Greet Everyone with a Smile
By Mohammad Yacoob
Hawthorne, California
I pulled my car out of the driveway, got on the street. In front me, approximately 100 feet away, young neighborhood boys were playing hockey on the street using hockey sticks and a pug. I had unwaveringly made up my mind years ago that I would smile in the face of a challenging situation.
I could have blown my horn to alert the boys. My earlier experience, based on watching frowning faces of playful boys, hideous glances and taunting words, appeared in front of my eyes, a direct result of horn blowing. The situation needed a smile and a salutation. I slowed down, reduced my speed to less than ten miles, and approached the street crowd. The boys were busy playing. I smiled at one of the boys, who directed others to move. One boy uttered a few words. I turned my face towards him, smiled and raised my hand, positioned it softly on my forehead. His reaction startled me; he shouted directions at other boys. They scrambled and formed two lines, one on each side of the street and saluted me as I was driving away. Allahu Akbar. A smile and the confirmation that I was smiling with sincerity helped communicating with the young boys.
Prophet Muhammad had said that even a smile is charity. This I had taken to heart several decades ago and started smiling to display my high Islamic spirits. Putting on a smile while talking to others, reading a book, listening to a humorous anecdote, greeting others, have helped me become more comfortable with others. I have found that the attitude of others changes when you smile; make things happier. This prophetic tradition has helped me become a better person.
Being an engineer and a physicist, I made a decision more than forty years ago to put my smile to test and conduct an experiment. People sometimes tend to give you a look questioning a smile, feeling threatened by it, posing questions, expressing them through their eyes or body gestures. My smile must help bring a little happiness and not pose a threat or questions, so, I augmented it with a gesture of salutation by raising my hand and softly touching my forehead, announcing indirectly the absence of a spurious smile.
Almost twenty years ago, I almost got involved in a car accident when a driver cut in front of me compelling me to blow the horn for more than five seconds. The other driver moved back into his lane and gave a dirty look. I smiled, raised my hand and saluted him. His attitude changed. He rolled down his window and said, sorry.
On one occasion, I noticed the driver in the car, on the opposite side of the street, taking a right turn. A driver coming out of the parking lot of the gas station on the corner suddenly came on the street. I used the horn to warn the driver making the right turn to get his attention to not to hit the car coming out of the gas station or to move in the lane I was about to enter. Hearing the horn, he slammed hard on the car brakes, his car shook; the other car sped away. I completed the left turn and the other driver took the right turn. I smiled and saluted him while watching his furious look, when we both were next to each other. He changed his mood, rolled down his window and said, “Thank you, you saved my life.”
Prophet Muhammad had said that a smile is a charity. He told all of us in a very positive way to smile more and in the process earn blessings of Allah Mighty God. A smile is a beautiful; powerful gesture. It conveys the greatest emotional side of life. Smiling is an art. We must change our attitude and frame of mind and learn how to smile better to give the highest positive emotional message to the person we are facing at that very moment. A genuine smile lights up the world.
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