A Believer is Flexible in
Practical Matters
A believer is never a rigid or unbending person: he is very flexible. His attitude is one of softness and not of hardness.
According to a tradition, the Prophet of Islam once observed that “the life of a believer is like that of a plant which is moved to and fro by the air. One puff of wind bows it down to the ground while another puff from the other side brings it up straight—unless his final time has come.” (Sahih Muslim 2810)
A believer is never a rigid or unbending person: he is very flexible. He has full faith in his ideology and in his belief, yet in practical life, his attitude is one of softness and not of hardness.
In religious life a person can be inflexible in his faith but so far as his dealings with others are concerned, he has to be flexible. Belief is a personal matter and it is formed by being in accordance with the state of reality. But in practical matters making concessions to others is necessary. Without making concessions to others no practical life can be established.
Why is it that, in practical life, a person adopts an inflexible attitude? It is always because of arrogance or egoism. Whenever there are differences with anyone, a person immediately makes it an issue of his prestige. He begins to think that if he is very flexible, he will become inferior as compared to others. It is this feeling which stops him from adopting a flexible attitude. He regards his stand as one of principle and becomes rigid about it. On all such occasion the peaceful stand is the better one; the issue should not be taken as a matter of honour. The issue should be solved rather by a soft and flexible approach.
According to divine belief, the personality that takes shape is founded on the truth that all greatness is God’s and that the believer is only His servant. All the believer has is modesty. Such feelings make a God worshipper a soft person, which has an effect in various forms with other people.
Softness or kindness is the way of concession and is a divine method. On the contrary, the rigidity and harshness of an uncompromising attitude leads to a totally ungodly approach.
