Munni

Mods, I'd prefer this topic stays here as it deals with friendships, but of course its upto you.

Okay so a friend of mine feels very hurt by something one of her male friends said to her. He is not a muslim and he made some derogatory statements about the Prophet (SAW), because he does not believe in Islam (obviously). So now my friend is wondering if she should still be friends with someone who disrespects the Prophet(SAW) so blatantly. I myself dont wish to repeat what I was told he said, but even I was disgusted when she told me.

Now the thing is, what advice to give to her? I believe she made it aware that she didnt like what he said, but I am guessing she feels uncomfortable to be around someone who says such things openly. Only thing is they have been friends for quite a while now.

Now my question is two-fold. One, what advice would you give her? And if you found out what your non-muslims friends really thought about the Prophet(SAW) and lets say they said openly or believed some pretty bad things about him, would you still find it easy to be friends with them? Thanks. Serious replies, thanks.

Ansoon

if she makes her distance from that particular friend, the only thing she is doing is letting him go unaware of what "mistakes" he made.. .. he will keep saying that stuff to other ppl. .. i would rather advice her to talk to that friend and try her best to change his feeling... its do able.

she just needs to prepare herself. get her words organized and remember to pray two rakat nafils before talking to him.. Allah(swt) will make it easier..

As for the second question, it all depends on the result of above aproach. If successful, its all good and well. otherwise, (if i were her) i would just start making distance between him and myself.

hope it helps

Matsui

What is the big whup. There are topics in which one doesn;t agree wiht another on. You still remain friends. Religion is simply one of those topics. Tell your friend to get off her high horse and be thankful here is a friend who likes her even though she is dogmatic about one aspect of life, namely religion.

funguy

Munni, I stopped talking to Matsui long time ago and I think you should do the same. He is incurable.

CorruptAngel

One of my Non-Muslim friend did this to me too and she also said pretty bad stuff about Prophet Muhammed(pbuh)'s character which I found very disppointing and I felt insulted. My reaction was that whatever she said I will prove her wrong and I did.. though I didn't get any response from her(maybe she was too ashamed of what she said). Well I stopped seeing her and now we rarely talk to each other. I don't think she can ever be my real friend again because of what she said and she knows it!

Athari

You (O Muhammad sallalahu alayhe wasalaam ) will not find any people who believe in Allâh and the Last Day, making friendship with those who oppose Allâh and His Messenger (Muhammad sallalahu alayhe wasalaam ), even though they were their fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their kindred (people). For such He has written Faith in their hearts, and strengthened them with Rûh (proofs, light and true guidance) from Himself. And We will admit them to Gardens (Paradise) under which rivers flow, to dwell therein (forever). Allâh is pleased with them, and they with Him. They are the Party of Allâh. Verily, it is the Party of Allâh that will be the successful. (Al-Mujadilah 58:22)

Asif_k

You are better off without such ignorant friends. If he cant respect your faith, how do you expect him to respect you.

Mehnaz

Friendships are about mutual respect.

If you respect your friend and know they are of a certain faith that you do not particularly believe in, then in respect of the friendship and respect for the friend him/her self, no negative things should be said about the religion. If you want to discuss religion to genuinely learn, then that's totally different. If religion is being discussed simply to insult, then that is not acceptable.

Clearly, your friend's friend doesn't respect her. If he did, then he wouldn't have bad mouthed the Prophet, particularly if HE KNEW your friend is Muslim and knew it would insult her. That's just plain old rude.

I went through a similar situation with someone who didn't respect Islam and said all sorts of crap to me about Pigs being healthy. Anyway, my other friends who were present at this occasion were offended even though they aren't even Muslim. They believed that it was rude and of this other girl to make these remarks especially after SHE KNEW I was a Muslim.

I think your friend will find it hard to be a 'true' friend with this person. I'm sure they will remain civil to one another, but the respect I'm sure your friend had for him is gone. Therefore, the friendship will never be the same again as the respect was totally thrown out of the window.

Munni

Its not my friend who said this, its my girlfriends friend.

And I somewhat agree about the being disrespectful part. They have been friends for years, and apparently he has stated similar but not such vile things in the past.

Is that respecting a friend to say such things to them about their religion? I can understand that you tell a person that you disagree with their way of life, but to be derogatory is a whole other issue.

Matsui

I think your firend should tell him that topics involving Mohammad are off the table. I disagree with my firends on facets of trickle down economics, it doesn't mean that I can't be friends with them. SOmetimes..it has gotten quite abusive.

waleed

matsui uncle je there is disagreeing and there is disagreeing and cussing somone down there is difference get it in ur head i thought u where inteligent


ay way in my opinion if that person cant respect ur beliefes then tell him to get lost and find someone else

RajputFury

Supply-sider eh?

