Dignity of Man - how to win people over

ومن حَقِـرَ الرجال فلن يهابا	ومن هاب الرجال تهيَّبــوه
ومن يعص الرجال فما أصابا	وما قضت الرجال له حقوقا

And whomsoever dignifies men then they will dignify him,

and whomsoever degrades men then he will never be dignified.

And whomsoever does the bidding of men then he has rights,

and whomsoever angers men then he has not done good.

The poem is fairly self explanatory. If you treat people well, then you will get treat well yourself. Some people might say, well we always do good and yet people still don’t treat us properly? Well the answer to this is two-fold. Firstly, look at your intention for treating people well. Are you just doing it for your own ends or are you genuine about your concern for others? And if you are genuine about your concerns, remember, God works in mysterious ways. You never know when that one good deed you did comes back and rescues you many years from now. None of us know what the future holds in store for us, or who will have power over us or will be our subordinate. The best policy is to be equally good to all.

The poem then claims that people will have rights if they respect others. What this means is that if you were to oppress someone by forcing him to sell you a car for cheap because he needs the money, and then later on expect the same person to help you out because you have run into difficulties, then you can expect a sharp rejection. But if you did good to that man and gave him a fair price, then you have the moral right to expect good to come from him. This doesn’t mean that you do the good with the expectation of return, but the Imam is making a general point that someone who is generally nice to people and treats them honourably and well, then he can expect to have helpers in his time of need.

Similarly, anger is a intensely negative emotion and rarely leads to positive outcomes. If you infuriate someone then you’re hardly going to be very popular with them are you? The best way to approach a conflict issue is to look for common ground, or to praise the person in some way, and then to clearly state your complaint and the way you have been affected. After that keep your head, and make sure your tone is level.