Question:
As-salamu `alaykum,
Some questions regarding good manners. Sometimes adults make mistakes or say something wrong. It could be about Islam or anything else. How should we be correcting them without offending them?
Another: some people are blunt and they don’t care about another’s feelings. Is it ok to be blunt? Or is there a better way that one should say something less offensively? May Allah give you long and happy life shaykh.
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
You can do as Sayyidina al-Hasan (as) and Sayyidina al-Husayn (as) did when they saw a man making wudu incorrectly. Then one of them did the same as him in front of him, and the other corrected his brother and thus the man understood without them addressing him directly.
Our Shaykhs’ teaching is that we correct in general but never point out faults directly. Being blunt is usually a bad manner, and a form of arrogance, except where the person will not understand anything else.
Taher Siddiqui
