accents

When I was a young-un living in Manchester, the Black Country accent used to be the object of great hilarity. Many of my friends - not to mention Younger Bro - would while away the hours amusing themselves trying to imitate this central-England dialect along with others, such as the Liverpudlian (scouser) and Scottish brogues. I was largely spared from this, given that (1) I was (and am) useless at impersonating accents and (2) coming originally from London I found it rather ironic that those with thick Mancunian accents were jesting about other people's idiosycnrasies in speech. Nevertheless, perhaps because of Holly the Computer (of early Red Dwarf fame), the Brummie accent was an object of especial derision.

Imagine my chagrin, then, when fifteen years later, my dear daughter Tahseen has a Brummie accent as broad as a barn door. "I loike you," she exclaims, along with gems such as, "leave the compewta an' cum wif moee," and best of all, "yew alroight, luv?" Younger Bro - now sporting a fashionable South African accent plus slang [eg: ekse I'm vaying pose, check you, lekker? - trans: I say, I'll be off home now, I will see you later, alright?] - is alternately highly amused and don't-know-where-to-put-my-face embarrassed.

There is a lesson in everything, I suppose. And yet, and yet, the lesson in this is particularly wonderful. Why has Tahseen developed a Brummie accent? Because she's around people from Birmingham, obviously. And therein lies the trick.

We accquire the characteristics of the ones' we accompany. We take on their fragrance and their hue, their characteristics and their qualities, as surely as a child develops an accent depending on the place she grows up. The soul is as malleable and impressionable as a young child - because that is its reality. We are children in our spirits, immature, still growing, still discovering the true nature of the world around us. We desire sweets and don't care who gives them to us. We detest work and love play. We are astounded by the illuions of a clown or a magician. We believe that fairy tales are true. We follow our desires with no thought to ultimate consequence. We are unable or unwilling to take the long view. We are easily moulded into shapes by those around us.

Whom do we choose to fashion the potter's clay of our unformed spirits? In whose hands do we leave ourselves? The master potters, who will create of us objects of beauty and value that are cherished forever? Or those who will render us ugly and misshapen, that in the end we might be thrown against a wall and smashed to pieces? Do we remain in the company of the blessed, or the company of the cursed? For we will take on their characteristics, for good or for ill.

Imam Hasan al-Basri, the master of the tabi`in according the people of Basra, said, 'if you seek to accquire gentleness, be with those who are gentle, for a man seldom accompanies a people but that he accquires their traits.' And this was but an exposition of the words of our blessed Prophet, the beloved of Allah, who said, 'you will be with those you love,' and 'whoever imitates a people [thinking that their way is best] will be counted among them.' And these blessed words were but a tafsir of Allah's uncreated speech: 'Oh ye who believe, be conscious of Allah, and stay with the people of Truth.'

There is nothing that the Sufis emphasize more than good character and purifcation of the interior, and they advise no means to accomplish this more than remaining in the company of the righteous. May Allah let us all acquire good accents, so that we perfume ourselves with the fragrance of those whom He loves and who love Him.