A very beautiful statement of Umar ibn Al-Khattab (rtam) as narrated by Malik ibn Deenar is: “Whoever talks too much, makes too many mistakes…”
The idea here is that in the past, there was only one way of expressing yourself – through your tongue and maybe through writing letters or poetry. Back then, they used to have very few ways to express themselves.
Now, however, all of a sudden we are able to express ourselves in so many different ways: you can express yourself through your tongue, through text message, through email, Facebook or Twitter or whatever else it may be. You have all of these ‘tongues’ with which you can express yourself. Hence, the possibility of committing a sin or making a mistake becomes much greater, and the reward for practicing silence also becomes much greater. It is very easy to get ourselves in a lot of trouble now. Everything get preserved, right? Subhan’Allah, the danger of making those mistakes becomes even greater because they are enshrined. You are stuck with the burden of responsibility of the words you say, write or type. All of a sudden, the Ahadeeth, in which the Prophet (sa) talks about practicing silence, become even more relevant. I am not talking just about going off on somebody, responding to a comment or backbiting – I am talking about everything.
The Prophet (sa) said: “The people whom I hate the most and who are the farthest from me on the Day of Judgement are those who talk uselessly, those who put down others, and those who show off when they talk.” (At-Tirmidhi)
The Prophet (sa) has mentioned here the type of people that have to have an opinion on absolutely everything! Whether you are qualified or not, you have to say something and give your input. As if anyone cares about your opinion on what’s going on in this or that part of the world and so on or so forth. Does anyone actually care? Nobody does.
The Prophet (sa) also says that haste is from Shaitan: doing things really quickly, not saying or doing things in a calculated way, and just constantly putting your words out there. So if the volume of your speech (the amount of writing you have out there) is big, then you are naturally going to make more mistakes – you have to be more responsible with the means of expression that Allah (swt) has given to you.
Umar ibn al-Khattab (rtam) also mentions: “If you talk too much, you make too many mistakes, and when you make too many mistakes, your modesty will wither away…”
When a person starts to put too much out there, what does usually happen? Do people gain respect or lose respect? More often than not, they lose respect, as some of the sins which Allah (swt) had blessed his servants to hide start to come out – some things that you wouldn’t have expected of a person or the way that they start to speak, if they speak too much… and you know it’s only a matter of time before they reveal themselves in an ugly manner. Sometimes, it’s not their own true self as maybe they had a fight with their spouse or simply a flat tire, which made their emotions over-boil. However, we do not know this backstage information – all we see is just the tweet or the Facebook status, as someone who is consuming it. It’s out there for all of us to see. So what ends up happening is that our modesty starts to be lost either in the way that we speak or through the things we put out there. We start to expose of ourselves what Allah (swt) had kept hidden.
Umar ibn al-Khattab (rtam) continues: “…when your modesty starts to shrink, then your caution starts to shrink…” Your filter goes away, because the modesty was the guard.
The Prophet (sa) says: “Modesty is a part of faith.” (Bukhari and Muslim) When modesty is gone, the filter is gone, too. When the filter is gone, then it is all over – there is no caution on what you write and what you put out there. If anyone starts to lose that caution or filter and stops staying away from the Haram and the doubtful matters, his heart dies…
Umar ibn al-Khattab (rtam) is taking you from talking too much to the death of your heart, in order to show you that there is a direct relationship between how much you talk and the life of your heart. Will your heart be healthy or sick or will it die? The choice is yours.
Transcribed by Faiza Rizwan
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