The Difference Between Counsel & Shaming

Author: Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, Abdul Wahhab al-Sharani
Publisher : Imam Ghazali Publishing
ISBN: 9781966329336
Page: 99 m/s
Year: 2025
Price: RM30

This text is a compendium of two treatises on the subject of giving advice: Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali's Al-Farq bayna al-Nasihah wa al-Ta'yir, and selected excerpts from Imam al-Sha‘rani's Al-Bahr al-Mawrud fi al-Mawathiq wa al-‘Uhud.

Ibn Rajab's text, whose title has been translated as The Difference Between Counsel and Shaming, is a short treatise meant to help the reader distinguish between advice that is permissible and potentially beneficial, as opposed to that which is disliked or impermissible and potentially harmful. It includes chapters on the process for advising scholars, the difference between advising someone to leave sin as opposed to rebuking someone for sin, the characteristics of hypocritical advice and its effects, and more. Ibn Rajab's work is replete with relevant verses from the Qur'an, hadith narrations, as well as statements and stories from the Salaf and the righteous scholars. These verses and narrations serve as evidence for his arguments, as well as illustrations of the principles in action.