Complaints & Good Character

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Shaykh Muhammad Nazhim Adil al-Haqqani (q.s.) said, “Once, I asked my Grand Shaykh, ‘O, my Master!  Are there any complaints from a man with good character?’ 

‘Never!’ he replied to me.  ‘You will not find a man with good character complaining!’ 

So many complaints from people, you cannot count them.  Yet, you never find a man with good character complaining.  People of good character are like a healthy body.  If you touch a healthy body, there is no complaints.  But if a man has sores on his skin, then, ‘Ouch!’  So, likewise, people of good character are healthy in their spiritual lives.  But people of bad character, there are like a man wounded; wounds everywhere, you cannot touch any side of him, any part of his body. 

Therefore, it is the measure of a man’s good character, or bad; how much complaining he does.  As much as his complaints are, you may know how few bad characteristics are left with him.  When you are done with all your complaints, you know that you are healthy.  No more bad characteristics!  This is an important point, because a people of good, if he has no complaints, acquires patience.  And when he has patience, it means that he has real faith, real iman.  Real faith equals good character, and real faith also equals patience.  So, be patient, always.  Anytime you are not patient, you do not have iman.  If a man complains, it means he has not any patience, no iman.  No iman, no good character. 

Therefore, you must diminish your complaints until you have not any left.  Then, you will be restful.  Nothing can give you trouble.  You will be like a rocket, going up until it reaches the point where it escapes the earth’s pull; then, no troubles for it.  When we can escape the pull of our bad character, and reach the level of good character, there will be no troubles for us also.  Finished, in this life and in the Hereafter.”