Random Non Muslim Talk at Work
Salam,
The other day I was at work and one of my co workers who works at the store with me spotted this girl which he found attractive and he told me ” Saad that’s all you”( meaning go and holla at her) I was like oh no shatan alert. He’s trying to set me up. So I responded and told him ” I can’t do anything, it goes against my beliefs”. Then he said, what do you mean? I told him it’s forbidden for a Muslim like myself to have a relationship with the opposite gender before marriage especially fornication and it goes against the law’s which God has told mankind to live by.
Then he said “Wow, that’s crazy, I can’t go three days without it”. I told him, it’s a major sin, and if one does it then he is obligated to repent with the condition that he or she won’t go back to that sin. He understood and was silent and all of a sudden he gave me a slick shatan anwser and said ” so do it once and repent”. Astugfurillah.
Yea so those are the type of people I come across with at work. I just try to remind myself by saying “haraam yo” and keep it moving.
Also the other day what happened was an african american lady came into my store. She was dressed with loose jeans, a fleece, a Yankee fitted and some gold jewelry. At first when I started assisting her, I had no idea what I was about to find out. So she starts looking at some clothes and she sees a shirt with a skull, and she tells me ” I don’t do those”. In other words, she wouldn’t wear a shirt that has a skull on it. I told her ” I wouldn’t either” and asked why wouldn’t you wear it? She said ” Because I’m Muslim”. My jaw drop and I was real surprised, because by looking at her I would never think she was a Muslim. We started talking about Islam and she got into ayah’s in the Quran, and I was amazed by how much she knew about the deen.
She start telling me ” that we have to stick to the sunnah, and follow the tradition of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (s), I told her that I totally agree, she said ” the reason why their are so many misconceptions is because we aren’t keeping it real”. What I learned from this is never in your life judge a person by how they look, or as they say judge a book by its cover. Judge a book by it’s author. Although she might not be wearing hijab and what not, at least she recognized the problems of the ummah and accepted it unlike some people who make mistakes and try to act like it’s all good.
You gotta develop tawhid in your heart at the end of the day. Being in an environment like that, requires strong willpower and full awareness. You gotta be intellectually strong and constantly do remembrance of Allah swt all day. The key to that is five prayers, I’m not going to front, it gets hard for me at work, But Alhumduillah prayer is so nourishing to the soul. It let’s you escape from all the distractions in the dunya and you sort of protect yourself like a turtle in the shell.
I try to just remind myself that Islam has spread consistently throughout the world through honest business of Muslims, good character, etc. So how can I practically go about developing an approach to give dawah at the workplace. One thing is for sure, you need patience and forbearance. Understanding people is the key to helping them. Especially their culture.
This is just one day at work, insh’Allah I’ll update more stories as they happen. May Allah (swt) keep us strong on the deen, keep our hearts clean, and help us stay real with our Islamic Principles.
My bad for being inconsistent, forgive me, insh’Allah I’m trying to write more with different topics every time.