TRANSPARENCY OF PRIVACY

TRANSPARENCY OF PRIVACY

By: A. Saeed

Darkness began to set in allover. Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) was sitting inside the Medina mosque. At this time one of his wives, Safiya (r.a) came to the mosque looking for her husband, who greeted her and welcomed her to the mosque. When they finished their conversation and she stood up to take leave of him, the Prophet (pbuh) followed her. As they reached the courtyard of the mosque, two of the Prophet’s companions who were sitting on a stone at a distance stood up and started walking away. Immediately, the Prophet called them and when they turned back, he told them that it was his wife Safiya.

Both asked the Prophet in unison: Oh the Messenger of Allah, do you think that we would assume anything otherwise?”

Satan travels wherever the blood travels in the human body. Where there is suspicious situation, Satan will instill various wrong intuitions. It was a very ordinary incident of daily life. It seemed very silly at the outset. But from the teachings of the Prophet, we can understand that it was a very serious matter.

Through this anecdote, the Prophet was teaching us that transparency is very vital for the existence and progress of the life of the society based on good morals and sound principles. All legitimate matters, therefore, should be put into practice by avoiding all kinds of ambiguities and covert acts as far as possible. This is the responsibility of both the leaders and the individuals. The Holy Quran reminds about the need to observe transparency not only in matters related to man-women relations, but in all dealings of the daily life as well.

A prophet who is guarded against sinning, and who is well aware that none of his followers would ever think badly of him, had maintained his behaviour transparent, only to teach about the weaknesses of human mind. All dealings that are not transparent are bound to have violation of the rules and fulfillment of personal interests and such actions will certainly open vistas of injustice. There will be plenty of room for the Satan to try his dirty tricks. The holy Quran has explained that there exists such a space in the human mind. If not defended with full alertness, the human beings will become the salves of the Satan and will be disgraced as low as the animals.

Islam enjoins transparency in all personal and social relations as well as administrative matters. It is also inevitable to maintain law and order in this world. The holy Quran therefore strictly forbids spreading among the people of any suspicious news or information that would damage transparency.