“Allah has not taken a covenant from the ignorant people to...

“Allah has not taken a covenant from the ignorant people to learn until he took a covenant from the scholars to teach (the ignorant people).”[^4] In the religion of Islam, learning as well as teaching are both obligatory (wajib) and these two acts are not separate from each other since they are the prerequisite and necessity of one another. If an oppressor commits oppression upon you and you take revenge, then your spiritual worth will be removed because you would end up being just like him.

Of course forgiving the person who has oppressed you should only be carried out when you know that he will not take advantage of your forgiveness and that you forgiving him would not have a negative impact on the entire society (by him then committing other acts of aggression on others under the presumption that they too would forgive him). You must perform all your actions sincerely for Allah (SwT) and must not entertain even the slightest amount of showing off in them.

This is a very difficult task to accomplish and as we know, showing off in one's actions is only one of the springs of corruption of one's good deeds. In this regards, there are many other things such as pride, one's own inner passions and desires, etc… that may come into play to corrupt one's good deeds, and spoil the good work that one performs.

For example, sometimes we perform the Salat so that we become pleased with our own selves and we do not think about other people - this in itself is a form of corrupting our good deeds. Or for example we perform the Salat out of habit, or we perform the Salatul Lail so that we can become better than other people or… and it is these and other things that can lead to the corruption of our good deeds.

“The perfection of a person is that he gives what he has.” If a host does not bring to his guests whatever he has at home (when guests come over to his house), then he has done oppression to them and in similar way, if the guests ask the host for an excess of things, then they would be counted as oppressors! The second part of this tradition is divided up into three sections: The actions whose correctness is apparent for all to see.

The actions in which the misguidedness and corruption is apparent for all to see.