By Hamka Rosli
Manners and good attitude are crucial elements that one needs to sow in oneself. These elements of life are something that are acquired through learning, because true respect, politeness and humbleness come from a pure heart. Copying or faking or pretending to be one simply won’t last long.
As Muslims we must observe our role model Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on the good things he taught us on manners. Much of his life time he stressed on the importance of having good moral values and manners, as a result there was a story about an old lady converted into Islam just because she fell in love with the politeness that have been portrayed by the Prophet. May Allah make us among those who follow the Sunnah.
As we reflect back into our daily life, how are our morals doing? Is it at a good level? Or is it at a bad place?
Let’s narrow it down into manners with parents. The way we treat our parents reflects our attitude and moral. If we ever treat them badly, why not make it as a turning point for us while we still have the time. Let’s treat our parents as if we have less time to spend with them. Yes indeed, they are getting old and we are getting far away from them as we grow up. But there is no excuse to treat them as if they are strangers in our life. In the Quran there are so many supplications that mentioned about parents and it shows how important to show good moral and manners to our parents. Let’s make the supplication as our routine because that is the only way to communicate to Allah, to ask Allah to make sure our parents are safe wherever and whenever they are.
Now let’s go back into the past during the time of Saidina Ali, where there was a great man named Uwais Al Qarni. A man who suffered from disease but excellent in taking care of his mother. To add, his mother wanted to perform hajj but the physical condition of his mother did not allow her to do so. Uwais took this opportunity to help his mother by carrying his mother piggyback and managed to finish the hajj. The highlight of this story is on how successful a child in taking care of his mother. May we take this story as a motivation for us.
We are actually indebted with our parents throughout our life. They have been taking care of us ever since we gasp our first oxygen in this world. Don’t we feel we are in debt by all of their money, shelter, love and education? I would say yes definitely. But I can never ever have money or anything to pay them. Because up until today, I couldn’t find anything that suit my parents kindness.
Let’s ease their burden and find something that could urge us to help them. Let’s make time for them. Sometimes, even we feel so tired, so lethargic by a hectic week we went through, we should know that our parents are even more tired than us. But they never whine. Hence, we should not whine too. There is one quote that I can still recall whenever I am too busy and cannot help them, “Dear self, this might be the last help, do it now or you might regret it later”. It motivates me in almost all situations between parents-children-seek-help moment.
Start doing it now and may Allah make us among those who love each other, avoiding any hatred, loving and caring and putting all the manners as priority. May Allah accept our deeds and keep our intention pure in all circumstances.
Photo taken from Yahoo!