Importance of Having Good Character - Mufti Minhajuddin | Islamic Reminder | Jummah Khutbah

Importance of Having Good Character

My dear respected brothers and elders, sisters in Islam, Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

In these ayat, Allah mentions two points for our salvation and success. One at an individual level, and one at a collective level.

At the individual level, to gain salvation and najah in this dunya and the akhira, and complete success, it requires fundamentally that we become conscious of Allah at all times. And we are aware of His presence. And we have developed such an awareness of Allah that prevents us from His disobedience. This overall sense of awareness of Allah is called taqwa.

And secondly, for our collective strength, the basic requirement is that we remain united. And that we support one another in acts of goodness, and we hold on together firmly to the rope of Allah. These are the two instructions given by Allah in these ayat.

The True Meaning of Taqwa

Allah says:

Inculcate taqwa and fear of Allah, awareness of Allah, the way it is the right of Allah that you have taqwa. He did not leave it up to us — as far as you please, or as what you regard sufficient. But He said, حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ — the way it is the right of Allah.

What is the right of Allah, and how can we define this? There is a narration attributed to Rasulullah ﷺ that he said, the right of Allah is:

That He is obeyed and He is not disobeyed.

In every condition in our life — it is not only when we come to prayer that we obey Allah, and in other aspects of our personal life we forget about Allah. Even when it comes to business, even when it comes to earning and selling, when it comes to engaging with our neighbors, engaging with our family — in all conditions we have to be obeying Allah and being upright. Upright husbands, upright fathers, upright citizens of our country. This all falls under taqwa and being God-conscious.

Having the awareness that there is a Day of Judgment coming, and on that Day of Judgment we will be answerable to our Creator, Allah. And we will be answerable in both courts.

The Two Courts of the Day of Judgment

The Court of the Rights of Allah

The blessings of Allah will be weighed versus our good deeds. Have you fulfilled the rights of Allah as compared to the blessings He has given us? As Allah says in the Quran:

On that day you will be asked by Allah regarding the blessings that He has given you.

The Court of Human Rights

And if a person is successful in the first court, that is great, but he is still not guaranteed salvation. The second court is the court of human rights. How do we treat one another?

Virtue is not sufficient to enter us into paradise if we are obedient only to Allah and are constant in our prayers and fasting, but then we do not take care of our neighbor. We do not take care even of animals — as it comes in the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ — that there was a woman who would be performing prayers and fasting and engaging in all forms of optional worship, but she did not take care of a cat. She did not leave her to go out and find mice and eat, nor did she feed the cat. And the Prophet ﷺ informed us that this behavior that she had with the cat would invalidate all of her good deeds and it would not help her, and she would enter the fire because of that.

So this is a wake-up call for us. We find that sometimes people may be progressing in fulfilling the rights of Allah in worship and prayer and fasting, but then when it comes to human interactions, they are violating people. They are not fulfilling the rights of fellow human beings.

Who Is the Truly Bankrupt Person?

The Prophet ﷺ indicated towards this in one hadith. He asked the companions, may Allah be pleased with them: "Do you know who is the bankrupt person?" So then the noble companions replied:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 45, Hadith 60)

"The one who does not have gold coins, silver coins — dinars and dirhams — he is a poor person, O Prophet of Allah."

The Prophet ﷺ informed us that the true poor person in the court of Allah is the one who on the Day of Judgment will come with mountains of good deeds — pilgrimages, fasts, voluntary worship — and he will be proud of the great accomplishments to his name and credit, and he will be expecting to sail straight to Paradise, to Jannah.

But then there will be a line of people who will have complaints against this individual. They will come to Allah and say:

He has cursed so-and-so, he has spoken ill of so-and-so, he has backbited so-and-so, he has unlawfully acquired the wealth of so-and-so, he cheated so-and-so. All these people will come with their respective cases against this individual who has a mountain of good deeds. They will demand justice. And Allah says in the Quran:

There will be absolutely no injustice done on this day. Allah will be the judge between His creation. This is what we recite in every unit of our prayer, in every raka'ah:

He is the Master of the Day of Judgment. Ultimate Master. And He will manifest His power on that day.

He will call the wronged ones and say: "This is the day that you will get compensation for the pain and suffering that you went through in your worldly life. What can we do to compensate you for your loss?" They will say: "Today the currency is not gold and silver. It's not dollars and pounds and euros. Today the currency is good deeds. Because good deeds is what's going to help you on this day."

Regarding the Day of Judgment, Allah says in the Quran:

This is the day where wealth and riches, family and sons, will not be able to assist you and aid you. Mal is financial help, Banun are your sons' physical help. Your son can physically help you today, your money can financially help you today, but on that day they will not be able to help you.

إِلَّا مَنْ أَتَى اللَّهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ — Except for the one who comes with a sound heart. His heart is sound, it's pure. Pure of the sicknesses of the heart — sicknesses of pride, of arrogance, of love of material, of greed, avarice, of superiority complex, of not having thankfulness, not being patient at the time of affliction, not being thankful at the time of blessings. These are the sicknesses of the heart. Whoever comes with a sound heart, he will be protected on that day.

