Benefits of silence

The effect of each and every sin lasts in some way or the other, but the effect of the sins of the tongue does not remain.  For this reason, people take it lightly.  Remember!  Whatever is uttered from your tongue is recorded with Allah Ta'ala and the return of each utterance will be given.  Your thought that whatever we say is dissipated is not correct.  Each and everything is being collected in a register.

 

Once, the first caliph of Islam, Hadhrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (May Allah Ta'ala be well pleased with him) was sitting in a corner and pulling at his tongue.  When people asked him the reason, he said:  This tongue will take one into hell.

 

To look at it, tongue is only a piece of flesh, but everything in the world is under its power.  We get Jannah through this and hell through this.  Deliverance and punishment are both through this.  It makes someone a polytheist or a disbeliever and this is the one which makes someone a Momin and Siddiq (i.e. a believer).  Wiping out sins is its work and destroying all the virtues in only a moment is also its doing.  Uniting fighting people in an instant and dividing those who are united is but a small miracle of the tongue.  This tongue is the deputy of the mind.  It expresses whatever is in the mind.  The most wonderful thing is that it faces the heart.  Whatever is in the heart, it expresses it and whatever is there outside, it carries them inside the heart.  Whatever the tongue says, the same quality is produced in the heart.  In the same way, whatever the heart says, it is expressed through the tongue.  For this reason, the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: You assure me about 2 things and I guarantee Jannah for you.  You know what those 2 things are?  Tongue and the private parts.

 

The health or blindness of the heart depends on the truthfulness and crookedness of the tongue.  When the tongue says a good word, then the heart is illuminated and when it says something wrong/evil, then it affects the heart in such a way that the heart becomes dark.  For this reason, the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said:

 

Translation of Hadith:  Iman is not perfect unless the heart is reformed and the heart is not reformed unless the tongue is reformed.

 

The tongue is like the netherworld (Barzakh in Urdu) between the heart and other organs.  It is related to the heart also and also to other parts of the body.  The reformation of the heart reforms all the parts of the body.  In the same way, the reformation of the tongue reforms all the parts of the body.  Satan does not get a chance to attack the person who is silent.  People look upon that person with respect.

 

Once the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: Ma'adh! Shall I tell you what the root of all virtue is?  Then the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) held His tongue and said: This is it, Ma'adh! Guard it.

 

For this reason, silence is better than worship of 60 years and whoever is silent gains deliverance (Najaat in Urdu).

 

We should not talk more than what is necessary.  Too much of talking deadens the heart.  The heart is hardened and this is that pitfall, after which it is difficult to save oneself from sins.

 

If those who talk understand the perils of talking and the pleasure of silence, then they would supplicate Allah Ta'ala for being silent for the rest of their life.

 

The person who talks too much cannot save himself (or herself) from sins.  You may observe that the person who talks too much often ends up lying, etc. and for this kind of persons, saving themselves from the sins of the tongue becomes difficult.

 

We should neither talk nor act upon something without confirming it, as the ears, eyes and heart will be taken to account on the Day of Judgment about where they were used.  Why did you take something to your heart (i.e. consider something as correct) without confirming it?  Thus son, do not act upon something without confirming it.

 

From Mawaaiz-e-Hasana of Hadhrat Muhaddith-e-Deccan (May Allah Ta'ala shower His mercy on him)