Character Success

Character Success

1991 9 September 18 Character Success (332): The Basis of A customer comes into a shop and it turns out that he wants to buy goods worth Rs. 50,000. Inadvertently, he speaks abrasively in the course of bargaining. The shopkeeper becomes enraged and replies in an equally offensive tone. The customer takes himself off in high dudgeon and buys his goods from another shop.

Any true businessman would curse himself for having lost such a good customer. He would reflect upon his actions as not having been justified. He should have shown more patience and just ignored the harshness of the customer’s tone. He should have continued to be polite to him. Had he done so, the man would surely have purchased things from his shop. For lack of courtesy, he had lost a customer.

Now if the shopkeeper was not of the right temperament, he would deny his own responsibility and put the entire blame on the customer. He would say, for example, that the man was not really interested in buying: “He only wanted to browbeat me. Why should I have let him do that? Am I his slave? What do I care for such customers? People like him can come and go. I am not bothered.” And so on.

The act of dawah has been compared in the Qur’an (AI Saf, 10) with trading. Of course, there is a difference between a trader and a dayee – that of their objectives. While the trader aims at worldly gain, the dayee works for the Hereafter. But to be successful, both the trader and the dayee must be of a temperament which displays self-restraint, courtesy and the ‘willingness to be forgiving. Without these essential qualities neither the trader nor the dayee can succeed. A trader who has no understanding of such obligations towards his clients will never be able to win them over. Similarly, the dayee who cannot just overlook the misdemeanors of his hearers in order to interact with them pleasantly, will never induce them to pay heed to his message.