Asma took to Social media to share her frustration with a common ‘hadith’ which may be causing us more harm than good. We wanted to share her experience to help others. This post was written some time ago and is a excerpt from her Facebook post at the time.

(Asma Hussein has agreed to her opinion being shared with Amaliah.)

On being a doormat.

” I recently got ripped off in a business transaction because I didn’t have enough foresight or patience to write up a proper contract. I hired a freelancer to do some work for me – we agreed on a fair price and a fair deadline. The deadline came and went and the project was still incomplete. I conferred with the freelancer and we set a second deadline. Again, the deadline came and went and the project was still incomplete.

What followed was a saga of impatient and angry back and forth emails.

I tried my best to value the work that she did, even though it was incomplete. I kept making excuses for this freelancer and giving her chance after chance to behave professionally, but that did not work. Although I’ve managed to sort it out since then, I suffered a financial loss and couldn’t use any of the work the freelancer had produced…

When I started writing this post I actually thought the “give your brother 70 excuses” quote was from a hadith simply because it’s mentioned so often in sermons and Islamic writing.

When I looked into it, I quickly realised that it’s not actually a hadith, it’s a quote from a scholar. (At this point I became angry. Why have we incorporated it so deeply into our belief system as though it’s fact? But I digress.) I take issue with the “70 excuses” principle not because it’s wrong in and of itself. Rather, we as a community have shamefully exploited it. We sometimes, unfortunately, use it to defend people who are guilty of some oppression or misdeeds that negatively affect others.

We’re taught that suspicion is bad – and it is: “O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful” (49:12).

We’re taught that exposing someone’s sins is bad – and it is: Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, “Do not abuse the Muslims nor seek after their faults. For indeed, he who seeks after their (other people’s) faults, Allah will seek after his faults. And whomsoever has Allah seek after his faults, He will expose them, even if he may have committed them in the privacy of his own home.”
We’re also somehow implicitly taught that if someone’s intentions are good, then we shouldn’t hold him/her accountable for what he/she says or does.

What we’re not taught as often is the following hadith: Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, “A believer is not bitten from the same hole twice.”

Don’t get me wrong; I believe very strongly that hiding people’s sins and imperfections (as long as they don’t cause harm to others) is important. I also believe that suspicion is a terrible thing to practice. Usually.
But I also believe that Islam is not a faith that *only* teaches us to “turn the other cheek” or that it’s somehow okay to be oppressed and not speak out. Islam is a faith that imbues in us a sense of justice – if someone takes advantage of me, my family, or my wealth, then it’s incumbent upon me to not fall prey to his/her deceit a second time. Not being bitten from the same hole twice is a concept that we should teach ourselves and our children – right along with every other important Islamic concept.

I’m glad that I had this experience of being ripped off. It taught me something incredibly valuable: business, much like life, requires firmness and accountability. There is always space for kindness and flexibility, but there is no space for being taken advantage of.
I honestly think that our “give him 70 excuses” refrain is (very ironically) an excuse that we employ so that we don’t have to deal with the realities of someone’s misdeeds. It’s somehow more comfortable for us to let things go. (By the way we don’t really let things go – and that leads to so many problems between us and within our own selves.)

As Muslims we need to be generous, merciful, and loving. If someone treats us badly, we are encouraged to seek out excuses for that person, and to treat him or her with kindness. There are examples of this overflowing from the bright and beautiful Sunnah of our messenger (saw). But we should also exercise our right (and sometimes duty) to make our boundaries known and not accept mistreatment or abuse.
This is the balance of our religion – kindness and generosity as the default, tempered by justice, common-sense, and accountability.
Allah (swt) values human dignity: “And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference” (17:70).

“There is no goodness in constantly being a doormat on which others wipe their feet.”

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