Reflection 53 – Judging… AND… MIS-judging

It’s very easy to judge others and very difficult to judge yourself! Right?
Try to remember how many times you passed a judgment on someone else only to find out later that you were wrong? Probably, like myself many times . Too often we draw conclusions or hastily rush to certain results simply because we know too little. Plus, most of us usually don’t give the benefit of doubt to others. In other words, we don’t try to find “excuses” for others but rather easily accuse them of misbehavior. We get too concerned about what others are doing “wrong”; and in doing so forget that we ourselves are full of mistakes. I am not here to point fingers but rather I am talking about myself (unfortunately). Let me tell you a bit more about my personal experience!
I believe my experience would resonate a lot with others of my generation who took a similar path. Approximately two decades ago, I began to take religion more seriously in my personal life. And as much as it had many positive outcomes on my personality, there was one grave mistake I am GUILTY of: JUDGING OTHERS! Of course, Islam doesn’t endorse such a behavior, but it was my ignorant self that did. The more I learned and knew about religion (realizing how far I am), the more judgmental I became (usually I kept it to myself). I had this inner feeling that everyone around me not knowing and believing exactly like myself is somehow astray . Little did I know that I should not focus that much on others’ mistakes. Of course, this is NOT to say that we should not stand up for our values and advise others in a gentle way whenever needed. But the problem is that I believe within many religious circles as people become (assumingly) more religious, they become more judgmental! They very easily catch the flaws of others, but rarely do they reflect upon themselves. We are too often caught in certain stereotypes that influence our thinking and therefore our prospective judgment. Let me end with this example that I am too often guilty of (see, I am not that good as many of you might think ). But frankly, I think it‘s good for me to criticize myself in public hoping to humble myself and for others to learn from my mistakes.
Within many religious circles, certain stigmas are associated with different types of people. This could be related to the way they dress or how they carry themselves in public in general whether in the virtual world or in real life. The problem, I believe, is that because of these pre-conceived notions we very quickly “assume” certain things about this person given his/her appearance. For example, when I used to live in the US, I would very quickly get infuriated when I saw a fellow Muslim with tattoos all over his body! I would be too much caught in their act instead of thinking that this might be someone who has just reverted to Islam or wanted to remove these tattoos but couldn’t for some unknown reasons to me. Since I am dealing now with many people online through the Facebook page whom I don‘t personally know, it really strikes me how often I can have an initial thought about someone just to find from their writings or public posts how committed they are to the Quran or other major ethical issues.
I think ALS has taught me to try not to pass judgment on others (though I still fall in that mistake), and to give people the benefit of doubt and find excuses for their behavior as much as possible. I learned this the hard way. Someone not knowing me couple of years ago might have judged some
behavior of mine in a certain (negative) way not knowing that I was behaving like this because of my sickness. I might have avoided saying hello to someone as I was embarrassed of my apparent physical disabilities when at the same time that same person thought of me deliberately avoiding them as being arrogant!
MY ADVICE: Take it EASY when dealing with others as none of us are fully aware of what people are REALLY going through! Only Allah knows .