Thursday, February 1, 2007

FORGIVE and FORGET...

Assalamualaikum wbt...


kinda want to neutralize my position..=)

All of us, at one point or another in our lives, have had an experience that frustrated us, made us upset, resentful, or angry. The sources of difficulty might have been, among so many possibilities, the words or actions of a family member or friend, or the words or actions of a stranger. Based on the intensity of the pain or harm we perceive from such difficult moments or incidents, we sometimes find that it is not possible for us to move on, to overlook, or to look past the pain or hurt. Even worse, we sometimes find it impossible to resume normal interactions with the individual or individuals who have caused us the pain.


Forgiveness is the subsiding and ultimate elimination of feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment towards the individual or individuals who have caused us the pain, followed by a resumption of normal interactions with the individual or individuals concerned. Ultimately, forgiving a person wipes away the active memory of whatever pain or hurt that caused the rift to begin with.

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) has taught us clearly that exercising self-restraint, especially in situations where we would be justified fully to exact retribution, is an ideal to which every believer should aspire. We learn from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), as narrated to us by Abu Huraira (peace be upon him), that "the strong is not the one who overcomes the people by his strength, but the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger." (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Book #73, Hadith #135).

Of all the people in Islamic history, there is no one else who suffered more, was harmed more, was insulted more, and in general, experienced more emotional and spiritual pain than Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
His own tribe, the people of Quraish, turned against him and conspired to kill him. When finally Allah Almighty granted Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) victory over the Quraish, history captures for all of time to come, the merciful and forgiving manner in which the Prophet dealt with them. At the conquest of Makkah, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) posed the following question to the Quraish: "How do you think, I am going to treat you now?" They said, "You are a generous brother and the son of a generous brother. We expect only charity and forgiveness from you." He said, "I will tell you what Joseph told his brothers, ["There is no blame on you today."] (Yusuf 12:92).

Recalling the forgiving attitude of Prophet Yusuf (peace be upon him) towards his brothers, who had also conspired to kill him, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) went beyond the imagination of the Makkans and inclined to forgive them when in fact the right to exact retribution was entirely his. Should we not aspire to imitate Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)? Can we not find it in our hearts to forgive our family and friends and to strive to strengthen the bonds of family and friendship? Learning to be forgiving is not something one can achieve overnight. It takes a lifetime of practice and reflects the height of self-restraint.


p/s: and again, " learning to be forgiving is not something one can achieve overnight. It takes a lifetime of practice and reflects the height of self-restraint."

sedangkan nabi ampunkan umat.....(lagu p.ramlee) =)

6 comments:

Anonymous February 2, 2007 at 7:07 PM  

sometimes its easy to forgive but not to forget. but we have to do both rite? forgive and forget.

pencari_nur February 2, 2007 at 9:44 PM  

yeah...

I said that to myself a lot of times..but saying is a whole lot easier la kan..pdhal dalam hati Allah je yg tahu...

erm..kena jadi mcam Rasulullah SAW..

Anonymous February 3, 2007 at 6:14 AM  

forgive and forget? no,no,no. You can forgive but you must never forget as history tends to repeat itself if one forgets what he has/she has done in the past. Forgive and never forget but instead learn from it.

pencari_nur February 3, 2007 at 11:49 PM  

actually,
that's another way of thinking bout it too. don't ever forget bcoz people learn from mistakes and history.

but

I think what forget means here is that don't ever evoke or recall what that person did to us,or else we'll tend to take revenge.

so

just leave it and live on...=)

Anonymous February 9, 2007 at 5:05 PM  

Probably that's the hardest part to do within ourselves. To forgive probably easy, but to forget, I think it will be not too easy. We will always remember what someone already did to ourselves.

Forgive is one thing, forget is another thing.

Anyhow, Rasulullah is the best example.

Led February 16, 2007 at 2:42 AM  

to forgive is to giving in..

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