Islamic marriage advice and family advice

Izzat, Respect

respect izzat honour

I want to know what to do to get back my respect.


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7 Responses »

  1. Im also want to know how can i get it back =(

  2. salam,

    I think I know what you mean. Sometimes we are too open or too friendly to others, or simply too

    "talkative". This gives them the audacity to offend us, disrespect us or exceed boundaries. I have

    the impression that the less people talk, the less vulnerable they make themselves. It may sound

    stupid, but the more invisible we are, the more do others respect us. Never tell anybody what you are

    up to. Always give them the feeling to be on their side, never swim against the tide. Keep your intentions

    and private affairs for yourself. People only lose respect when they know too much about you. Be nice and

    friendly to anyone, but don't tell them too much, knowledge is power. And only you should have power over

    yourself. Just talk to your spouse about everything, or almost everything that concerns you.

    I think tawakul to Allah and less talking to people means respect. Just don't let others come too close, to be

    able to lose respect. I don't know what you did, but hopefully it wasn't something bad. Step by step,

    you will gain it back insha Allah.

    Jazakallah

  3. Salaam Aimen,

    I don't know what you are referring to as I don't have any context by which to understand your query.

    What I do know is that behaving respectfully (towards yourself and to others) is the way to gain respect. People do not give respect for money, fame or beauty - they give respect to a person's character. The most loved, and most respected of people are those who have the best character.

    If you are in a situation where something has happened and you have found yourself at the bottom of the respect pile (either in your own eyes, or other peoples eyes) the way to recover is to literally start from scratch. Draw a line under all that has gone past, and begin to focus on perfecting morals.

    What that means is you take one at a time, and focus on it wholeheartedly until you feel that you sincerely represent that moral with your body, actions, heart, soul and mind. Some morals are easier than others. As long as you try to maintain focus in this way - you will begin to lose focus on what's past, what's wrong, the way people treat you and so on,,.and become very single minded and principle focused.

    When you have become principle focused (i.e: you are focused on what is most pleasing to Allah) temptations and bad behaviour will slowly start to become repulsive to you and before you know it, you will begin to see a change in your environment: in the way that you interact with others and the way that others begin to interact with you.

    I think the key here is to focus on something higher and more transcendent than yourself, something that is not going to let you down, or fail to notice the good that you do and the effort you make in living a good life. Too often, we get side tracked by the opinions of others, or we are made dizzy by the temptation of money, or beauty or status.

    Really - the most loveable, and respectable of all people: is the one who is the most good to those around them: ""The best of people are those with the most excellent character." [Tabarâni, Sahîh]

    Peace,

    Leyla
    Editor, Islamic Answers

  4. assalam alaikum
    iam totally convinced with the answer of Lelya

  5. Sister Layla has summed it up. Here are my thoughts (they are more or less what Ms. Leyla said):

    01. From your question, it seems to me that you are trying to gain self-respect. Before we respect anyone else, we will have to respect ourselves. So, where does our self-worth comes from? Money? Degree? House? Look? Popularity? Fame? Beautiful spouse? No, our self-respect does not come from any of these things. Being Muslims, our self-respect and self-worth should come from the fact that Allah has blessed us with Islam. The noble companions of the Messenger of Allah used to say, "We were an illiterate nation, but Allah has honored us with Islam". Because everything else except for the worship of Allah and His remembrance, gives us pleasure that is extremely short lived. No matter how much we possess worldly materials, we are still in poverty before Allah. The worship of Allah and His remembrance, on the other hand, gives food to our soul and consequently gives us inner happiness and self-respect. Just think like this: Allah has honored us with His greatest Messenger. Out of His mercy, Allah has let us know who our Lord is. Out of His mercy, Allah has given us the privilege to stand before Him and recite His mighty words. Out of His mercy, Allah has made the nation of the Prophet Muhammad (May Allah's peace and greetings be upon him) the greatest nation, and will make us the witness of truth over other nations on the Day of Judgment. Merely pondering over these facts and mercy of Allah, in my humble opinion, should be enough for us to gain self-respect.

    02. Now that you have gained self-respect, you will have to maintain it. The way to maintain it is continuous worship of Allah. That is you do what Allah has told us to do, and refrain from what Allah has told us to refrain from. Or course we worship Allah and abide by His commandments only to please Him; self-respect is the unconscious outcome. Just try to spend a day by properly praying all five prayers, and see how you feel before you go to bed. Or spend a day in disobedience of Allah and see how you feel when you go to bad. It will be totally opposite feeling. So, the more we pray, fast, give charity, remember Allah, spend time in His obedience, our self-worth goes up. Contrarily, the more we lie, cheat, engage in indecency, backbite, spend time in obeying our nafs and disobeying Allah, our self worth goes down.

    03. As sister Jannah has mentioned, it is extremely important that we watch our tongue. In fact, I also found that less talking with people increase you self respect. Because someone said, "Stumbling of the tongue only leads to regret." When we are not watchful of our tongue, we often say things that later come to bite us. Like when we offend someone, we do not harm another person, we only harm ourselves as our words will later fill our minds with regret and guilt feeling. Regret and guilt feeling cause our self-worth to go down. So, weigh before you talk.

    04. You should be careful about how you maintain your anger. It often happens that we end up saying stupid and hurtful things when we are angry, which later feels our mind with regret. So, when you are angry, seek protection in Allah, and leave the place.

    05. Always behave well with other people, no matter what. Smile and give salam. If you do that, people will respect you.

    06. Do not use multiple masks, use only one. That is be the same person before Allah and all other creatures. We live in a time, when we always try to be cool. In doing so, we end up using different masks before different people. Juggling between masks eventually makes us tired, frustrated, and cause us to feel empty, and eventually lowers our self-respect. Why? Because though different masks, we have tried to please people. When you try to please all, you please none So, use only one single mask, and only try to please Allah, our Lord, all the time. When we only try to please Allah, and fear Allah in all circumstances, we truly represent the person we are, and we liberate ourselves from the clutches of 'what other people think about me'. Result: our self-respect goes up.

    07. Finally, we should remember that respect and honor comes from Allah. When Allah honors someone, none can humiliate that person. When Allah humiliate someone, none can honor that person.

  6. wow Stranger!!!!! Brilliant answer, like always:)

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