The Muslim Way of Speaking

Speech and language are essential and important components of human communication. Societies have evolved many languages over the course of human evolution. Currently there is a large number of languages and dialects that are spoken on our planet that may be believed to range between being euphonious to cacophonous. The manner in which a person speaks reflects on how genteel and humane he/she is. In civilized communities it is considered a norm to speak in a sweet-sounding manner. It may be thought that the early civilized societies may have had a tradition of learning to speak well too. To be able to speak is a great blessing of Allah Almighty indeed. But it is not difficult to find a widespread abuse of this blessing in everyday life. It is not uncommon to come across conversations that are full of swearing, cursing, profanity and slandering.

The Muslim Way of Speaking addresses this problem in a comprehensive, eloquent and lucid manner. The book is written by renowned Muslim scholar Harun Yahya. The book is available for download on his personal website and can be read online too. The book is also available for purchase on online stores like Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

The book is written from an increasingly Islamic perspective. It takes examples from Quran and Hadith on  as to how to speak and address people in normal everyday discourse. First of all it emphasizes on the importance of praising Almighty Allah in speech and to call Him through His beautiful names. It advises to speak with the knowledge that Allah is with the speaker at every moment. It warns not to associate others else with Allah. It is advised to speak in the knowledge of one’s helplessness in the face of Allah and that no task can be performed without the will of Allah. Quran should be employed as a guide in speech. One should speak in the certainty of fate and the truth that there is good in everything. Allah should be trusted in all the situations.

One should speak with the awareness that life of this world is transitory. One should have concern in his speech for what is lawful and what is unlawful. One should avoid the style of speech that is influenced by Satan and one should seek refuge of Satan from Allah. One should enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. One should speak with wisdom, sincerity, truthfulness, sensibly and logically. One should also give good tidings.

One should speak so as to arouse joy and enthusiasm. One should say what is best. One should not speak under the influence of the mean inner self and by being motivated by personal desires. A person’s speech should be measured, courteous and respectful. Humility should be a cornerstone of good speech. Similarly, while speaking one should have an attitude of tolerance and forgiveness. Consultation should be a major part of intercommunication. One should make frequent references to one’s disposition about submission to the will of Allah and to acknowledge that there is no strength but in Allah. It is very important to adopt good manners while speaking to one’s parents. Backbiting and gossiping behind people’s backs should also be abandoned. Suspicion and slander should be abandoned. Similarly mocking and ridiculing people should be discouraged and abandoned. One should not speak out of covetousness and envy. One should not speak in vein and make empty and trivial statements. One should not interrupts others speech and on their own turn they should speak calmly. A very important point is to adopt the manner of speech that is appropriate to the level of knowledge of the person that is being addressed. Speaking hypocritically should be avoided at all costs. A way of speech that gives rise to doubts should be avoided. A manner of speech that is probing and prying should be avoided. The statements that lead to evil should be avoided. Obfuscation should be avoided and secret and meetings should not be held. One should speak so as to defend and support our prophet Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah‘s peace and blessings be upon him).

Finally the books lists the advantages of adopting such meritorious traits in one’s speech and the author presents the conclusion. The last chapter of the book is deception of evolution. It is dedicated to addressing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. It tries to show with the help of logic, and in the light of relevant literature review on as to how the materialist theory of evolution presented by Charles Darwin is wrong and flawed. 

Overall I have found the book to be a very enjoyable read. It is well written and the quality and amount of material presented in the book is quite balanced and enlightening. I found this book while I was looking for literature regarding neural basis for language, speech and accent production. Although I could not find anything of that sort in the book, I believe that the book is an excellent resource for behavioral rehabilitation.  

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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 The Muslim Way of Speaking by Psyops Prime is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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