It was the handcuffs that attracted people's attention. What the three of them had done wasn't immediately apparent, but being handcuffed to each other in a crowded tramcar in Alexandria was what attracted the gaze of every single passenger. You could almost feel the condemnation that was directed towards the three men. “I Wonder what they have done," you could imagine people thinking. Whatever they had done, the tramcar was full and a man getting on ended up standing next to the three of them. “Asalaamu alaykum," he said. You could feel the weight being lifted off their shoulders by those words. Imagine being stared at by everyone, let alone not knowing where you were being taken to or what lay in store for you. They talked about nothing in particular for a minute or two, and then the man had to get off at his stop. “Asalaamu alaykum," again and the encounter was over. It need not interest us what the three men had done. Maybe they had robbed a bank or deserted from the army. Who knows? Whatever crime they had committed, justice should be done and they should take responsibility for their deeds. It should end there, though, shouldn't it? Being punished for a crime should be the end of having committed one. But as human beings we often don't let it end there. In the case of these particular three, they were being judged by everyone on the tram without knowing a single thing about them. All of them were condemned because of their handcuffs. We are always told, aren't we, never to judge a book by its cover. Yet, if any of us goes into a bookshop, it is not the dull-looking books which first attract our attention. We dismiss those as uninteresting. It is the glossy books, with lots of photographs that we go for first. We are exactly the same with people. First impressions are what we always go by. Glamour, power and influence in people are what attract us most, rather than the integrity of their lives. People who are poor or not very clever or disabled are discarded from our thoughts. If that was not bad enough, we go even further. We make judgements about people by the way they look or by the positions they hold in society. Admit it, that is what we do. We rarely hold out a hand of greeting to someone who is dirty and unwashed. We would not even think of giving up a seat on the train for someone dressed in rags. Our behaviour, though, is even more subtle. People serve us in a café and we take our meal without even looking at them. Someone fills our car with gasoline and we don't say a word in taking the change. As Muslims, for example, every action we make and every sentence we utter should begin with the words Bismillah ar Rahman ar Rahim, “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate." Some of us even do say this. Allah is the Most Merciful. He shows His mercy to us every single day just by listening to our feeble prayers. The Maker of the heavens and the earth and everything in between, turns His face to us and listens to the prayers of sinful, ungrateful creatures. In response to His goodness, we turn away time and time again, often only going back to the throne of Mercy when we want something. Allah is so Merciful that he overlooks our faults and pours blessings upon us at every opportunity. As Muslims we, too, should be merciful. We should be the most merciful nation. Punishing people for doing wrong does not mean that, we cannot show respect and kindness towards them. And there is yet more. We punish people whether they have done any wrong or not, simply by the way we treat them. But this is not just for Muslims. Did not Jesus, in the Gospel, offer to the repentant thief on the cross a place in Paradise? In this life we have all been given different things to do. Some are kings and some are paupers. All of us should thank Almighty Allah for what we have, since we are simply stewards in this world of His gifts. How, then, can we be so cruel to others? How can we speak harsh and unkind words to others, because their station in life is, at the moment, less than ours? How can we judge people so heartlessly without knowing anything about them? We stand next to someone in the mosque for Friday prayers. At the end of the prayers we even offer them “Peace," but once outside the door we wouldn't give them the time of day or return their greeting in the street. Where has all the mercy gone? Surely, when our foreheads are touching the ground in prayer we realise that we are nothing and that what little we have comes by Allah's grace. Who do we think we are that we can treat other people as less than us? The cemetery is full of important and indispensable people. Those who thought they were so important in this world had to travel down to the grave with those who had nothing. What makes us important is the goodness of our lives. Driving a big, fancy car or having lots of shoes in the wardrobe will not avoid our journey to the grave. Once we are gone, people will not mention how many holidays a year we took or what job we had. They will mention that we were good fathers, husbands, wives and daughters. They will say, if they can, that we were faithful to prayer and that we were kind to the poor. We read in the Holy Qur'an: “O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that we may know each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is the greatest of you in piety. Allah is All-knowing, All-aware". As people of faith, we should thank Almighty Allah every day for the gifts. He showers upon us, being grateful for even the least cup of water which comes from His bounty. As for those three men on the tram, we can punish them for their crimes, if that is appropriate, but we can also begin by treating them as fellow human beings. Let us greet each one of our brothers and sisters, regardless of their position or social standing, with “Asalaamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatu, ‘May the peace and the blessings and the Mercy of Allah be upon you." Maybe in that way, the All-Merciful will one day be Merciful to us, inshallah. If we behaved that way, too, maybe Egypt would pass through its present troubles just a little quicker. British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, teaches at Al-Azhar University and is the author of nine books about Islam. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com, join him on Facebook at Idris Tawfiq Page and listen to his Radio Show, “A Life in Question," on Sundays at 11pm on Radio Cairo 95.4 FM.
