Patience, Perseverance and Compassion
Al-Risala (English), July 1987, p. 3
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Patience, Perseverance and Compassion
1987 7 July 3 Patience, Perseverance and Compassion (239) “Success is a matter of cool decisions, without constant wavering and changing of the mind, acute observation, initiative, and unremitting attention to a vast number of petty details.”
The above statement would appear to be a sure-fire recipe for material success in a very large number of situations. As it happens, it is a formula evolved from the experience of Campbell Rogers, an’ expert in poultry keeping of international repute. But this unswerving devotion to taxing minutiae is not all that he advocates. He begins his now famous book, Profitable Poultry-Keeping in India and the East (D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., Bombay 1959) with the notion that success in large-scale poultry-farming is largely dependent upon one’s temperament. He feels that one who does not love .birds and animals can never build himself up in this profession. So that quite apart from patience, diligence, the ability to do without holidays and a keen eye for profit, one must also remain, kind, humane, and filled with compassion for living creatures.
With this dimension added to the overall picture, it would be reasonable to say that he gives us a valuable formula, not only for material success, but for useful, harmonious social living. Just as the successful poultry-man must give his attention to the habits and requirements of his birds, so also must the social being take into account the inclinations and compulsions of other and show his willingness to make concessions to them in the interests of maintaining the happiness and tranquility of society. Success in life is not just a matter of keeping one’s nose to the grindstone and taking correct decisions about financial matters, but of understanding one’s fellow-men and according them the kindness and respect which one would wish to have oneself.
Piety is to get by, avoiding evil
1987 7 July 3 Piety is to get by, avoiding evil (55) Abu Hurayra was asked what piety was. “Have you ever treaded on a thorny path,” he said in reply. “Why, yes,” the man answered. “What did you do?” Abu Hurayra asked him. “When I saw a thorn, I kept to one side. I got by, avoiding thorns.” “That is what piety is,” Abu Hurayra said.
