The post ‘The Revival is Happening‘ drew a lot of comments.
Most were thoughtful. A few were hostile, from people who wanted to mock Islam rather than discuss it. But one theme kept surfacing, in different forms, from people who seemed otherwise engaged and sincere.
They said I was being judgemental.
It gave me pause, because the original piece was arguing the opposite. It was asking for understanding, for generosity toward people shaped by circumstances they didn’t choose. How had that landed as judgement?
The more I thought about the comments, the more I realised the disagreement wasn’t really about tone. It ran deeper than that.
Two different things called by the same name
When people say don’t be judgemental, they usually mean one of two very different things.
The first meaning is one that Islam endorses completely. Don’t assume the worst of people. Don’t spy on their private lives. Don’t expose their faults to others. Don’t feel elevated by someone else’s failing. The Prophet ﷺ was unambiguous about arrogance: “No one who has an atom’s weight of arrogance in his heart will enter Paradise” (Muslim). That kind of judgment, the kind that looks down, that enjoys another person’s shortcoming, is a disease of the heart. Islam condemns it without qualification.
The second meaning is something else entirely. It’s the idea that nothing is truly right or wrong. That morality is personal preference. That as long as a choice feels right to you, no one can question it, not another person, not a tradition, not Allah.
Islam rejects that completely.
In Islam, right and wrong aren’t things we construct based on feeling. They come from Allah. They exist outside of us. The Qur’an puts it plainly:
أَفَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُ
Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god? (al Jathiyah 23)
When personal feeling becomes the measure of everything, it isn’t freedom. It’s a different kind of enslavement.
Why is this confusion understandable
We live in a culture that has elevated personal autonomy above almost everything else. Within that framework, the idea that an external standard exists, one not defined by the individual, feels threatening. It feels like an intrusion.
That reaction is worth understanding rather than dismissing.
Many of the people who pushed back have had difficult experiences with religion. Some grew up in households where Islam was practised harshly, without warmth or wisdom. Some have absorbed a secular framework so thoroughly that any moral claim from outside it feels like an attack rather than an invitation.
Understanding why someone pushes back doesn’t mean abandoning what you believe. But it should shape how you engage with them.
The distinction that matters
There is a real and important difference between judgment that comes from arrogance and concern that comes from love.
When someone corrects from arrogance, they enjoy it. The criticism makes them feel elevated. They’re not interested in the other person’s well-being; they’re interested in being right.
That is not what Islam asks of us.
Allah says in the Qur’an:
كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ
You are the best nation produced for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. (ale Imran 110)
The ummah isn’t described as the best nation because of its numbers, wealth, or power. It’s described as the best nation because it cares, because it refuses to stay silent when it sees harm.
But notice what the ayah doesn’t say. It doesn’t say the best nation shouts at people. Or humiliates them. Or considers itself above them.
Islam asks us to care about one another the way a skilled doctor cares about a patient. A good doctor doesn’t stay silent to avoid upsetting you. They tell you what you need to hear, as gently as they can, because they want you to be well. Silence in that situation isn’t kindness. It’s neglect.
Staying quiet about something harmful because we’re afraid of how it looks isn’t compassion. It’s indifference dressed up as respect.
The example we were given
No one in history challenged people’s moral frameworks more directly than the Prophet ﷺ. He told his community their way of life was wrong. That their values needed to change. That there was accountability beyond this world. By the standards of modern culture, you could easily call that judgemental.
His own people did call it that, in their way. They accused him of causing division, of disrespecting their forefathers, of disrupting the social order.
But what drove him wasn’t superiority. Allah addresses him directly in the Qur’an:
لَعَلَّكَ بَـٰخِعٌۭ نَّفْسَكَ أَلَّا يَكُونُوا۟ مُؤْمِنِينَ
Perhaps you would destroy yourself with grief that they will not be believers. (ash-Shu’ara: 3)
He was almost consumed by his concern for people. Their rejection caused him profound pain, not because his pride was wounded, but because he understood what was at stake for them.
That is not the portrait of someone who enjoys criticising others. It is the portrait of someone who loved people enough to tell them the truth.
That is the standard. Not winning arguments. Not feeling righteous. Loving people enough to be honest with them, and being humble enough to know you are not above the same mistakes.
What I would say to those who pushed back
You are right that arrogance is a sin. You are right that no one should look down on another person. Islam agrees with you completely on that.
But caring about right and wrong is not the same as arrogance. Having standards is not the same as contempt. And staying silent about something harmful is not kindness.
Compassion without truth isn’t really compassion. And truth without compassion isn’t really truth.
The questions some of you are asking, about authority, about who defines right and wrong, about whether religious frameworks can be trusted, are not bad questions. They deserve a real answer.
And the answer Islam gives isn’t: submit because I say so.
It’s something far more intimate than that. Allah tells us:
أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلْخَبِيرُ
How could He not know His Own creation? For He is the Most Subtle, All-Aware. (al Mulk 14)
The standard He set doesn’t come from a distant authority trying to control you. It comes from the One who knows you more completely than you know yourself. Who created you. Who wants good for you in ways you may not yet be able to see.
That isn’t judgement.
That’s an invitation.
Living For Islam 