Respecting the higher level personalities
26-4-2004 | IslamWeb
Question:
It looks and become common practice in the society that people respect the higher level person (health, wealth & position) and in the same place ignore the lower (poor) person in all aspects. This practice has seen even in our Muslims locality. Is this not a kind of Shirk! Appreciate your comment on this issue.
Answer:
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.
Allah Says (interpretation of meaning): {…Verily, the most honourable of you with Allâh is that (believer) who has At-Taqwa [i.e. one of the Muttaqûn (pious)….}[49:13].
This is the true and correct criteria for assigning honor to anyone.
A Muslim has to treat hospitably whomever Allah has honoured, and glorify whomever Allah has glorified.
There is no harm also in being kind and treating hospitably the people of high status and importance. The Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) said: “Treat people according to their position and status (in the society)”. [Reported by Abu Dawud and Abu Ya’ala; and al-Hakim said in his book Marifat Ulum al-Hadith that it is an authentic Hadith]
In addition to this, the auther of Awn-al-Maabud said: ‘This means to treat everyone according to what suits his status in religion, knowledge and honour’. Al-Azizi said: ‘The meaning of the Hadith is to incite (people) to preserve (and respect) people’s honour and status, and to prefer some over others in meetings and standing up (as a sign of respect when greeting people of important personalities), and regarding other rights as well."
Imam al-Munawi said in Faid al-Qadir: ‘Treat people according to what suits their age, religion, knowledge and honour. Do not treat equally the servant and his master, the president and his subordinates, as this results in enmity and hatred in our own selves'.
This is not considered as Shirk at all.