Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

parties, two sides or more, are doing the same thing and they are co-operating
with each other. In other words, I’m giving you advice and you are giving me
advice. You are letting my advice get into your heart and I am ready to let your

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advice get into my heart. That is 
tawāṣī
—like 
tashāruk
, 
taʿāwun
, 
taḥāwur
—
anything in that pattern of the Arabic language, there are two parties that are
both equally engaged in something.
Now, what happens in our families and by extension our communities is
there are some people who are professional advice givers. Their job is to give the
advice and boy they get really offended if you were to give them advice. Bad
idea! ‘Wait you’re going to give me advice?! I’m the 
khaṭīb
, I give. See the mic
—it’s on my collar. You don’t have a mic on. You’re not giving me advice, I
give you advice brother!’ It’s not just about a 
khaṭīb
, or an 
ʿālim
, or a speaker. It
could be an elder in the family, it could be the CEO of a company, it could be a
physician—I’m not picking on doctors—but I’m saying that you’re used to
giving patients advice, you’re used to giving the nurses advice, you’re used to
giving the administration advice; then somebody at the masjid gives you advice
and you’re like, ‘Excuse me!’ You’re not used to taking advice; you’re used to
giving it. Part of 
tawāṣī
is that the people you give advice to, the same people I
give advice to, are the same people I am willing to take advice from.
Now that’s hard! That’s hard, because sometimes we give our wife advice
but then the wife decides she is going to give us some advice back. That doesn’t
go so well, you know. We like the one-way street, this two-way street thing is:
‘Hey, Hey! Wait a second!’ Sometimes we like to give young people advice but
sometimes when they say, ‘Uncle you know, maybe if we did things this way’
and they try to give us advice we are like, ‘Know your role, don’t try to get too
big for your shoes’. We put them in their place, what’s the idea behind that?
That’s not 
tawāṣī
. 
Tawāṣī
means I am as willing and as concerned for the other
to give me loving counsel. My love for them, has softened me towards them, so
even when they ask something of me, legitimate or illegitimate, I am willing to
listen; I am willing to listen patiently. I am not going to reject it just because
they are saying it.
I’m reminded of a really beautiful incident in the life of Umar (
raḍiya Allāh
ʿanhu
) on the matter of 
tawāṣī
, being able to not just give advice, but to take it.
At the time he’s 
Amīr al-Mu’minīn
, his job is to give the 
khuṭbah
, his job is to
advise people on what to do and to remind them about honesty. He was on one
of his strolls and he happened to peer through a window. He sees a guy drinking
and he looks like he is drunk. Now, Umar (
raḍiya Allāh ʿanhu
), you know his
temper! He busts down the door, grabs the guy by the collar, ‘You drinking
under my watch!?’ The guy says, ‘I did one haram act, you did three haram
acts’. Umar’s (
raḍiya Allāh ʿanhu
) like what? What are you talking about? He

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says first of all you looked inside my window. You’re supposed to observe the
privacy of a Muslim. You’re not supposed to look inside. Second, you made the
assumption that I’m drinking alcohol. You couldn’t have known. I could have
been drinking water. I could have been drinking milk; you shouldn’t be making
assumptions about Muslims. Third, you entered my home without permission,
you’re not supposed to. Until you are wanted, don’t go into a believer’s house.
You did three haram acts! Umar (