Why we don`t know how to be different ?! Why does the disagreement with the`
wife `lead to `Divorce `, to firing when it is with the manager ,and to separation or rupture of relations when it’s with a friend ?! We don’t know how to dispute in our Arab and Islamic World, on both individual and communal levels .Why?! Why does the difference in opinion change into enmity and then, the advantages into disadvantages ,and we don’t leave a flaw without attributing it to whom we dispute with, when his flaws or defects we count are not sufficient ,though we used to praise him and mention his feats before ?! We can’t stand criticism as if we were perfect , we can’t accept advice patiently ,despite our pretence to be so, and we consider ourselves to be perfect and faultless. Why?! We shouldn’t be astonished when we discover that our Arab and Islamic community contains the largest number of hypocrites in the world. The whole truth is painful, and the best one of us is who accepts a half of the truth in the way in which he accepts to have colocynth of the bitter taste. On the familial level, the `
Wife` can’t express an opinion that differs from her husband’s, a conflict that leads to divorce may rise. Some husbands believe that when a wife expresses an opinion different from theirs, is an insult to their grandeur and manhood. Sons grow up not knowing how to express their opinions or explain their view points, since the father and the teacher don’t allow them to do so, for they consider that `impoliteness or rudeness `and when a son dares to do that , he will be punished and humiliated. The employee feels afraid of telling the truth` to his employer, he often reaches to a compromise with his boss lest he should lose his job. On the level of friendship and social relations; in no time we exclude and lose all those who express different opinions or view points from the list of friends and to put them in the list of the enemies ,we pay them back twofold. For reasons related to the`
other opinion `we dismiss a lot of kinsmen , relations and strangers. When countries are concerned, you are at large to talk freely; differences lead to severing the diplomatic relations ,informative war that might develop into a verbal and armed war, conspiracies ,assassinations , bloodshed and the like which frequently took place in our modern Arab history. The proof for the outcome of being different is what we notice in the cultural and
intellectual field in general , where the difference in opinion between those whom we call the intellectuals ,the literate ,assumes the form of dispute that deviates from its track , from a debate on the issue of difference into personal insult , slander and show off, each party tries hard to degrade the other party in any possible way. I wish one of our students studied in the university the history of the literary and intellectual battles the Arab press witnessed in different Arab countries ,then he would find ,mainly, that most of those battles focused on stripping the other party off their morals , dignity and knowledge, rather than on objectivity , justice and equity. Although we have been Muslims for fifteen centuries, we are still fanatically exercising our partiality today on various levels. The party spirit is the slightest one ,while the most dangerous fanaticism today is the intellectual, cultural and sectarian ones. We side with this scholar or that intellectual and praise that poet or writer, excluding the others, as if they descended pure and faultless from heavens. We consider them to be beyond criticism and woe for whom who dares to give an opinion about them or offer a piece of advice, for in no time , those who sided with them will attack him with their sharp swords and bitter tongues as if he defiled the sanctity of a verse from the Holy Quran or apostatized. The daily newspapers contain plenty of such battles despite the saying of our noble-minded prophet (PBUH): (
He is none of us who calls for fanaticism),narrated by Abu Dawood
.That’s why one feels astonished at the practice he meets within a nation whose prophet said :
( I was sent to perfect the virtuous morals), narrated by Ahmad.In the sense that virtuous morals