_Imām Ibn Qudāmah Al-Maqdisi -rahimahullāh-_
Said:
Know verily – may the blessing of Allāh be upon you that, if Allāh in His infinite mercy wishes for His servant goodness in this dunya and Hereafter, He gives him the ability to detect his shortcomings and ways of refining those errors, for majority of the people are unaware and ignorant of their faults, and they look at the speck of sawdust in their brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in their own eye.
In shā Allāh, we will outline some ways in which one can be able to detect one’s errors.
*1.* One should try to get a noble and pious Ālim who has
knowledge, experience and foresight about the diseases of the heart, and then, one should stick to him to learn about those diseases and ways of refining them.
However, those type of ulamaa with deep knowledge about the diseases of the heart are scarce and difficult to get in this era of ours, thus, whosoever is opportuned to come across such an Ālim, has indeed gotten a clever and intelligent doctor for the sickness of his heart. Hence, he should stick to him and he should not depart from him.
*2.* One should seek for sincere, honest and trustworthy friends who can be able to direct one to see one’s errors or bad characters. And one should appreciate such a friend and one should not feel sad because of the advice given by the friend.
However, in this our era, it is hard to find a closed friend with these attributes, for some friends used to compromise with their closed ones on their errors, and they prefer to spread those faults instead of giving sincere advise and ways of amending those vices.
And also, the salaf used to love the ones that directs them to see their faults.
In this context, Amīru Al-Mu’minīn ‘Umar Ibn Al-khattab radiyallāhu anhu was reported to have said:
_رحم الله امرأ أهدى إلينا عيوبنا_
_May Allāh bless the one who guides us to our errors._
And in another narration, ‘Umar radiyallāhu anhu used to ask Huzaifah radiyallāhu anhu on whether he is amongst the munafiqūn mentioned by the Messenger sallallāhu àlayhi wasallam so that he can cleanse himself of such attribute. This shows how the companions are keen and eager to purify themselves from bad characters.
But, the opposite is the case now, the hated person to us is the one that shows us our errors. Therefore, one should be fully ready to accept corrections from his friends without feeling sad about the corrections made and one should hasten to rectify them.
This is an indication of weak imān, for bad character is like scorpion, and if someone were to be informed of scorpion in his cloth, he will surely hasten to kill it and get rid of it whereas bad characters are poisonous and dangerous than the scorpion.
*3.*One should seek to benefit and rectify his faults from what his enemy is exposing of his shortcomings.
*4.* One should mingle with pious people, whatever one sees as blameworthy within them, one should shun away from it.
*23rd Rabī’u Ath-thāni, 1438H.*
Allāhu A’alam! Bārakallāhu fīkum!
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