Transience of Opinion and Differences

Most people, I hope, are not in a static intellectual state, but in an ongoing process of development. This process will proceed differently for different people. Some people will speed rapidly through different phases of ideas and different phases of thinking, while other people will move more slowly and maybe get stuck in one phase of thinking for a long period of time. Some people even go backwards. The funny thing about it is that in every phase of thinking that we're in, we always think it's the final stage, that we've reached the absolute right way of thinking and that we'll never change, but we always do.

I think this is useful for young people to bear in mind. Certainly, it's true that age does not equate with intelligence. You're certainly going to encounter people who are older than you who are not as bright as you, but experience is a factor of intellectual maturation that cannot be sped up and it can't be skipped. You just have to go through it year after year and over the course of decades and over the course of a multitude of life experiences. I'm not saying that to encourage you to respect your elders, though, of course, you should.

I'm saying it for two reasons. Because first of all, you yourself may be 100% certain about something today and tomorrow realize that you were mistaken. Now the thing that will change your mind may be new information, it may be the acquisition of experience, or it may just be that you think about it longer. The second reason is so that you can try to remember this with regards to other people. They are also in the process of development.

They also know today what they didn't know yesterday, but not yet what they will know tomorrow. So if you can at least perceive that they possess intelligence, even if you think they're wrong in their opinion, don't dismiss them because their natural intelligence is a good sign that they will continue to develop and grow in their ideas and their thinking. And even if you don't think so now, maybe one day you can learn from them, or maybe they can learn from you. Try to learn the art of being friendly with people who have good moral character, who are intelligent, but with whom you disagree intellectually. Don't deprive yourself of fundamentally good and valuable people over a difference of opinion.

This is a tendency that has really become a plague on our society in recent years. I mean, we're not even prohibited from being cordial and civil with Kufar, and their ideas and their beliefs are deeply offensive to us. But we can maintain a civil relationship as long as they are not hostile towards us. So we should try to maintain civility and cordiality between brothers in Islam regardless of differences of opinion. Of course, that doesn't mean that we don't criticize opinions we disagree with, but we don't let that criticism undermine brotherhood because, again, opinions change.

The obligation of brotherhood doesn't. And the last thing on this, just as it was only the duty of the messengers to convey the message, it's your duty to convey what you believe to be true, and it's up to everyone else whether they agree or disagree. So don't let it bother you if someone finds your eloquent and articulate explanation of your opinion unconvincing. Doesn't matter as long as you told the truth as you know it. Nothing will deteriorate your honesty and integrity faster than caring too much about making people agree with you.

This is particularly true on social media where everyone has become fixated on likes and shares and subscribers and so forth. And I know this is something that has started to matter a lot to young people, but try not to let it matter so much. People's agreement or disagreement is almost always going to be transient. The only thing that matters is that you state your case honestly.