Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Available from IIPH!

Enjoy Your Life by Dr. Muhammad Abdur-Rahmân al-‘Areefy

Here’s a taste of what’s inside:

My friend was the best of people: well-mannered, religious, and intelligent. He worked as an imam of the mosque near his house. However, I would hear many people speaking negatively about him. This would surprise me, and I couldn’t figure out an explanation.

One day, though, his neighbour came to me, complaining: “Shaykh! Your friend doesn’t lead our prayer and doesn’t even pray with us.” I asked: “Why?” He said: “I don’t know. He is supposed to be the imam, but he is usually absent from the mosque.” I began to make excuses for him, saying: “Perhaps he’s busy with an emergency or maybe he isn’t home.” The man said: “Shaykh! His car is parked outside his house, and I’m positive he’s inside; yet he doesn’t attend the prayer even though he is the imam!”

I decided to investigate the reason behind this so that I could advise my friend. I did so until I finally discovered what was wrong. Since this man was the imam of the mosque, many people would come to him, seeking help with different things. Someone in debt comes to him to request some financial aid to repay the loan. Someone else has just graduated from high school and needs a recommendation to enter college. A third is sick and needs someone to facilitate his entrance into a particular hospital. A fourth comes to him requesting assistance in finding suitable matches for his daughters. A fifth owes rent for his house and cannot afford it. Yet another person gave him a divorce report so that he may refer it to the proper authorities. The list goes on.

The influx of people with various needs continued, and all the while, my friend is an ordinary man who isn’t very prominent. He does not possess extraordinary abilities or a wide network of connections. His shyness to refuse requests forced him to bite off more than he could chew. He would promise one person that his debts would be repaid; he would jot down the phone number of the second, promising him that the university would accept him. He tells the third: “Give me two days, and you’ll find the hospital admittance document ready” – and so on and so forth. They would come back to him at the appointed time; he would apologize and give them yet another appointment. This continued until he began fleeing from people. He refused to answer his phones and eventually, stopped leaving his house.

Not surprisingly, the end result was that when someone would meet him – if they ever found him – they would insult him and repeatedly yell: “Why did you promise me? Why did you raise my hopes?” When I learnt of his situation, I realized that he had dug a hole for himself and plummeted into it. I remember once hearing him apologize to someone, saying: “I’m sorry! I wasn’t able to do anything about your issue.” The other responded emphatically: “How could you waste my time like this? You could’ve at least told me earlier…”

This reminded me of the wise saying: “Apologizing in the beginning is better than apologizing in the end.”

How beautiful it is for a person to know his or her limits, so that he or she works only within the sphere that he or she knows he or she can. Allah, the Most High, conditions us upon that by saying:

{Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity…} (Qur’an 2: 286)

He has also said:

{…Allah does not charge a soul except [according to] what He has given it…} (Qur’an 65: 7)

Additionally, the Prophet (sa) has forbidden us from burdening ourselves beyond our capacity.

An excerpt from Enjoy Your Life by Dr. Muhammad Abdur-Rahmân al-‘Areefy available from IIPH