Manners in Speech

Gauging one’s own strength before testing it on others Abdullah ibn Umar relates how once, when he was listening to a sermon preached by Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, he took objection to something Hajjaj had said, and was just about to air his own views on this, when he recalled what the Prophet had once said that it did not befit a believer to disgrace himself. Abdullah ibn Umar had asked the Prophet what was meant by disgracing oneself, and the Prophet had replied: “It means attempting to deal with a problem which is quite beyond one’s capacities.”