Ḥayā And Adab: Essential Qualities For Preserving Our Deen

Ḥayā and Adab: Two Essential Qualities for Preserving Our Deen

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. The ulama, the scholars, the hukama, the wise individuals whom Allah has granted hikmah, wisdom, basira, foresight, and who combine expertise in ilm al-zahir, external knowledge of sharia, along with ilm al-batin of tariqa — they have identified for us two very important sifat, attributes, qualities that are essential for maintaining our Islamic identity and for our salvation in the akhirah and for us to preserve our deen. These two sifat are very rapidly vanishing from the ummah.

On one side, they are essential and important, and on the other hand, they are very quickly leaving us, and in many cases, we have lost them completely or are on the path to losing them. These are such sifat which the enemies of Islam themselves — who have studied the deen with the intention of dismantling it — are not incidentally bent on removing any remaining vestiges of these sifat, but have a premeditated plan to snatch these blessings away from us. So it befits us to awaken to this reality, to understand how important these sifat are, and to work in imbibing ourselves with these two sifat and transmitting them to our children, to our loved ones, to the next generation of this ummah.

One is with respect to an internal condition of the heart, and the other sifah is an outward manifestation and implementation of that. The inside condition of the heart, which is very, very, very important for safeguarding our deen, is hayā. And the outward manifestation and implementation of that is adab.

One is hayā — modesty in the heart — and one is adab — external mannerisms, etiquettes, with respect to how we deal with others.

The True Meaning of Ḥayā

When it comes to the first sifah, hayā, many times our understanding of hayā is very limited. We feel, "Oh, I know hayā — hayā means that we are concerned about how we appear in front of others, what others are going to think about us." We don't want to do something where we come off in a bad light. Others will judge us, will look down upon us. We should be considerate of how we are presented in other people's eyes, in their perception of us. We shouldn't do anything that will bring shame to us, to our family, to our loved ones, to our deen.

In reality, this is not only an incomplete understanding of hayā, but in some cases, maybe an incorrect understanding of hayā. The reality of hayā is that we take the concept of what others may think about us, what others may form notions regarding us, and how we feel if our statement or our action is performed in their presence — and what their reaction would be. We take that original concept, but we take it and remove it from the ibādullāh, towards Allah Himself.

So the reality of hayā, as very eloquently and beautifully explained by the ulama, is:

"May your mawla, your master, the one who is your creator, your maker, your owner — who possesses you, he is the مَالِكُ الْمُلْكِ — may He not see you." And there is nothing that escapes His vision. So keeping that in mind, لَا يَرَاكَ — may He not see you — حَيْثُ نَهَاكَ — in such an action, in such a place, in such a situation that He has forbidden you from being in. May your master, your owner, your possessor, your Lord, never see you in such a condition that He has prohibited you from being in.

So this hayā that we have from one another — that is also rapidly going; there is no hayā from anyone nowadays — is that whole concept: "What are they going to think when they see me? If they see me, what will so-and-so think if they find me in this company, on this weeknight, on this Saturday night, I'm here with these people, or in this location, in this place, this den of vice, this place of sin." So you have hayā. But the hayā shar'ī is that may Allah not see me in such a condition that I am disobeying Him. This is having hayā from Allah.

Ḥayā from the Prophet ﷺ

And having hayā from Rasulullah ﷺ — we know he is not alim al-ghayb wa al-shahādah, having complete knowledge of the seen and the unseen; that is wahdahu lā sharīka lahu — Allah alone. Allah says in the Quran:

When the mushrikūn and the munāfiqūn were asking him — يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ السَّاعَةِ — "When is the Day of Judgment going to come?" Even Jibreel (alayhis salam) came and asked him — with a different purpose of course, in Hadith Jibreel — "When is the Day of Judgment?" So He said: قُل لَّا أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبَ — "I do not have the precise knowledge of the unseen." So it is not necessarily that he is going to see us now; that is called ilm al-ghayb. But he does have nubū' al-ghayb, wherein Allah informs him of unseen matters.

And we have hayā of that — how will we face Rasulullah ﷺ on the Day of Judgment? Let us just run with this thought, with this concept.

There are, mashāAllah, children here as the summer has begun. I hope and I pray there is some hayā that you have with your parents. "If my father finds out where I was, my mother finds out who I was hanging out with, how will I face her?" There may be a hayā we have. Elder people — perhaps our boss at work? What if somebody — none of us here, but at a conceptual level — is watching something inappropriate at work, and it's downloaded on his computer. He has hayā: "What will my boss say?" Imagine if he comes in and he sees, or HR informs that this is what's going on, and he's standing behind him: "You're getting paid for this?" So you have hayā — how will I face my boss? Or for those who are married, na'ūdhu billāh, if they're committing any sin: "How will I face my wife? How will I face my husband? How will I face my in-laws? How will I face the community? This will be such a scandal." So this is the hayā we have from one another.

But where is the hayā from Allah, and the hayā from Rasulullah ﷺ? And when I bracket them together — again I'm reminding myself and everyone — we're not saying that Nabi ﷺ is fully aware of every action that's taking place, but he will be informed on the Day of Judgment, and he may be informed in this worldly life too.

Allah showed in the Qur'an that he did not know what happened to his beloved wife Āisha Siddīqa (radhiyallahu anha) and Safwān ibn Mu'attal (radhiyallahu anhu), the rear guard on the way back from Ghazwat al-Mustalaq. And when the munāfiqūn, the hypocrites, were alleging — na'ūdhu billāh — a planned meeting between the wife of Rasulullah ﷺ and some other man. When they made this allegation, with certainty he could not refute it, because he did not have the knowledge of what happened — until Allah revealed the āyāt in Sūrah An-Nūr:

"This is a great ifk, a great allegation — how dare." And Allah revealed her innocence.