It can be a dilemma when you have friend demeaning your faith, but you have to think of this way: Can you ignore the friends views on religion and continue on or will they bother you to the point that your friendship will be strained? If it does bother you that much then perhaps continuing the friendship may not be in your best interests.

I had an athiest friend who would insult every religion and religious figures even the almighty. Many of my devout catholic friends stopped seeing him, eventually every one left him but me. I still see him from time to time, because we came to an agreement not to talk about religion. He's a great guy overall and an excellent tennis player, so we spend our time focusing on the good

ahmadjee

First of all, ask any of your non-Muslim friend why they do not believe in Islam and most likely you will get offend by their answer. Some might not say it to your face, due to your respect of just them being nice but their belief in their own religion mostly means their rejection of yours! There are few who believe in "to you your religion, to me mine" or the fact that other religions can lead to salvation as well. Most Muslims, for instance, don't consider any religious figure outside the Judo-Christian-Islamic belief system, be it Krishna, Zoroastrian, Buddha etc. truthful. And thus meaning that all the great stories of virtue, wisdom & spirituality that their followers attribute towards them are false & they themselves were imposters.

Secondly, it's understandable how a person would like to dump a friend who doesn't respect their belief. Though there is a flip side to it and that is, if you decide to boycott this person for what you consider his/her disrespectful thoughts, then how do you suppose they will ever change their mind? Is isolating such a person answer to your concern? Is not hearing such disrespect, makes the problem go away?

IMO, one should not isolate such a person, instead they should be kept in good acquaintance. And whenever such a topic of discussion comes up, you make your case in the best way possible, with the focus of changing his hatred for Islam or AnHazoor (saw). Though if they persist on their disrespectful behavior, one can leave them for the time being, but come back when they are not talking trash.

sadzzz

if ur friend starts going around and breaknig of friendships based on religion... shes not going to have a lot of friends left... u cant expect ur best friend to be muslim.. what if they happen to be a jew.. christian.. or God forbid.. a hindu or sikh...

none of the mentioned religions believe in Prophet Mohammad... are we going to go and break our ties with them?

i think she should talk to him about it.. tell him how she feels about her religion and about the comments made... this way he wont be offending others in the future... Islam aint about running from people... she should be able confront him and tell him how she feels..

Faisal

There are two issues at hand.

1. Knowing what to say and when to say it.
2. The tolerance level of the listener.

Most people are careful of not insulting or dissing personalities close to their friend's hearts. They may not agree to the feelings of respect, but they watch their mouth. If the dissing was unintentional (your friend over-heard, the person saying it didn't knew or whatever) than its one thing, else, such people are usually not worth keeping as friends, anyway.

I am particularly not keen on the age-old repeated phrase Dil ka achaar daalna hai? If someone doesn't know how to communicate with his/her peers, they have something lagging in their personalities and should fix it.

Each person has a different level of tolerance and they react differently. Our Matsui-san here, for example, may have a very high level and will tolerate people making fun of his religious beliefs and may redicule their faith to get even. Some others may just throw a punch at the first insult (or perceived insult). This is part of elementary inter-personal skills to gauge the other person and don't cross the line.

Matsui

Wow faisal..such brilliant use of colors to make the point already made redundant by many others. it is still redundant!!! The dazzling use of colors didn't create any distinction from what has already been said.

Now since you seem to have figured out my modus operendi, although erroneously. what is to be said of people that really make no point whatsoever, like yourself, other than repeat the stale mantra of already established coventional wisdom? Elementary, academic or simple?

Faisal

May be if mods start removing all such irrelevant posts by you, and ban you after three such removals, you will finally get the point that needlessly criticizing other people will get you no where on this forum. Elementary, right?

Matsui

Wow faisal...I guess it is ok for you to single out people but not others? That doesn;t seem right. It was in context of the current thread. Unlike your response which generalized my "style". You seem like an intelligent, adult person who can validate his points. So why instigate?

Faisal

No where I criticized you. I said you may have a higher tolerance level on criticism, and that was to make a point that each one of us may have a different tolerance level to handle insults thrown at us, and how we respond.

Matsui

You made an erroneous assumption that I reply to sophomoric religion based provocation in order "to get even". How do you know what my motivation is? Did I write it down? Did I tell you?

My motivation here was to showcase the complete grasp on teh obvious that you have. After your assertion.

I think we can leave it after your last word.