice being mistaken for condemnation you need to win the person’s confidence and provide him the assurance that you could be trusted.

Relationships certainly improve when, while taking an interest in the other person you also acknowledge and mention to him the positive traits he has. Appreciation is the best way to reach out to the other, touch his heart and make him put down his defenses. Moreover you need to keep reminding yourself, (and share it with him too), that no one is perfect; each person has some drawback or the other, and hence advice should be exchanged; it can’t become anyone’s monopoly. We need to be realistic and practical in our approach. When you show that you yourself are ready to welcome helpful suggestions, or mention an area where you’d like to improve, you reveal your human aspect which will appeal to the listener and bring him closer to you.

In all our interactions with people we should take care to see that our ego doesn’t overpower us and spoil our relationships.

Let us see how our ego can mislead us when we’re involved in advising or correcting someone. The ego always functions within the limits of ‘I’, ‘My’ and ‘Me’:

"I am important. My words are important. My advice should be heeded. How the listener reacts doesn’t affect me. If his feelings are hurt it’s not my problem. I have to tell what I need to tell and he has to listen to me whether he likes it or not."

If this is the approach taken, you only ensure that the advice will fall on deaf ears and very likely, also damage your relationship with the person. So what should be done?

It would certainly help if both - the person advising and the one being advised - manage to silence their egos for a while. Your focus as the adviser should be on the matter being discussed and not on yourself or how important you are, or what a great favour you are doing to the other person. The focus of the individual being advised should also be on the matter being discussed, the view being presented and correction being suggested, - and not on what poor light he’s being projected in.

Let us develop our attitude and strengthen our faith in such a manner that we do not shrink from accepting what’s good for us. Our main goal should be to detach from what the ego desires and attach to what is right.

By: Abdullah

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Abdullah works for HilalPlaza.com, a site that provides various types of Islamic books on Allah, and Muslim Names.