So Allah will judge between the people and say: "Since you have violated this person, let us take good deeds from your account and transfer them to the account of the wronged one." And judgment will be passed. The next one will come in, and his good deeds will be given away. And his good deeds will continually be subtracted from his account and given to the people whom he had wronged in his worldly life. Until slowly, slowly, his whole mountain of good deeds will become completely depleted. There will be no good deeds left to his account.

And the problem is that there is still a line of people who are demanding justice. His victims of aggression. So now Allah will say: "What can we do now? He has given away all his good deeds." The only way to continue forward is that in exchange for the oppression each person faced from this man, sins will be transferred to his account — proportionate to the level of oppression he had done to others. And they will be transferring their sins to him. One person's sins will be transferred and he will move on. The next person's sins will be transferred and move on. Until, by the time the line is completed, the man who came with a huge mountain of good deeds will now end up with a huge mountain of sins.

And then Rasulullah ﷺ, our beloved Prophet, peace be upon him, told us that this person, along with his mountain of sins, will be dragged headlong into the fire. What an evil outcome. May Allah protect us all. Ameen.

So this is a warning, a wake-up call for us. If we are progressing spiritually towards Allah in prayer and fasting, let us make sure that we also increase in our fulfillment of the basic rights of others around us.

The Prophet's Example in Family and Society

The Rights of Daughters

Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, peace be upon him, showed us through his noble example how he was the best father to his children. In that society where they were burying their daughters alive — literally burying their daughters alive — and they had misogyny to such a level, hatred of women to such a level, that they would kill their own daughters. Imagine how their behavior towards other women was, when this was their attitude towards their own daughters. They regarded raising daughters as a humiliation, as something demeaning. The Quran speaks about this:

When anyone of them is given the glad tidings and the news of the birth of a daughter, his face turns black in anger. And he is swallowing his anger. He is hiding from the people because of the evil news he has heard. He is embarrassed to go out in public — "How am I going to face people? I had a daughter." He is contemplating whether he should continue to raise his daughter and bear the humiliation, or get rid of her once and for all — bury her in the sands alive. How evil indeed is their behavior.

This killing of infants was abolished — Allah spoke strongly against it in the Quran, and it was abolished by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. And Allah, when He speaks about the catastrophic events that will take place at the end of times and the establishment of the Day of Judgment, He speaks about things at the level of the cosmos and the universe:

When the sun will be rent asunder. And the stars will be falling down. The mountains — firm mountains of rock — they will be floating in the air. These are all catastrophic events about the destruction of the world at the end of time. Even the oceans, which are the hugest repository of water — سُجِّرَتْ — they will be ablaze with fire. The waters of the ocean. The oceans will be ablaze with fire.

And in this same line of huge events, in that same series, Allah says:

And that is when the girl who was buried alive will be resurrected from her grave. And she will be asked the question: "Which sin did you commit that you were killed?" So this is equally grave in the eyes of Allah. This is the level of the enormity of this crime in His eyes.

So the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ showed us how he was the best of fathers. He gave specific virtues for raising daughters. Allah in His divine wisdom decreed that he should be only the father of daughters. His male children died in infancy — we know that Qasim, the first son of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, died, and Tahir and Ibrahim died. But he raised daughters: Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah, these four daughters. And he showered them with love and affection.

And he spoke about his love for Fatimah, may Allah be pleased with her, and said: "She is the portion of my heart."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3767)

Whoever harms her has harmed me. So imagine, in such a culture where people are burying their daughters, he expressed his love for his daughters.

He said: "Whoever educates his daughters" — and that education has to be defined: doing the tarbiyah and raising them, imbibing within them moral character, raising them properly, and then arranging for their marriage to a suitable man who will take care of them further — "then that person will be with me in Paradise." And he brought his two fingers together and said: "Like these two fingers."

The Rights of Spouses

When it comes to being a husband, the Prophet ﷺ was the best husband. He said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3895)

The best among you are those who are best to their wives. And I am the one who is best to my wife. He was the best to his wife.

The Rights of Parents

When it comes to parents, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1899)

The pleasure of Allah, the Creator, is in the pleasure of your father. And the displeasure of Allah, our Creator, our Master, is in the displeasure of the father.

So these are things we have to teach the young children. Alhamdulillah, here I didn't have the opportunity necessarily to go over this particular hadith with my own children, but something comes to mind. In the Maktab here, we have that book — the Dar-us-Salam syllabus curriculum — where they go through the hadith. I was asking my three-year-old to help me in one task. I had to, something as menial and simple as change his clothes to go ready for school, and he was crying, saying no. He wasn't listening, cooperating.

So the older brother, seven or six years old, he told me — he read the whole hadith. This happened just today, in the morning. He said: "Baba, Allah is displeased with Hakeem." Why? Because رِضَا الرَّبِّ فِي رِضَا الْوَالِدِ وَسَخَطُ الرَّبِّ فِي سَخَطِ الْوَالِدِ. He read the whole hadith to me. The pleasure of God is in the pleasure of the father, and the displeasure of God is in the displeasure of the father. He is displeasing you, because you are calling him to change his clothes and he is not cooperating.

