There is a verse in the Qur’an which has hectic implications when understood in its proper context.
The verse says: “O ye who believe! Truly, among your wives and your children are (some that are) enemies to yourselves: so beware of them! But if ye forgive and overlook, and cover up (their faults), verily God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
In a nutshell, the Creator warns us about our own families.
To put matters into a perspective, let me explain. A university friend of mine with daughters sought advice. A female friend who visits his daughters behaved oddly. She visited for a while and left and visited and then left again.
My friend asked his daughter why her friend kept coming and going. His daughter eventually explained that her friend’s parents forbid dating.
The girl thus used my friend’s daughter and their home as a pretext from where she organised her dates.
Moving on, decades ago, as a psychology graduate at an NGO that managed conflict mediation, etc. I assisted a woman who needed help with divorce. Her husband and neighbour’s wife both left for work at 7am. As the woman and neighbour were unemployed and bored, they had a relationship.
Her husband attended a meeting on request and brought along their 5-year-old son. Looking at the boy I grasped I lacked the courage to tell the truth and asked an elder to explain that divorce was certain.
As my friend shared his dilemma – should he tell the girl’s parents, ban her from his home or forbid his daughter from such a friend – I remembered the look on the man’s face as he held his son. The man was in agony and that event made me realise that the truth can often be exceptionally painful.
To those who disregard and undermine decent, law-abiding, hard-working men and blame men for everything that goes wrong, be careful. Nobody is perfect, especially those pointing fingers. Life is tough and it is difficult to know what happens in the mind of another human.
I do not know what happened to the cheating neighbours, the young boy or his father. All I learnt that day was that life is tough and in the end, we all need salvation and forgiveness from each other.
So let us just pray for ourselves and for each other and hope tomorrow brings a better day.
* Cape Muslim Congress councillor Yagyah Adams.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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