Roll of Tongue for Creation of the World more Peaceful!

This post follows to my earlier Article – Human’s Ungratefulness towards the Creator of the Worlds. I had discussed there the functions and usefulness of the three limbs of human body – ears, eyes and brain. Today, I am before you with ‘Tongue’ as my subject of the post. Just before to proceed on, I’ll remind my Gujarati Readers a well known Gujarati writer named Jyotindra H. Dave for his humorous literature. I’ll draw kind attention of them towards his light essay titled on “Jeebh (Tongue)”. It was a humorous Article, but the Author had indirectly conveyed his many more messages related to human behavior and character.

But, I am here in my serious tone to write something precisely, straightway on ‘Tongue’ with no any satires or sarcasms. The Creator of the Worlds has bestowed the human with his numerous blessings. When we ponder over the limbs of human body, the ‘tongue’ would look special. All the limbs save this ‘tongue’ get tired when we take excessive work from them, but tongue never aches or gets tired while speaking. Even in dream or while the brain recalls one’s days activities in sleep, the tongue starts to speak in unclear and murmuring tone of speech which we may call it as prattling.

The form and size of the tongue is small, but its crimes and sins are great if it is utilized in attitude of negativism. Positive functions of the tongue while speaking can bring happiness and harmony in individuals and society. Tongue can taste various tastes and similarly it can express various effects of the speech also. One time it can create sweetness of speech for the hearer and at another time it can create bitterness or sourness into the mind of the other. It is just like a weapon also. Hajarat Ali (AS) quotes, “The slip of tongue is more painful than the harm of spearhead.” The tongue may prove to be a healing paste of medicine also to heal the wounds of the sufferer. Good utterance of the tongue can bring happiness and the bad disasters. Gautam Buddha has also said, “All acts of human living become bad by ten evil things and by avoiding them, they become good. The evils of the body are murder, theft and adultery; of the tongue are lying, slander, abuse and idle talk; and, of the mind are covetousness (ardent desire), hatred and error.”

Tongue is the key of intellect and light of knowledge. A stranger’s character can be known when it makes any conversation with us or the others. According to Confucius “Words are the voice of the heart.” Knowledge can be acquired through the tongue of the speaker and in the same way; we can communicate our knowledge to others with our tongue. Among all creatures, human is able to speak with the tongue and it is the greatest of all gifts from the God compared to them.

Some linguistics have thought out a very interesting theory of human’s speech ability. They have presented their hypothesis that human has been favored with hands by the God and therefore it can use its tongue for speech. At the first glance, this theory may look to be like a whim to us with a thought what connection of hands might be there with development of ability of human speech. Their simple argument is that other creatures have no hands and therefore they have to utilize their mouth along with lips, teeth and tongue for the functions of hands and thus their efficiency of speech could not develop. On the other hand, the human, having hands, could utilize its surplus energy of mouth along with its internal organs in learning of speech. Any way, we have no concern with all these researches.

Summing up, it can be said in broad sense that the electronic and print media, now-a-days are just like tongues. Positive reporting of any news may bring harmony and peace in society and contrary opposite, they can incite the people to go on violence and create the surrounding circumstances stressful and explosive. Maimonides has said, “Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.”

May God bless us with favor of acquiring control on our tongues and be they positive tools for winning hearts and bridging minds of people for creation of the peaceful and violence-free world.

– Valibhai Musa