Work and private relationships

I heard an abstract of an American novel, narrating a story of a rich man who established more than one hundred companies and set regulating rules, codes, values, and customs for his companies.

One day that man, who was sixty years old, lived a love story with a twenty-years-old girl who wanted him to employ her fiancé in one of the old man's companies, pretending that he was her brother.

The man tried to use his influence to keep this relationship, but all his companies' managers refused to employ that man because he lacked the conditions imposed by these companies in which the old man participated and built.

He vainly tried bypassing the system and regulation for personal gains but all people refused his interferences although he was the founder and a key partner in these companies.

Indeed, personal and social relationships are some of man's qualities and our religion stressed the importance of these relationships by setting rules, proprieties, and directions to them.

However, some people give preference to these relations to duty and integrity by advancing someone who must be delayed, rewarding the one who should be punished, and compliment who must be punished at the expense of work, production, and integrity.

The more important, public, and beneficial to a lot of people work is, the more caution a person should be.

Nomination and assigning must be based on the shari`ah-based criteria and regulations.

The Glorious Qur'an adumbrated to some of these qualities, such as:

The strong, the trustworthy, and the Knowing Guardian.

It was reported in the Sunnah that giving positions to unqualified people is a sign for wasting the trust and a sign for the forthcoming of the Hour.

Rewards and punishments should be made according to the performance of a worker without regarding his image in the heart and mind of the one in charge, rather than his eyes which desire every ugly thing they see as Al Mutanabby said.

The origin of these personal relationships is often due to similar or different interests; tribal, regional, and intellectual affiliations; professionalism; work system; and personal qualities, in addition to the social and financial status.

Appearances may play a role in this because all these factors cause closeness to the degree of proximity or contiguity to the degree of dissonance.

However, the correct thing to do is to be just and moderate, "but, where, and who"?

When will it come the day in which we separate our personal relationships from work so that society would be equal in rights, duties, and chances and the place of work would become the only place for judging performance not the houses of lofty people who draw or exclude whom they like without considering the benefits of people and countries?

When will the disciplines and conditions be the criteria on which choice and evaluation are based and according to which refusal and acceptance are decided?

I hope that will be soon.