The disappointment of witnessing Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli lost his gold medal in the men\u2019s shot put to a Ukrainian athlete, Maksym Koval, has caused Malaysians to flood Ukrainian athlete\u2019s social media and the Ukrainian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur with taunts, profanity and insults. No doubt that this social media attack on the Paralympian\u2019s physicality made the athlete beg for sympathy from Malaysians and it was indeed outrageous. This disgraceful act by some Malaysians has not only damaged the reputation of our team but also that of the country. It is regrettable that this incident occurred at a time when our country had just celebrated its 64th independence anniversary. Despite the intense dismay with the Ukrainian team, Malaysians should show maturity and wisdom in demonstrating their feelings. Manners, decency and sportsmanship should come first. This recent occasion represents several other cases which manifest how our society is slowly losing values of ethics and politeness. These are the traits often associated with our society that we have long prided ourselves on but unfortunately failed to adhere to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morality or conduct (akhlaq<\/em>), good manners (adab<\/em>) and ethics are the symbols of an independent and civilised society. These noble virtues encourage people to have admirable qualities and dispositions. In Islam, akhlaq<\/em> and adab <\/em>are derived from divine revelation. Allah has inculcated Prophet Muhammad SAW with the best of character and this is manifested in the form of adab<\/em>. Prophet Muhammad SAW is known for teaching all mankind with adab<\/em> that Allah has taught him beforehand. Indeed, good manners or adab<\/em> cannot be separated from knowledge. In other words, adab <\/em>means correct behaviour based on the judgement of knowledge. According to Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, adab<\/em> is the discipline of body, mind, and soul that ensures one is aware of one’s place in relation to his\/her physical, intellectual, and spiritual abilities and potentials. In short, adab<\/em> is so closely related to and leads to justice. Therefore, the absence or lack of adab<\/em> implies loss of justice, which indicates corruption of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Qur’an and the Hadiths contain many guidelines on adab<\/em>, including during speech and communication. For example, the Qur’an admonishes, “…speak words of appropriate (comfort)<\/em>.” (Surah al-Nisa’, verse 9). The Qur’an also explains how God sets up a parable that a good word is like a fine tree whose root stands firm and whose branches reach to the sky (Surah Ibrahim, verse 24) and declares “and the servants (of God), the Most Gracious, are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “Peace!<\/em>” (Surah al-Furqan, verse 63). Interestingly, the Qur’an also emphasises that any good words spoken, for instance greetings containing prayers for wellness, should be responded to with equal courtesy or even more courtesy (Surah al-Nisa\u2019, verse 86)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the Qur’an, the Hadith of the Prophet SAW also provides guidances on the use of words including how to safeguard our tongues and self-conduct. In a Hadith narrated by ‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, the Prophet SAW reminds us that the greatest mistake a person could commit is through his tongue (Al-Tabarani). In another Hadith, it is described that a righteous Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hands the other Muslims (and society) are safe from (Bukhari and Muslim). In another beautiful Hadith, the Prophet SAW mentions three pure qualities that must exist in a Muslim’s character in order to complete his Iman. One of them is to either say good things or remain silent. These Hadiths give us a perfect example of how a Muslim must behave towards the others in order to promote love, respect and understanding as well as to avoid insults, misunderstanding and enmity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ease at which communication is available today, social media as one of them, is a great blessing that we have to be thankful for. This blessing also fulfils the goal of the creation of the different nations and tribes that is emphasised in the Quran, which is to get to know each other. The key to achieve this aim is of course through an admirable form of communication. Good and harmonious communication can only take place when both parties ensure that adab<\/em> and good character are maintained even in unpleasant situations. It also depicts that each party is aware of their own responsibility and cannot just simply pull the card for the right to freedom of speech as an excuse to say whatever and however one sees fit. Indeed, those who uphold adab<\/em> will never lose. As Imam al-Ghazali mentions in his book Bidayah al-Hidayah<\/em>, a person who chooses to give in and not defend the truth, with the intention of upholding adab<\/em> and avoiding the negative repercussions of his actions, will be rewarded with abundant rewards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are aware of the repercussions to the family, the community, the nation and the Ummah, we would always be mindful when we communicate using social media. A believer is aware that every written or spoken word and every action will be accounted for and judged before Allah on the Day of Judgement. In this regard, the advice of Zu al-Nun al-Misri, an Egyptian Sufi, to a young man is very relevant. His advice, written on the ground in the form of poetry, served as a reminder to the young man to ensure that he only writes things that will make him happy when he sees them in the Hereafter. It is incredibly hoped that the increasing age of our country\u2019s independence will strengthen the maturity of our language and ways of communication. Indeed, language symbolises the soul of a nation and adab<\/em> reveals the nation\u2019s dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The disappointment of witnessing Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli lost his gold medal in the men\u2019s shot put to a Ukrainian athlete, Maksym Koval, has caused Malaysians to flood Ukrainian athlete\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}