(77) Control your tongue
A person may utter a callus word that displeases Allah for which He will be angry with him until the day He meets him. This is why the Prophet Peace be upon himwarned people from uttering something callously without contemplating its consequences.
Not controlling the tongue may lead one to his own destruction.
Guard your tongue, O man!
Don’t let it nip you, for it is a serpent!
How many victims of their tongues rest in their graves, Whom even the bravest of men would dread to meet!
How many women have been divorced by their husbands merely due to the tongue! A man falls into an argument with his wife, and she begins to repeatedly challenge him, “Divorce me! I challenge you to divorce me! Divorce me if you are a man!”
He would order her to be silent, and perhaps shout at and scold her. When things get out of hand, he destroys his own household by eventually telling her that she is indeed divorced.
For this reason, the Prophet Peace be upon himadvised that when a person gets angry, he should observe silence, because he otherwise would not be able to control his tongue.
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Some time ago, I intervened in a dispute between two families.
The story was that an intelligent old man, who I think was beyond sixty years of age, went out hunting with his friends.
They were all around the same age. During the trip they began to speak about old memories and started discussing properties owned by their grandfathers. There then arose a dispute between two of them over a piece of land which one of them owned and the other claimed belonged to his grandfather.
After a while, the discussion got out of hand and the landowner said to his friend, “By Allah, if I see you anywhere near my land, I will empty this out in your head!” He then grabbed hold of his gun, pointed it a couple of meters above the man’s head, and pulled the trigger. Other men present got up from their seats and were about to fight, but their friends restrained them and they all went back to their homes.
The man who was fired upon was unable to sleep that night, engulfed with rage. The next morning, he decided to cure his rage by exacting revenge from his friend. He grabbed his AK47 and went out looking for his friend. He came across him sitting in his car in front of a girls’ school. The man had retired and was thereafter working as a driver for teachers’ transportation. He had parked his car outside the school and was waiting for the teachers to come out. Next to his car was a group of other cars that looked very similar as they were all transportation vehicles for school teachers and students.
The man hid behind a tree at a distance so that he would not be spotted. He also had weak eyesight.
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He pointed the gun towards a driver who looked like his friend and tried his best to aim for his head. He then pressed the trigger. A loud noise was heard as three rounds were shot. The bullets pierced the driver’s head.
The people fled in terror whilst the students screamed in panic. The police arrived at the scene and surrounded the area.
The bullets had shattered the driver’s skull and he had obviously died. As for the murderer, he walked very calmly to a police station, told the police the whole story and said, “I have killed soand-so and thereby relieved my heart. You may now kill me, burn me or imprison me. Do what you wish!”
The investigating police officer went to the crime scene and when he looked at the victim’s ID card, he was stunned. He discovered that the victim was not the person the murderer wanted to kill! Rather, he was a completely different person who had nothing to do with the episode.
The officer then made his way to the station along with the man who was supposed to be the victim, stood outside the cell and said, “O so-and-so! Did you claim that you killed this man?
The bullets have killed someone else, instead!”
The murderer, upon hearing this, screamed hysterically until he fell unconscious. He remained in that state for a few days.
And after he recovered, he was placed behind bars. A judge then passed the verdict that the capital punishment for murder be implemented on him.
How right Abu Bakr was when he said, “Nothing is as deserving of long-term imprisonment as the tongue!”
I can never forget the story of the Caliph who once sat with his companion, laughing and joking with him.
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The devil decided to play with their minds so he made them drink alcohol. When they became completely intoxicated, and the mother of all evils (i.e.alcohol) had dominated their minds, one of them began to act extremely foolishly. The Caliph turned to his gatekeeper, pointed to his companion, and said, “Kill him!”
Whenever this Caliph passed an order, he was never asked to review his decision. The gatekeeper therefore grabbed his companion by his feet and dragged him out as he kept shouting and begging the Caliph for mercy. But the Caliph kept laughing and saying, “Kill him! Kill him!” He was executed and his body was dumped in an abandoned well.
The next morning the Caliph woke up and desired someone’s company, so he said, “Call my companion!”
It was said, “We have killed him!”
He said, “You have killed him? Why? Who ordered you to kill him?”
They said, “You told us to kill him yesterday”, then they told him the whole story.
The Caliph remained silent, lowered his head in sorrow and said, “If only words were able to say to their speaker, ‘Please do not utter me!’”
To return to our topic, how often it is that people repel others from themselves, make them resentful towards them, or manage to cause trouble for themselves by not controlling their tongues!
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Ibn al-Jawzi said, “It is amazing how many people are strong enough to abstain from consuming unlawful wealth, fornication and theft and yet are unable to abstain from moving their tongues. You will see such people speaking ill of others and unable to prevent themselves from doing so.”

Interestingly...
Animals have long tongues, yet they cannot speak.
Man has a relatively short tongue, yet he cannot keep silent.
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