Issues of Ijtihad

for them would be to simply ignore the sloganeering. Had the inhabitants of the locality availed of this third option and simply ignored the sloganeering, within five minutes or so they would have found that the procession had moved ahead in its path and that the provocative slogans had vanished into thin air as if they had never existed. Sign of Wisdom A British writer, William Ralph Inge (1860-1954), rightly remarked, ‘The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things.’ One form of knowing the ‘relative value of things’ is that a person knows the possible results of his actions. If unawareness of the possible results of one’s actions is evidence of foolishness, awareness of the possible results of one’s actions is wisdom. Once, it so happened that a person’s friend cheated him out of a large sum of money. This person had now a burning desire for revenge, so much so that he wanted to kill his former friend. This man happened to meet me. I said to him that before taking revenge, he should think of the consequences of such an action: Revenge would be taken for revenge. If he killed his former friend, then the man’s sons might kill him. In this way, a chain of enmity and revenge would begin between the two families. I said to the man that