The Significance of the Prophet's Silence | Shamail Session 2 | Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed

The Significance of the Prophet's Silence | Shamā'il Session 2

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ، وَأَحْمَدُهُ وَنُصَلِّي عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ، أَمَّا بَعْدُ

Three Components of the Prophet's Life ﷺ

When we study the life of the Prophet ﷺ, there are three different components that are summarized in three words that best describe the entire life of the Prophet ﷺ. Each word is a terminology, and this terminology has so much detail.

The three words are:

Number one — Sīrah. Sīrah means lifestyle. We've been sitting here for the last five, six days, nine to four, learning the sīrah of the Prophet ﷺ. This is called sīrah — his life, what he did, how he did it. And we all know that even in six days, it's still not enough.

Number two — Ṣūrah (with a ṣād). Ṣūrah is appearance — the physical appearance of the Prophet ﷺ, how he looked, what he ate. This is called ṣūrah. And of course, in sīrah we want to make our lives like his life, follow his sīrah. Similarly, we want our ṣūrah to be like his ṣūrah, because his ṣūrah was the most beautiful ṣūrah in the world — not sūrah of the Qur'ān, but ṣūrah with a ṣād. He had the best ṣūrah, the best appearance of anyone that ever walked on the face of this earth.

Number three — Sarīrah. Sarīrah is the private, silent life of the Prophet ﷺ. These English words are not the best translation, but just for the sake of understanding — sarīrah is the private, not public life of the Prophet ﷺ. This is called sarīrah, the internal life, the internal beauty of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Prophet's ﷺ du'ā was:

"O Allah, make my private life, my internal life, better than my external life. Make my internal beauty much more beautiful than my external beauty, and also make my external self beautiful."

So the effort was more inward than it was outward, and there was a focus on that.

Today's Session: The Prophet's Silence

Today's session is something to do with the sarīrah of the Prophet ﷺ. You've already heard about sīrah and ṣūrah. Now, sarīrah — and the component I want to dive into in his sarīrah is something very unique. Are you ready for it?

All our lives, we've been hearing about his words. What the Prophet ﷺ said. Books of hadith are filled with what the Prophet ﷺ said and did. But today's session will be about his silence.

If I ask you this question — did he speak more, or was he silent more? — the answer is: he was silent much more than he spoke. So if we don't know what he was doing and thinking when he was silent, that means we are missing out on a large portion of his life.

Yā Rasūlallāh, I want to know what you're thinking about when you were quiet. All our lives we've been discussing his words, his actions. But what was he thinking when he was quiet?

We know about him, it comes in the Shamā'il:

(Al-Shamā'il al-Muḥammadiyyah of Imām al-Tirmidhī)

The Prophet ﷺ had long periods of silence, and he would only speak if he expected a reward in his statement. Otherwise he wouldn't speak.

Isn't that such a beautiful characteristic? Wouldn't the world be a better place if people knew how to just not speak? Imām Mālik said that it takes a child two years to learn how to speak, but it takes him fifty years to learn how to stay quiet. In two years a child can start saying "Baba, Mama." Fifty years later he learns, "Oh, I should have stayed quiet."

The statements of the Salaf: "I have never regretted over my silence. I have always regretted over my speech." I've never regretted not saying something. I've always regretted saying something.

The Five Stages of Learning

The five stages — if you want to learn anything:

The first is al-Samt — stay quiet. Just stay quiet. Not even pay attention yet — just stay quiet.

The second is al-Istimā' — pay attention. Listen properly. Don't be distracted. Don't look at your phone. We don't have much time in this world. We need to grasp things.

We were visiting one of our teachers — on Sunday after I left from here, on Sunday and Monday, my students were with me. My teacher is about sixty-five to seventy years old, Mufti Aslam. I met him after a year, and I'm sitting in front of him, and he's speaking, and I'm looking at his face and every time he says something I'm reacting — really engaged. My students were not used to this. They started making fun of me when I left: "Man, you're acting too much."

