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Where do you draw the line between pleasing other people and respecting your own boundaries?

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

I’ve asked this question before, and it has never been answered to my satisfaction. Where do you draw the line between pleasing other people and respecting your own boundaries?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

There are two issues:

a) what is obligatory in one’s dealings with others;
b) what is praiseworthy in these dealings.

It is obligatory to fulfill the obligatory rights of others, and not to harm them in any way.

It is praiseworthy to go above and beyond this, and to ‘honor’ them in way that entails excellence in dealing; to make them happy; to take the means of increasing love, strengthening all good ties, and assisting them in all good.

Thus, no one is saying that it is obligatory for anyone to eat more than they want to. However, eating more than normal for the abovementioned intentions is praiseworthy. When one does not, one should display excellence in other ways, such as one’s behavior, words, and actions.

One’s own right

At the same time, it is from the sunna not to forget the rights one has over oneself, the most fundamental of which are to take the means of attaining eternal success and to avoid eternal failure. Part of this right one has over oneself, if one reflects, is to restrain one’s lower self (ego) and one’s worldly inclinations, for these are what keep us from pursuing the way of spiritual excellence and eternal success. The sunnas that the Beloved of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) has shown us in social dealings are a means of achieving this restraint and gaining the ability to think of ‘good’ beyond one’s own inclinations: this is the key to that spiritual excellence and eternal success.

Allah has told us in the Qur’an,

091.001 By the sun and his brightness,

091.002 And the moon when she follows him,

091.003 And the day when it reveals him,

091.004 And the night when it enshrouds him,

091.005 And the heaven and Him Who built it,

091.006 And the earth and Him Who spread it,

091.007 And a soul and Him Who perfected it

091.008 And inspired it (with conscience of) what is wrong for it and (what is) right

for it.

091.009 He is indeed successful who causes it to grow,

091.010 And he is indeed a failure who stunts it.

The final four verses (7-10) come after the longest set of oaths in the whole Qur’an, telling us something about the centrality of the soul and the means one should take to cause it to grow.

And Allah alone gives success.

Wassalam,

Faraz Rabbani

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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