Chapter VI: Seclusion
(7) Do good to every one either deserving or underserving.
The Prophet said : Do good to everyone, pious, or impious.If you do good to one who is fit to receive, it is good. If he is not fit to receive it, you are fit to do good. The Prophet said : The root of wisdom after religion is to love for men and to do good to everyone, pious or impious. Hazrat Abu Hurairah said that the Prophet did not withdraw his hand from another till the latter withdrew his own hand.
(8) Treat well with all and speak to everyone according to his intellect. If you go to meet an illiterate person with words, of wisdom and with theology and dispute with the fools, you will get trouble.
(9) Honour the dead and show affection to the juniors: The Prophet said : He who does not show affection to our juniors is not of us. He said : 'To honour an aged Muslim is to honour God.' The honour of an aged man does not become perfect if without his permission one talks with others of the party. Hazrat Jaber reported : A deputation of Juhaina tribe once came to the Prophet .
A young man among them stood on their behalf to talk to the Prophet. The Prophet said : Stop, where is your aged man ? The Prophet said : 'If a young man shows honour to an aged man, God will create, for him such one in his old age who will show him honour.' This means that he will live up to old age. So if you show honour to the aged, God will prolong your life. The Prophet said that the Hour will not came till a son gets angry at his parents, till there is profuse rain, till the back-biters come out from every place, till the honourable men will be unseen, till the juniors will not show honour to the aged and till the wrong doers will not be doing wrong against the honourable men. So treat affectionately with the boys according to the habit of the Prophet.
Whenever the Prophet returned from a journey, the boys used to
120 The Book of Wordly Usages Vol-II
meet him and he waited for them standing in their front. He used to make some boys sit in his front and some in his back. He used to take the little children in his lap and some of them even passed urine in his cloth.