So I said: "That's very good — you are applying this on your brother. How about you begin to apply this prophetic tradition on yourself?" We have to apply it on ourselves. We are learning not to apply it on others. We cannot become self-righteous and start applying the hadith on everyone else. We have to apply the hadith and the prophetic tradition upon ourselves. The teacher taught you this hadith in school, so you apply it on yourself — not that you become judgmental.

The Rights of Mothers

When it comes to the rights of the mother, the Prophet ﷺ told us:

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Hadith 3104)

Paradise itself lies under the feet of the mother.

Maintaining Family Ties and Society

And then when it comes to all of the relations — siblings, uncles, aunts — صِلَةُ الْأَرْحَامِ, maintaining good relations, is one of the first teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

There was a rabbinical seminary in Medina — in Yathrib, as it was known before the migration of the Prophet, after which the city's name was changed to Medina — where they used to train rabbis. There was a rabbi there who used to be a professor and teach the rabbis. His name was Abdullah ibn Salam. When the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina, he went out to welcome him. Abdullah ibn Salam, being a very well-trained rabbi and a scholar from the Jewish nation, went out to investigate and see who this man was. The narration states that he said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2485)

The first time I gazed upon his noble countenance, I knew for a certain fact: this can never be the face of a liar. That was his first impression.

He said: وَأَوَّلُ مَا سَمِعْتُ مِنْهُ — the first words that I heard from him, that he was saying to the people around him, were:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2485; Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 1334)

Number one: أَفْشُوا السَّلَامَ — spread greetings of peace amongst yourselves. Saying السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ to one another — to the one you recognize and know, the one who is your friend, and the one you don't know, whether he is your friend or a stranger. To greet people with a smile and to say السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ — this is an instruction of our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

And then he said: أَطْعِمُوا الطَّعَامَ — feed people who are hungry. Feed the refugees, feed the hungry individuals. The best form of charity is to feed a hungry stomach:

And number three: وَصِلُوا الْأَرْحَامَ — maintain kinship and ties with your relatives. Don't cut off relations. Even if you feel that you are offended, it is your duty — your religious obligation — to maintain good relations with your relatives. This is why I mentioned this hadith.

And then he said: صَلُّوا بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّاسُ نِيَامٌ — perform prayers at night, while the people are deep in sleep. Worship your Creator in the dead of the night. If you do the above, تَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ بِسَلَامٍ — you will enter Jannah in peace and safety and with no problem on the Day of Judgment.

So the rights of relatives and the rights of society, following law and order, being law-abiding citizens — this is an instruction of our Prophet Muhammad and part of our deen. This is part of our religion. This is why the more closely we come to our religion, to our deen, and actually return back to the basic tenets, the better we will be for the world itself.

There was a Jew in Baghdad who was putting his house on the market. The people told him: "Are you out of your mind? How can you demand such a price?" — which was way beyond the market price, so much more than what the houses in the area were selling for. So he said: "The true value of this property you cannot determine. I just had to come up with a figure. It's even more than this." They said: "Why so?" He said: "Can you put a price on being the neighbor of Abdullah ibn Mubarak? There is no money that can give the full compensation for getting the chance to be the neighbor of such a saint." So this is what it meant to be a Muslim — that it was a mercy for everyone in the area, for everyone around.

May Allah allow us to return back to our roots, to our deen, to our religion, and show the reality of our faith to others. So that we become not only the best fathers and best mothers, best sons and best daughters, best siblings, but we become positive contributors to society and become a mercy for everyone around us. And if we do so, then we are fulfilling the orders of our own deen. Our own deen teaches us this.

The Heaviest Deed: Good Character

Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him — Allah swears by the pen and the tablet in which the destiny of all creation is written — saying that by the blessing of your Lord, you are not insane and crazy as your enemies are saying about you. Rather, you are the manifestation of moral excellence. You are the pinnacle of character that anyone can ever hope to achieve. This is the model that we have. The best model.

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said: "The heaviest deed on the scales of justice — where the good deeds and the sins will be weighed." There is a hidden point here: the good deeds are not going to be counted on the Day of Judgment — they are going to be weighed. Not counted. The Quran does not mention عَدُّ الْأَعْمَالِ. It mentions:

The scales of justice, where they are going to be weighed. The reason they are going to be weighed rather than counted is because quality is what counts, not quantity. A person may have a lot of so-called good deeds, but if he is not sincere in his actions, if he is doing it to show off others — even if he donates millions or does great acts of apparent virtue — it will have no value. As Allah says:

It will be turned into dust. So the heaviest deed amongst all good deeds — the heaviest deed on the Day of Judgment — is:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2002; Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4799)

Beautiful character. So this is what we need. Let us not go after the quantity — let us go after the quality. And the heaviest deed is to develop good character. May Allah grant us a good character.