So the next morning, after Fajr — we prayed Fajr together in the hotel, and all of them were there — I never took any notes, because it's kind of disrespectful. You're sitting right in front of him, you have to look at him, not down. So I asked everyone: "Okay, let's share what we remembered from what Mufti Aslam Ṣāḥib said." Wallahi, all of them were probably remembering ten percent of what he said. And then here I was, narrating almost ninety percent. I told them: because you just have to pay attention. It's not about photographic memory. It's about paying attention.

The third is al-Ḥifẓ — memorizing it. There has to be some effort of memorizing, and an effort of memorizing is reflecting over it, discussing it. The things you learn in sīrah — discussions help in memorization. Going through notes. Imām al-Shāfi'ī says one of the best ways of memorizing something is continuously going through your notes. Just have a schedule to go through your sīrah notes every week throughout the whole year — you probably won't forget it.

The fourth is al-'Amal — acting upon it. Acting upon something preserves it.

The fifth is al-Nashr — spreading it, conveying it to the world.

But where does it all start? Staying quiet. Al-samt. And the Prophet ﷺ was silent for the most of his life. He was a silent person.

Your Thoughts Determine Who You Are

Yā Rasūlallāh — when you were silent, what were you thinking about? When we're silent, what do we think about? Your thoughts determine who you are. That's what determines you. What's going through your mind?

A person can be praying Maghrib ṣalāh — physically they're there, but mentally they're not. They will not benefit from that ṣalāh. The ṣalāh's benefit will be determined by how much you pay attention in it. You were quiet, but where was your mind?

Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was asked: "Hal tatadhakkaru fī al-ṣalāh shay'an?" — "Do you think of anything in ṣalāh?" He said: "Hal shay'un aḥabbu ilayya min al-ṣalāh fa-adhkurahu fīhā?" — "Is there something I love more than ṣalāh that I could think of it during ṣalāh? There is nothing I love more than ṣalāh — how can I think of anything else?" The whole time before ṣalāh he's thinking of ṣalāh, so when he finally starts ṣalāh, all he's thinking about is that ṣalāh.

Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was asked: "Mā bālu al-mutahajjidīn min aḥsani al-nāsi wujūhan?" — "How come the people who pray Tahajjud have the most attractive of appearances? You just want to keep looking at them." He said:

"Because they emptied their mind and heart in front of Allah during Tahajjud — they had nothing on their mind except for Allah — so Allah gifted them with Nūr from His Nūr."

That is the price of making your mind, devoting your mentality, only for Allah.

And the Prophet ﷺ — when he was quiet — it's not like he wasn't thinking. Because:

The Prophet ﷺ — when he would remain quiet, everyone in the room knew he was thinking about something. And when he was looking at something, everybody knew there was a focused, direct reason why he was looking at it. He was not a person who would stare at people. And:

He would look down more than he would look up.

The First Thing on His Mind: Allah

When he was silent, the first thing he was thinking about was Allah.

You know why he is the most praiseworthy? Because he praises Allah the most. The more you praise Allah, the more Allah makes people praise you. He is Muḥammad because he praised Allah more than anyone on this earth. Nobody praised Allah more than him. Nobody thought about Allah more than him. Every gesture of his, every silence of his — he was thinking about Allah.

One day, he walks into the house and Āʿishah was sitting there, and he sees this new curtain — something decorative in the home. And he said:

"Remove this, Āʿishah. Every time I come in the house and I see it, my mind goes away from Allah. There is nothing in this world that is worth my mind being distracted from Allah. This curtain — it's permissible — but every time I come in and see it, my mind is taken away from Allah. Remove it. I don't need it here."

Think about this: on hearing good news, the first thing he would say was:

Three Allahs. Not "oh yeah, amazing, wow" — Alḥamdulillāh, mā shā'a Allāh, tabārak Allāh. Every time he heard good news, he would say this. Allah was on his mind, so Allah came on his tongue. Every time he heard bad news:

All praises to Allah on all conditions. When he was entering into his house:

Allah's name is on his tongue. If Allah is on your mind, Allah's name will be on your tongue.

SubhanAllah — I think of how quick your soul will leave your body. Allah says:

Allah is challenging people — your soul will leave your body so quickly. We are all making du'ā that Allah gives us the ability to say the kalimah when our soul leaves our body. But imagine the impact — from the moment of impact to the moment your soul leaves your body in six seconds: one, two, three, four, five, six. And you're thinking about a million things. How will Allah's name come on your tongue?

