The Prophet Muhammad A simple Guide to his Life
The Policy of the Prophet
~ 108 ~
Here verbal advice does not mean issuing
statements in newspapers, making speeches and
staging protests. It only means that when one finds
some perversion in a ruler, one should pray for him,
and meet him by appointment in private and try to
make him understand his shortcomings in total
sincerity and with expressions of well-wishing.
When Abdullah ibn Abbas asked the Prophet how
to perform the duty of enjoining good and
forbidding evil in the presence of the rulers, he
replied:
‘‘If you must do it, it should ‘be done in complete
privacy, with no one else between you and the
ruler.” (Jaami, al Uloom wa al Hikma, p. 71)
Similarly, Islam differentiates between individual
and congregational action. In individual action,
only one’s own life is in danger (when an action is
confined to the individual sphere, only an
individual suffers the consequences). But in
congregational initiatives, the lives of thousands of
people are involved. It is therefore but natural that
the command in each case is not identical.
