Establishing Boundaries For Passing Judgements

[Praetorius]

(salam)

I pray everyone is in good health.

I've been thinking about the following question more often as of late:-

Is it okay to be judgmental? Is it okay to form an opinion based on that judgment?

For example, when I see Muslim women not observing hijab (the physical one)/wearing all kinds of inappropriate clothing, I often have thoughts like "Wow woman, do you really want men eyeing you that bad? What about the eyes of Allah, whose commands you are disobeying?" racing through my head. Or let's say I know Muslims who don't pray at all, and are usually Muharram/Ramadan-activated Muslims, and I pass judgments such as "you guys really wanna go to hell don't you?"

These are just 2 of numerous other examples I can give about times I go judgmentally insane -_-

So how do I draw the lines of judgments? How does one abstain from this kind of thought process? Have you ever felt this way? If so, do you attempt to curb the thoughts that follow? If not, is it because you think it's okay to think that way, and if so, why?

Feedback appreciated. :)

[Shia_Debater]

(salam)

Well for some types of judgements you can try to think of 70 excuses, i.e. you see a woman in hijab quite young walking with a man quite young too

you can think

1- brother and sister

2- they are married

Always try to make excuses for people, for example you may think someone is a muharram/shahr ramadhaan muslim but maybe they dont attend majlis but they are still worshipping Allah (swt) in their house.

That is what I try to do to avoid passing judgements

(wasalam)

[Dokhtar-e-Abbas]

Wow brother, I have been thinking on the same line as well.

Last night, I was a majlis and all of a sudden I passed my judgement about the ladies who recite the nauha there. They kind of look really proud and hardly return the salam politely at all, so I told my friend that they're fake people (as in if you are so submerged in showin your grief about Imam Hussain's martyrdom and don't show respect to fellow mourners and behave like you are people from the "Arsh", then what kinda people are you?)

And my friend shot back saying,"They will be answerable for their own deeds!" I felt really ashamed coz I realized how judgmental I'd been but then the obvious seems the truth to me, what can we do to stop our tongues from spreading misconceptions??

[Khadim uz Zahra]

I agree with The Shia Terminator's suggestion; as according to hadith, we must give our fellow Muslim the "benefit of the doubt" and try to make an excuse as to why they did X, Y, Z thing. Indeed, many a times this could be the case because take a look at your own life. There must have been something that you have done which you had a good reason to do but because people don't know what is in your brain, they would, mostly, jusge you wrongly. Now, take this example and apply it here and say to yourself: "When I was doing thing X, I had a perfectly right justification for it but because people did not know my thoughts, they misjudged me/would misjudge and I felt so bad/would have felt so bad so, maybe, even this person has a justification but I don't know it so I can't judge them.

Having said that, I do also think that we cannot give leeway to those who, for example, don't do Hijab on the pretext of "they are good from inside". The goodness from inside must, first, be manifested by the hijab and secondly, if there is really goodness from inside, then why is there no hijab because hijab is a direct consequence of goodness from inside.

[Guest]

Judgment as in knowing their state in the hereafter? No.

But judgment as in trusting others? Guessing their likely future actions? Utilizing common patterns and trends? Yes. Within proper boundaries of course.

[Gypsy]

I guess you can judge someone/something when it has a direct impact on you. For eg I am able to judge coworker or manager, judging organizations/companies, how do they spend my city tax, who is the moron who made a sudden turn without giving the signal ...mostly things of that nature. These are examples and not an exhaustive list.

I don't judge random person on the street because I don't have enough information about him/her. I also believe it is important to lower your gaze and keep good thoughts about others.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Gypsy