It will only come on our tongue if Allah is always present on our mind — so that every time we are quiet and silent, like the Prophet ﷺ, all we are thinking about is Allah.

And when coming back from a journey, from a victory — the dhikr he would make:

Even when coming back from his journey, only thinking about Allah. And he came back from Badr — went to the masjid first. Came back from Uḥud — went to the masjid first. Came back from Khandaq — went to the masjid first. Came back from Ḥajj — went to the masjid first.

As a community, as a family — when we go back to our communities — try to go to the masjid first, because the Prophet ﷺ would go to the masjid first, because Allah was on his mind.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

He says those who are always thinking about Allah will never have any loneliness in their graves. There is not a single person sitting here who is not afraid of the loneliness in the grave — we are all afraid of that. Well, if you don't want to be lonely in the grave, that will be determined by what you do when you are on this earth.

Habibi — when you are so infatuated by something, it's always on your mind. It just takes over. If you love Jannah, if you love Allah, then you are always thinking about Allah.

It comes in Ḥadīth Qudsī — Allah says: when My servant loves to meet Me, I love to meet them. And the one who does not love to meet Me — I do not wish to meet that person either. So a person who is always thinking about Allah — the Prophet ﷺ said, as if I can see them removing the dirt from their graves, coming out of their graves, and since Allah was always on their minds, the first thing they will say when they come out:

"All praise is to Allah, the One who removed grief from us." This is the first thing on his mind when he was quiet.

The Second Thing on His Mind: Ākhirah

The second thing that was always on his mind when he was quiet — and look at the stark difference between what was on his mind and what is on our mind — the second thing was ākhirah.

One day the Prophet ﷺ was sitting, and someone noticed that he was very concerned and worried. His facial expressions had changed. He was looking down the whole time. He was tense. Abū al-Dardāʾ asked: "Yā Rasūlallāh, is everything okay?" He looked up and said:

"Abū al-Dardāʾ, coming next — ahead of me — is a very steep climb. You know Mt. Everest? Like this high. A very scary high ascent. And a person who has any baggage will not be able to go — if you have too much weight, it holds you down. Abū al-Dardāʾ, I want to keep my weight less for this journey. I want to keep myself light."

Light in what terms, Yā Rasūlallāh? Light in terms of dunya — because the more you have, the more weight you carry. Light in terms of sins — the more you have, the more you will carry.

So the second thing that was always on his mind when he was quiet was ākhirah. Always on his mind. If he was quiet, he was either thinking about Allah or he was thinking about ākhirah. Nothing else.

And this is what the Prophet ﷺ used to make du'ā:

"O Allah, do not make dunya the greatest of our worries, nor the limit of our knowledge."

This is starkly against the sarīrah of the Prophet ﷺ — that a person who loves the Prophet of Allah ﷺ, which we all do, yet in their minds they have more thoughts, more yearning, more strategies of how to make their dunya better versus their ākhirah.

Yes, we have to think about dunya. Of course you should be concerned. But that concern and worry should not be more than the concern and worry of ākhirah. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 257; also reported in Musnad Aḥmad)

A person who bottles all their thoughts and concerns — and is always just thinking about ākhirah, about their return to Allah — Allah will suffice them for the concerns of dunya.

Do you think Allah will just leave such a person on their own and not take care of them? Consider the person who came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: "Yā Rasūlallāh, one portion of my du'ā I send ṣalāt upon you, and the rest I ask Allah for things." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Very good, but the more you do, the better for you." He said, "Okay — half my du'ā is dedicated to sending ṣalawāt upon you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Very good. The more you do, the better for you." He said, "Three quarters of my du'ā I will send ṣalāt on you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Very good." He said, "Okay, I'll dedicate my entire du'ā to ṣalāt upon you." The Prophet ﷺ said: "If you do that, Allah will give you everything you need without you even asking for it." Because Allah knows what you need before the need even comes to your mind.

