Strive to Reform Others with Feelings of Well-wishing

In society people must be mirrors of others. We should make people aware of their faults and accept it wholeheartedly when someone discerns faults in us.

According to a tradition, the Prophet of Islam once observed: “A believer is another believer’s mirror and when he finds some shortcomings in him, he rectifies them.” (Adab al-Duniya wa al-Din, al-Mawardi, p. 381)

A person’s humanity demands that he should be the well-wisher of other human beings. Everyone should wish what is best for others. Everyone should regard others as brothers and sisters, and should be happy about their progress. And if you find any fault in your brother, you should strive for his reform out of a feeling of well-wishing.

If you stand before a mirror, it will show your face exactly as it is. Similarly, when a true human being finds some fault or shortcoming in another person, his human feelings compel him to make that person aware of it. Indeed, in society people must be mirrors of others.

When the mirror shows anything lacking in one’s face, it bears one no ill will. It only shows if there is any blemish. It does not aim at humiliating one. Similarly, a true human being is one who makes his brother aware of any lacking without having any feeling of hatred in his heart or of wanting to show him to be inferior. While doing so, he does not project himself as being superior or another as being inferior. His aim should be only to correct the shortcoming.

When a mirror shows anything on a person’s face, he accepts it without demur. But when someone tells another of his shortcomings, he takes it as a humiliation. This is the greatest obstacle in an individual’s progress. A person should wholeheartedly accept it when someone discerns any such fault, just as he accepts the reflection of the mirror.