The Ḥawḍ al-Kawthar

It comes in a hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ that on the Day of Judgment, when he will be standing by the Ḥawḍ al-Kawthar, with his noble hands — biyadihi al-sharīfah — passing out the water of Ḥawḍ al-Kawthar, such a refreshing, wholesome drink:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6583; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2290)

"The one who drinks it will never face thirst again" — on that most hot, dreadful day. May Allah grant us the drink of Ḥawḍ al-Kawthar from his hands. Say, Āmeen.

And there will be some individuals coming, and Nabi ﷺ will be excited and will be stretching forth his arms to embrace them: "From my ummah, my ummah!" And the malā'ikah will say, "These are the people who did such-and-such things after you." And he will turn his face away: Suḥqan, suḥqan — "Go away from me, go away from me." So he will be informed. How will we face Rasulullah ﷺ, or in fact, how potentially we may be turned away from Rasulullah ﷺ? That is the hayā from Rasulullah ﷺ, and that is the hayā from Allah — not, in fact, what other people may say.

When Ḥayā from People Can Lead Us Astray

In fact, in reality, this hayā that we have from people — we may at times have to go against that. Literally, not worry what other people will have to say. If you have hayā about what people will say — a classic example is the "foot in the sink" scenario. "What is going to happen if people see me, so let me just skip the wudū, not wash my foot." It could go to a further extreme: you are traveling with some people, and mashāAllah they pray salāh. You slept in the car and you had a nocturnal emission — your ghusl is farḍ. Now everyone stops at the rest area to pray. He's going to say, "What happened to you in the car — are you serious? How are you going to take ghusl at a rest area?" So, "No, let me just pray without." Because what? "I have hayā." So this is a scenario of when you are embarrassed about what other people are going to say — in a wrong manner. It doesn't make a difference what people are going to say or not say. The reality is, we have to at all times be cognizant of how will I respond to Allah.

Always worrying about having a good name in front of people is actually in many cases not even going to help us. That is where the concept of:

— comes in. That for the sake of Allah, we have no fear of lawmat al-lā'im, of the blame that will be cast by those who cast blame. Those who are going to blame us, those who will come up with different stories — it is inconsequential. We are worried about how we are going to face Allah.

Ḥayā as a Branch of Īmān

This sifah of hayā is such an overarching sifah that Rasulullah ﷺ, when he was mentioning the different branches of īmān, said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 9; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 35)

"Īmān has seventy-odd branches." And Imām Bayhaqī (rahimahullah) has collected all the ahadith regarding these branches in his Shu'ab al-Īmān, a very celebrated masterpiece of hadith literature.

Now, Nabi ﷺ in this one hadith did not mention all of them, list them out. What he did was mention only three. The first one is the top end of the spectrum. The second one is the bottom end of the spectrum — like we say "A to Z"; we don't necessarily list all the alphabets. And then he mentioned a third one and specified it.

Bid'un means "three to nine." So bid'un wa sab'ūna means seventy-three to seventy-nine. Even if you take the lower number, seventy-three — take the top one out and the bottom one out — that is seventy-one remaining. From those seventy-one branches, he highlighted only one. There is a purpose in highlighting one, to show us how great this one is. What did he say?

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 9; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 35)

"The most important, top branch is the testification of faith — lā ilāha illallāh. And at the lowest level of all of them is imātat al-adhā 'an al-ṭarīq — removing something harmful from the path." And then: hayā is a great, great branch of īmān. It will save you from so many things.

Nabi ﷺ also said:

(Al-Mustadrak 'ala al-Sahihayn, al-Hakim; Shu'ab al-Iman, al-Bayhaqi)

"Īmān and hayā are best partners. They are such in love with one another — if one of them leaves the heart, the other one doesn't want to stay there and leaves as well." So if hayā goes, īmān says, "No, I want to stay with hayā" — and īmān departs from that heart. If you want to keep īmān, you have to keep hayā.

And Nabi ﷺ said:

"If you lose hayā, then go ahead, do whatever you want." And the poet says the same thing:

"If you have absolutely no fear of what is going to be the outcome of all these dark deeds you are committing in the night, and you have lost your hayā — go ahead, do whatever you want at this point. It doesn't matter anymore. Go ahead and do whatever you want. By Allah, there is no khayr left in this life, in this dunya, when hayā goes."

So hayā is a shu'bat al-'aẓīmah — a great, great branch. This is the internal sifah. And most of it has already disappeared. Whatever remaining effects there are, they are rapidly being destroyed — not disappearing on their own, but being destroyed intentionally. We are being stripped of it.

Ḥayā Is for Everyone

Hayā is not only for women. Hayā is not only for girls. No — it is hayā for men and for women. Nabi ﷺ himself — who could be more masculine than him? Was there anything feminine about his nature in a negative sense? No. He was the most masculine man ever possible. We are talking about chivalry and courage and all of that. He was of course the man. And he had so much hayā. So hayā is a beautiful attribute for men, for women, for every ummati of Rasulullah ﷺ.

How Ḥayā Is Transmitted

And one last thing — as the time is up — we then get to the second point of adab. Hayā is that there is no way it can be inculcated or transmitted through speeches, through words. The only way we can get hayā is if we stay in the company of those who have true hayā. It is something that is experiential. You have to experience it. It's not a theoretical concept. Like swimming — you can learn it on a board, but no, you have to jump in the pool with your swimming instructor. So if we want our children to have hayā, they are not going to learn it from any speech until we have hayā in our own lives. And they see us manifesting that hayā — and then they will get it from us.

May Allah give us tawfīq to make amal. Alḥamdulillāh.

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