The Prophet ﷺ was never strategizing on how to make the infrastructure of this world better. He was always thinking about: how can I make my ākhirah better? And the ākhirah of everyone around me? That's all he was thinking about.

And then the Prophet ﷺ said:

A person who has their mind scattered with all sorts of thoughts and concerns and strategies of dunya — the Prophet ﷺ said: Allah does not care in which valley this person dies. Meaning Allah doesn't have concern for this person.

And Allah will say on the Day of Judgment:

"Today We will forget you, the way you forgot Me." Allah save us.

And the Prophet ﷺ was so concerned about the state in which he would die. Ibn ʿAbbās says: one day the Prophet came out from the restroom and, in a nervous feeling, he took dirt and started doing tayammum. Ibn ʿAbbās said: "Yā Rasūlallāh, the water is right there — literally right there. You can do wuḍū right there. Why are you doing tayammum?" He said: "I'm not sure if I could reach the water. And if I don't reach the water, I don't want to die in the state of not having wuḍū." Always worried about that final state. That was always his concern.

When someone came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked for advice — make it concise — he said:

"First of all, don't have any expectations from people — only expect from Allah. The more you expect from people, the more you'll be disappointed. Second, don't say something today that you'll regret tomorrow. Yes, apology is beautiful, but silence is better. Third, when you stand for ṣalāh, pray as though it is your last ṣalāh."

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī says under this hadith that this example is not just for ṣalāh — every act of your life, do it as if this is your final act. Imagine you were told this is going to be your final Shamā'il session in your life. How would you pay attention? How would I prepare? Wallahi we would do better than what we're doing right now.

The Prophet ﷺ was always worried about that — what will be my last act in this world? And at the end, Āʿishah noticed he was pointing toward something. His head was on her lap and he was pointing. She looked — it was a miswāk. And we know the Prophet ﷺ loved the miswāk. He wanted to die while doing miswāk, because at least after doing miswāk he was going to speak to Allah. He was worried about that final state.

The Third Thing on His Mind: Others

The third thing that he was always thinking about while he was quiet — was others. How can I be a source of benefit for others? Strategizing for others.

Today when we are quiet and we're thinking — what are we thinking about first? Ourselves. He was always thinking about others. And Allah describes this in the Qur'ān:

ʿAzīzun ʿalayhi mā ʿanittum — someone who is always worried about what will be difficult for you. He's thinking about us — how he can make life comfortable for all of us. And he says things like:

(Sahih al-Bukhārī, Hadith 887; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 252)

"If it wasn't for the thought that I may make life difficult for my Ummah, I would have commanded them to do miswāk for every ṣalāh." But he knew it was going to be difficult, so he's always thinking: what concessions can he make, how can he make life easy for us?

The Deen he left us with is:

It is an easy Deen. It is a very pure Deen. It is a clear Deen. It is a complete Deen. Yes, it might not be easy for the one whom Allah does not make it easy for. But wallahi, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās — there is not a single gesture that could lead someone to Jannah that he did not tell us about. He already told us. Every single thing is clear.

ʿAzīzun ʿalayhim mā ʿanittum — he's always worried about you. Ḥarīṣun ʿalaykum — he's always concerned about our hidāyah. Not worried about his own comfort. In one and a half years he lost one daughter, another son was born, lost another daughter, lost another son. But despite all that, he's always worried about us.

When he would sit down and make du'ā, he would say: "Oh Allah, forgive Āʿishah all of her sins." Āʿishah became so happy. What a beautiful du'ā — that Allah forgives all my past and future, private and public sins. The Prophet ﷺ said: "This is my du'ā for my Ummah after every ṣalāh." Because he's always thinking about us.

When the Prophet ﷺ was reading the verse of Ibrāhīm and ʿĪsā — where there was a possibility of the prophets allowing the punishment of their followers — he raised his hands:

He raised his hands: "Yā Allāh, I'm not even bringing the word of punishment. Oh Allah — my Ummah, my Ummah, my Ummah." And he cried so much that Allah had to send Jibrīl to him, and Allah said:

"We will satisfy you in the matter of your Ummah, and We will not disappoint you." Because he was always thinking about us.

