Who are our Friends?

By Sayyid Baqir Imrani

Islamic Insights - Imam Ali (peace be upon him) has said, "Friendship and kindness to people is half of intelligence." An intelligent person has many differences from an ignorant person. However, these differences cannot be seen and do not become apparent all the time and in every place. Rather, there are specific occasions when the intellect of an intelligent person and the ignorance of an ignorant person become obvious, and it becomes known who is intelligent and who is ignorant.

One of these occasions is the method of conduct with people. An ignorant person does not know the value of friendship and kindness, and for this reason, he is not friendly with people and does not allow love of others to enter his heart.

However, an intelligent person knows the virtue of his intellect and value of friendship and love. He chooses many good friends for himself and is always kind and loving to them. One of the ways that we can determine whether a person is intelligent or ignorant is by seeing if he is friendly and loving to people or unkind, unloving, and unfriendly. 

Because caring and being friendly with people are the signs of intelligence and brainpower, the Imam has said friendship and love of people is a sign that a person has half of his natural intellect.

However, we must be careful whom we befriend. Both the Prophet and Imam Ali have greatly stressed the matter of choosing friends wisely. For instance, Imam Ali states: "Refrain from befriending a fool, because he wants to benefit you, but due to his ignorance, he will harm you; refrain from befriending a miser, because he will leave you when you need him the most; refrain from befriending a liar, because he will make what is far seem close and what is close seem far."