Giving Naseeha (Advice)

Being apart of and living in a Western Muslim community has many temptations that come with it. We face them everyday and it's always good to be reminded when you might be going off-track but may not have noticed it. That's what our communities are there for after all. Why we have so many organisations working hard all year round to provide us with as much guidance as they can offer.

It's hard to take advice sometimes, as you may not always feel as though you are doing something that is so wrong. Also, what may seem extremely haram in one muslims eyes, may not be as bad in anothers. That's not to justify any evil act, but something which is quite common amongst many of us today I'm sure.

So sometimes some muslims may see a brother and a sister discussing something, which may be somethign general about a topic, not crossing any lines. Nothing major, right? Now to some it's ok. I mean at my University, you often need to interact with males for whatever reason. It's not always a life and death situation, but as long as you keep modest and don't flirt I don't think it's a big deal.

Now that's just me, to some it's extremely haram and you should never ever interact with the opposite gender. Living under a rock is usually the way to go since everything leads to haram, so the smallest of things should be avoided, try to close your eyes too.

I'm not condoning interaction between brothers and sisters, but I think too many people these days are going overboard and forget where they are living. Which leads me to my main point. What are some ways people "advise" their fellow Muslims of their behaivour? Publicly perhaps? In front of others? Why do people feel they need to do this to humiliate the people involved. Their answer is, oh we're only telling you in front of the other 100 people so they don't do it either! Are you serious?

What ever happened to the etiquettes of giving naseeha, where they thrown out the door ever since you thought you became religious? If you don't know the manners of giving advice, you're only going to scare people away from our beautiful religion.

If you see something which you believe is inappropriate, what ever it may be let them know as this is one of our duty's but please be careful about how you do it. This is something for myself also, I'd hate to embarrass someone in front others to get my point accross. There's nothing wrong with showing some compassion and being understanding.