Even this hadith — and I'll conclude with this — SubhanAllah. The hadith where he said:

(Sahih al-Bukhārī, Hadith 631)

You've all heard this hadith before — "Pray the way you see me praying." Wallahi, if he had said ṣallū kamā uṣallī — "pray the way I pray" — we would all be done. Meaning we'd have to pray exactly like him and we'd be destroyed trying. But he said ṣallū kamā ra'aytumūnī uṣallī — "pray the way you SEE me praying." Because everyone's sight is deficient. However you saw me praying, you pray. But if he had said "pray exactly the way I pray" — that would be so difficult. Even in his natural speech, that just flowed without overthinking, there was so much comfort embedded for us. He was always thinking about us.

The Prophet ﷺ was asked: who is the most beloved person to Allah?

(Al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ of al-Ṭabarānī; also referenced in Majmaʿ al-Zawā'id)

"The most beloved person to Allah is the one who benefits others most." The one who is always thinking about benefiting others. And then he said — the best of deeds:

Making a Muslim brother or sister happy — that is the best deed. Or removing a difficulty from them. Or paying a loan back for them. Or feeding them when they're hungry. And:

"That I could walk with my brother to fulfill their need is more beloved to me than doing iʿtikāf in the masjid for one entire month." Always thinking about how to benefit others.

Conclusion: Sow the Seeds for Others

It makes you a beautiful person. A society is nurtured when you sow the seeds fully aware that you may never witness the tree's growth, yet someone else will reap the benefit. This is an embodiment of a profound legacy of selfless contribution.

This is what the Prophet ﷺ did for the Ummah in Medina. Did he benefit from what came afterwards? He knew it was going to happen, but he never benefited from it himself. He was thinking about it — and that's how society flourishes. If everyone thinks about themselves, we go nowhere. If everyone thinks about each other, we go somewhere.

The first thing the Prophet ﷺ did was change the jazba — the inner emotion, the mindset of the Ṣaḥābah — because that's what was first changed about him. And Allāmah Iqbāl beautifully captures the spirit of what this inner transformation produced in a poem about the Ṣaḥābah:

He says about the Ṣaḥābah: "Oh Allah, we were mountains upon mountains, and sometimes we would ride the waves of the ocean — why? To call towards You. Our adhān was heard in the churches of Europe and Africa. We traversed the deserts and scorching heat of Africa — and not just traveled over it; we made sajdah while the heat of the sand was so hot it could boil something. Our skins would come off, but we would do sajdah on that sand. And the comfort and peace a person would seek in the shade of their orchards — wallahi, that is the peace we felt under the shade of the swords. Because we knew that from our effort Allah was accepting us and we were a source of guiding people towards Allah."

"Nobody struck fear in our hearts — even with what is happening today. These oppressors would put spears around us, erect the skulls of our Muslim brothers and sisters. But this never shook us. One building goes, another building goes — we would still call towards Allah and never go away from that. Because our minds were full of only Allah and ākhirah. Dunya was not something they were worried about."

"Oh Allah, we literally carried our heads on our palms — we walked into situations that were one hundred percent death. Oh Allah, do you think we did this for dunya? We saw these massive idols made of gold and silver — we would break them and throw the gold and silver away. If it was anyone other than Muslims, they would have broken the idols and sold the gold and silver. But we never did it for that. We did it for ākhirah."

How do we react when we see a few pennies? That's how the Prophet ﷺ reacted when he saw dunya. He said: "What is this? It's like the wing of a mosquito."

And Iqbāl says: Life is higher than the calculation of profit and loss. Your value should not be determined by how much money you made, and your grief and sadness should not be determined by how much money you lost. Life is higher than the calculation of profit and loss. And then he says: life is sometimes living, and other times forfeiting the fact that you have life — you give it for others. That's value. At the end of the day, how much you have done for others is going to show on the Day of Judgment. How much you have done for yourself will be very, very weak on the scale.

Allah make us among those who act upon whatever is said. Bring it into our lives. Make us among those who have these three qualities while we're quiet — we are thinking about Allah, we are thinking about Ākhirah, and we are thinking about others.

JazākAllāhu Khayran.