On the authority of Abi Mas’ud Uqbah ibn Amr al-Ansari al-Badree (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: The Messenger of Allah (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “From the words of the previous Prophets that the people still find are: If you feel no shame, do as you wish”
[Reported in Bukhari]
Being one of the so called Gen-Y, I am very much familiar with the current trend of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other emerging platforms. While the idea is to connect us to the world, it is also, in a different term, exposed us to the world.
Everything that we decided to post there will be watch, scrutinized and/or judge by others, either we want it or not. Having said that though, it is usually the natural reaction to act and behave properly when we know people are watching, which I believe to be the concept of Ihsaan – to worship Allah as though you see Him, and if you do not see Him, then (knowing that) truly He sees you.
But the concept seems to be lost nowadays. People are so eager to be known, famous, popular etc. that they resort to do the opposite. Often would we see on the Internet people posting things that people in general would not, i.e. making a fool out of themselves (sorry to say this). And here is why I highlighted the word natural previously; Ibn Raja said that shyness is of two types – natural shyness, and acquired shyness. Natural shyness falls on the behavior where we ourselves feel, for example to expose ourselves naked in public. While acquired shyness is something that we must seek, so that we feel ashamed of doing something.
I feel that some youth nowadays have lack this sense of natural shyness that we could refer to the hadith above “…If you feel no shame, do as you wish”. Something needed to be done to instil the feeling of modesty and shyness, to acquire them. This however should not be mistaken with weak and cowardly, but that is a different story.
By,
FMM
[KRIM Dungun’s Activist]