Modesty in Men...An Overlooked Characteristic
by Nisaar Y. Nadiadwala on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 3:25pm
My ex editor wrote a research story during the unfamous Gujarat riots and he interviewed some Gujarati females of Ahmedabad and aksed them," Why do you dislike Muslims so much ?" Among the many answers he noted down there was one which struck my attention " Their men cover their women with burkha but have affairs with our girls..! The impact of immodest media and liberal education system has taken a toll on the Modesty of many Muslim young men. This has given rise to some very wrong attitudes in their minds tawards the modest way of Islamic life and at times also brings a bad name to the community
I was interviewing a young man who was a graduate from an Islamic Madrasa. While reading his biodata, i realised that he had scored excellently in in Deeniyat but it struck me that he did not have a beard except like a little carpet of harvested grass on a lawn. I asked him the reasons. Here is what he said : Look brother, I am doing post graduation in a college and and there are modern students ,besides my mother is looking for girls for me and if I keep a bit long beard, my proposals may be rejected by girls.....so I think I will keep after my marriage. This may not be true with every graduate from Madarasa but this young man surely became a victim of this attitude.
Many young men have this fear of being rejected by girls if they wear an Islamic attire of a fistful beard and an ankle length trouser. So they discard their modesty and try to befriend girls. For them good looking girls, who speak smart English and wear western outfits even behind the veil and hijab , reject a practicing Muslim man. This is not always true. Some Young Muslims male who are modest and do not mix up with girls in the campus may be taken as backward or orthodox but modesty and haya are from Emaan says the sahih hadith of Bukhari , yet they end up marrying a good practicing Muslimah.
This reminds me of my recent Dubai tour when I visited few shops to purchase goods for my family.. I spotted Muslim men who were in Islamic attire dealing with the female costumers in a very decent manner. They never looked up at their faces. That was a delightful thing to note. I wonder how delighted Allah would be upon seeing his young worshipers observing modesty !
Some exemplary people in our early generation Muslims really displayed excellent modesty, they never feared that women would reject them. Allah gave 11 wives to his bearded Prophet whose modesty resembled a shy newly wed bride. Uthman bin Affan was a modest and a shy man yet he got the privilege of marrying two daughters of the Prophet (pbuh ). It was Umar bin Khattab's sense of gheerah and modesty that made him eagerly wait for the Qur'anic verse regarding the wives of the Prophet to be revealed.
A Muslim man observes his modesty not only when it comes to the dress of his wife or daughter or sister but also in context with other people's wives. sisters and daughters. That is what we call a Modest Islamic man
Nisaar Nadiadwala speaks and writes on socio-educational issues from Islamic perspective. He can be reached at nisaar_yusuf@yahoo.com
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