Answer
Asalamu Alaikum,
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Shaykh Faraz Rabbani from SeekersHub addresses this question in the video below:
Transcript:
How come tact takes precedence over upholding and encouraging the Sunnah especially when the hadith says: will be good as long as we hasten to break the fast.
Because tact is from the Sunnah, okay. So, we uphold the Sunnah in accordance with the Sunnah.
Like we’re supposed to speak the truth. But Dr. Umar made the important point that we don’t just speak the truth, that he mentioned the points that will you consider: not only that it’s truthful, but that it’s not harmful, right? That it is of benefit and, you know, you mentioned several considerations.
So, some time, and that’s why they say, there’s a famous saying in Arabic [quoting in Arabic] a little knowledge may be more harmful than a lot of ignorance. So, you know there’s a category of auntie, we call her the NRA: the newly religious auntie. And uncles tend not to get that religious, you know.
At least not in the same way as auntie’s get religious, right? Or there’s a tendency, and sorry for being politically incorrect, but you have the NRA and for those of you who are American, you know, the NRA stands for the National Rifle Association.
They’re armed and dangerous. And some of these auntie’s their armed with a little knowledge, but they cause a lot of havoc. So, they’ll say something that may be true, it may be correct. Often, it’s not even correct, and it causes harm, right?
So, imagine if you’re at a family gathering. Everyone’s waiting to break the fast. And they’re just waiting just another minute or two. And suddenly some random brother, Amr, goes and grabs a date and says bismillahi r-rahmanir-rahim, yeah?
And there’s elders, there’s people. And its’s one thing is they’re delaying excessively. If, no one’s saying you can’t break your fast. But there’s no Sunnah of publicly proclaiming your fast, right? And that’s where ego can come into it.
So, if you wanted to break your fast, you know, right around maghrib time. Some people go make wudu, you know, there’s all kinds of things you could do. Just by going to answer your cell phone to just step away discreetly, right?
So, you if you want to uphold it, you uphold it with discretion. You don’t create a scene. if everyone’s delaying it, you may suggest that, you know, tactfully, you know, why don’t we pray. And then we, you know, but you have to play those things by ear.
Because the Prophet (SAWS) himself, there’s many instances where he left things out of consideration for people, many things, right?
On his deathbed, he told Sayyida Aisha, he said oh Aisha, were your people not so close from the time of the pre-Islamic period, I would have rebuilt the Kaaba on the foundations of Ibraheem (AS). But your people would not have been able to deal with it.
So, it was superior to have rebuilt the Kaaba because when there is a number of times the Kaaba was demolished. Once in a flood, and Quraysh didn’t have enough stones to rebuild it to the same size. The kind of stones that were needed. So, they built it smaller and there’s the Hatim.
There’s that semicircle that actually originally was part of the Kaaba. And of course, because the Prophet (SAW) didn’t rebuild it, the Sahaba and subsequent generations agreed when the Kaaba was repaired later not to rebuild it according to the original foundations.
You know, you respect the Prophet’s (saws) choice. And there’s many other examples as well. And it’s not doing something wrong, delaying a few minutes is not wrong, right? So, if you want to break it, you consider how you do it tactfully.
I hope this helps answer your question. You can also check out more from SeekersHub at the link here.
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