Dr. Basem Hameed

The Beautiful Character of Haya

My dear respected brothers, Allah has told us about an important khuluq, conduct. He described the daughters of the Prophet Yaqub when he described the story of Musa when he met the two daughters of Yaqub while they were trying to get some water and they were shy so he volunteered to get the water for them. Then Allah further mentioned that when Yaqub sent them to summon Musa, he described the way they executed that order. Even when they were talking to a prophet, they were the daughters of a prophet. Allah described him in one beautiful description and he said:

And one of them walked to him, approached him in a shy manner in istikhya that was manifested in her body language. This is the khuluq, the haya that the Prophet has described as a khuluq of a believer and that only a believer would have that istikhya, that haya, shyness.

Today inshallah we were going to talk about this beautiful, this important khuluq that is diminishing from the lives of many people. We need to bring it back, revive it and follow the path of our Prophet Muhammad.

Haya as a Branch of Faith

In the famous hadith, the Prophet says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)

The Prophet says that the iman, the faith, consists of 60 some and in a different narration 70 some branches. It's like a tree - yes, iman resides in the heart but unless it manifests as a tree and comes to fruition then it is not a full iman, it is deficient iman. And he lists all these branches which the Prophet is telling you to count, to survey yourself and see how many of them you have achieved.

He says the highest level of iman is having the pure and full tawheed that is summed up in the statement of tawheed لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ, and the lowest level is that you prevent the harm from getting to people by doing it yourself, meaning not harming them. الْمُسْلِمُ مَنْ سَلِمَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ مِنْ لِسَانِهِ وَيَدِهِ - the Muslim is the one that people are safe from his tongue and from his hand, physical and mental safety.

And then the Prophet went a step further and he said the Muslim is also proactive in protecting the community and he gave the example by removing what's harmful from their path, from the roads. And between these two significant attributes that the Prophet considered as part of faith, part of iman and a manifestation of the belief in Allah, he singled out one attribute, one khuluq and he said: "And indeed al-haya is a branch of faith."

He did not list them one by one but he highlighted the haya for a reason - to point it out as something of significance, something of importance that the Muslim needs to have. And he's as if saying: do not overlook, do not neglect the haya because it is a sign of faith and it is one of these branches of iman.

The Meaning of Haya

How is this haya manifested? What is it by definition? Linguistically, haya in Arabic means rain - the rain that you see is called haya. And why is it called haya? Because they say the rain brings life. Haya is very similar to haya to hayat - they're derived from the same roots. Life and haya, they share the same root.

Such as the rain brings life to earth, hayat is the bodily and the physical life we live. So how is that related to the shyness, to the bashfulness that the Prophet is talking about in that hadith? They said such as you have the life that's the hayat, such as the rain brings life to earth and allows the plantations to appear, the haya - the mental haya - is the life of faith. It is a sign of a heart that is alive with iman. It is a sign that the taqwa is alive in your heart. And that's why the Prophet has called that khuluq haya. And this is what Allah has also mentioned - a heart that is dead that is full of illnesses of the heart does not manifest the haya.

The Prophet said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

Faith and shyness, that bashfulness, they go hand in hand and they only exist with each other in the heart. If one disappears, the other one does as well. And of course as we know, part of our aqeedah that الْإِيمَانُ يَزِيدُ وَيَنْقُصُ - the faith goes up and down, fluctuates. It's not steady, it's not a flat line. It increases with the obedience to Allah and decreases by shifting away from the path of the Prophet. And as such the haya goes up and down with it as well - something that we need to be aware of and something that we need to work on and be careful that it does not diminish because of our oblivion and heedlessness.

Examples from the Quran and Sunnah

Allah as I mentioned shows one brilliant example and he talked about the daughters of Yaqub - how they were raised to the best standards and Allah only highlighted one of their akhlaq. He didn't say they memorized the scriptures, he didn't mention some other quality that they're generous, they're active in the community. He highlighted one conduct, one khuluq - that is the haya.

And when the Prophet was described, the attribute of your beloved Prophet Muhammad that he was more shy, more bashful than a young woman who's hiding in seclusion from strangers. That is your Prophet. And if you need to have your faith increase, you need to purify your heart, you have to acquire that haya.

How to Achieve True Haya

The Prophet has once asked or ordered the Sahaba and he said he ordered his companions that they need to have that bashfulness, that shyness to the best, the way Allah should be dealt with - with decency, with bashfulness. And the Sahaba simply answered "we do," but they didn't say the way it should be and that's exactly what the Prophet is teaching them. So how would you achieve that khuluq? How would you accomplish that haya the way the Prophet has asked his companions to do?

The Prophet went on and told us how we achieve that khuluq. In a previous khutbah we talked about the concept of taqwa which is defined in so many ways in the books of scholars, but we explained that taqwa in a sense should be understood in one simple concept - that it's the inner inclination that would make you shift from sins and push you to do what is good. It's an intuition that is the taqwa. Just like the fear - the fear is something instinctive, intuitive that just arises from within. And the taqwa has to arise, has to reach to that level where it becomes intuitive. It would become your internal compass that would take you to what is good in simple terms and make you avoid what is bad.

