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Lesson 5 of 6 · What feeds it

Four. The engine that runs on all of it

Put the four together and you have the machine.

The obligation is genuine. The community reinforces it. Your siblings have their own reasons. Your parent has a history that makes them hard to blame cleanly. And every one of those is true.

Guilt runs on truth. That is why it is so hard to argue with, and it is why arguing with it does not work. You cannot reason your way out of a feeling that is being fed by things that are actually the case.

What you can do is stop treating the guilt as an instruction. It is a feeling, and it will turn up whether you are wrong or not, which means it is not evidence about whether you are wrong.

There is one more thing worth having, and it is about the difference between what you feel and what you do. Look at 17:23 again, below. Every item it forbids is something said or done. No word of impatience. No harshness. Speak to them respectfully. Not one item on that list is a feeling. If you have been carrying a belief that the resentment itself is the sin, the wording of the verse does not put it there, and this course is not going to add it. That is an observation about what the verse lists, and it is not a ruling about your heart, which is not ours to give.

Qur’an and Sunnah

Look at this again. Every item it forbids is something said or done. Not one item on that list is a feeling. If you have been carrying a belief that the resentment itself is the sin, the wording does not put it there. That is an observation about what the verse lists and not a ruling about your heart.

۞وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ أَلَّا تَعۡبُدُوٓاْ إِلَّآ إِيَّاهُ وَبِٱلۡوَٰلِدَيۡنِ إِحۡسَٰنًاۚ إِمَّا يَبۡلُغَنَّ عِندَكَ ٱلۡكِبَرَ أَحَدُهُمَآ أَوۡ كِلَاهُمَا فَلَا تَقُل لَّهُمَآ أُفࣲّ وَلَا تَنۡهَرۡهُمَا وَقُل لَّهُمَا قَوۡلࣰ ا كَرِيمࣰ ا

Your Lord has commanded that you should worship none but Him, and that you be kind to your parents. If either or both of them reach old age with you, say no word that shows impatience with them, and do not be harsh with them, but speak to them respectfully

Qur’an 17:23

Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.

What feeds it · Inshirah