Understanding The Prophet's Life
From Issue: 551 [Read full issue]
Moderation
One of the manifestations of extremism is an obsessive pursuit of fault-finding in others and making exacting demands of them. The Prophet, peace be upon him, condemned this in a hadith when he urged the Muslims to 'Avoid extremism (al-ghuluw), for people before you were led to destruction because of extremism in religion.' [Musnad ibn Hanbal] In another hadith, the Prophet rigorously spoke against the extremists when he said: 'Perished are the hair-splitters, perished are the hair-splitters, perished are the hair-splitters.' [Muslim]
When two of the Prophet's leading Companions, Muadh bin Jabal and Abu Musa al-Ashari were leaving as judges to the Yemen, the Prophet instructed them to:
"Be gentle to the people and avoid harshness to them; bring them good news and scare them not [with gloomy predicaments]." [Muslim]
With regard to the implementation of penalties, the Prophet instructed the judges and rulers to 'Suspend prescribed punishment (hudud) as far as you can. For it is better to err in forgiveness than making an error in punishment.' [Abu Yusuf]
Compiled From:
"Shariah Law - An Introduction" - Mohammad Hashim Kamali, pp. 292, 293