And the haya is exactly the same. As a matter of fact, such as we mentioned the haya is a sign of iman, scholars have said the first manifestation of taqwa is haya. It's that inner sensation, that emotion, intuition and inclination that would make you feel that shyness to do anything that is indecent with Allah and with the people. Simple. And if you do something bad then it feels not right - that is in simple terms what haya is, what bashfulness is. It's not to be timid, it's not to be avoidant to people. It's just having that inner sensation where it pulls you away from doing anything indecent as if Allah is watching you.

So the Prophet taught us in that hadith. The Prophet said when the companions told him "we do have haya, we do have that bashfulness you're talking about," but he said "this is not what I'm talking about." The true haya and the real level that you have to reach is that you protect your mind, your head actually and all that it contains, and your belly and what it really means here - your body and all that it contains. And that you're always mindful, thinking of the hereafter and the death, and then seeking the hereafter and abandoning the distractions of this world. And when you do this, that is when you have achieved the real level of the haya.

Protecting the Head and What it Contains

To protect your head and what it contains - what scholars said about this that's the intuition that you have, that inner feeling that would pull you away from doing anything indecent. And that comes to the intention to be ashamed of doing anything to Allah without sincerity. That is the haya - to having any impurity of your thoughts or impurity of your hearts. For the aql, what the scholars have said is not only the mind - it's your heart, it's your thoughts and all of that have to be pure. And if it is not, then you have to be decent, you have to be ashamed in front of Allah. How could you do this with Allah the almighty, the lord of all the creation?

And that's what scholars have said. He said do not look how big or small the sin is, the mistake is, but look whom you're dealing with, whom you're sinning with - it is Allah. And the haya that you have to reach is that you purify all your inner as Allah mentioned in the Quran describing the believers - those who avoid the sins entirely, what's inner and what's outer, what is apparent to you and people and what is concealed and inaccessible to people and that even yourself may not be aware of.

These are the ailments of the nafs, the soul - the vanity, the pride, the arrogance, the love of recognition, the insincerity and all these internal diseases that afflict the heart and pull you away from Allah. What is the remedy for that? The haya. You observe Allah in every act of worship you do as if you're seeing Him - that is the haya.

Practical Training in Haya

The Prophet gave us an example and this is an exercise, a training for beginners how you develop that haya. The Prophet is telling us that you have that sense of shyness, of bashfulness from the angels that are watching over you. Just like you observe a man of dignity in your neighborhood, your father, your imam, your friend - you wouldn't do anything wrong. Develop that sense of observation, that muraqabah sense as if someone is watching you.

When you're driving a car and you know that there's someone who's chasing you, a police car that's chasing you, you wouldn't speed up. And the Prophet is telling you, you have these two angels that don't depart, don't leave you day or night. And what is more important - Allah who knows what's outside and what's inside you and who knows every single whisper you whisper with and every single thought that crosses your mind and every single intention that comes to your heart. Whatever you contemplate, Allah knows it before it even comes to your consciousness.

The haya is that you purify that and then whatever the head has - the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the smell - everything has to be used the way Allah wanted it to be used. Your eyes to be used in what is good and to avoid what's evil. Your tongue is to be used for what Allah has created it for and to avoid anything that Allah has prohibited. Same thing applies for the ears.

And your body and all that it contains - that contains your limbs, that contains your stomach so you don't eat anything that is haram, that contains your chest so nothing haram comes to it - not a smoke, not anything - because Allah does not like that.

And you're always mindful of your moment of death and your time in the grave because that's what's truly going to make you fearful and develop that haya from Allah. Then the Prophet said: and whoever seeks the hereafter would abandon the distractions of this world. Meaning that you focus on what's meaningful. You know that no matter how long you live in this life and no matter how wealth you hoard and no matter how status or ego you reach to, it's all going to vanish and in a moment that you don't know - a moment that only Allah knows - all of that becomes history, becomes past and nothing would remain and stay and become meaningful and account for your happiness except what you've done for Allah. That is the haya we have to achieve and that's the way the Prophet taught us to do.

The Test of Haya

This hadith narrated by Ibn Masroor in Bukhari:

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

The Prophet said this is like the eternal wisdom that even the nations prior to you have known: "When you don't have that sense of shyness then do whatever you want."

This hadith could be interpreted in two ways. Meaning that people who don't have shyness, then they're going to be prone to do anything - sins or no sins, it doesn't matter to them. The other way, the Prophet is giving you that test: When you want to do something, see, is it okay to do it? Does it give you that sense of shyness if someone is watching over you? Would you do that when your parents are there, when your wife is there, when your spouse is there, when your neighbors is there, when the entire world is watching you? Would you do it? If you don't have that shyness, then it's okay. That is the test that you should do in every act when it comes doubtful.

I ask Allah to grant us that khuluq of haya and grant us the sunnah of the Prophet.