Footprints in the Sand: Lessons from the Pious | Muftī Azeemuddin Ahmed | 03/12

And in that large Islamic conference, one of the first booths — the very first booth that is at the entrance, not even at the bazaar, before you get to the bazaar, at the conference center — a huge booth by a hadith rejecter. He's got the most prominent spot in one of the largest conferences in the country. Why? Because the wealthy upper class and so-called pseudo-intellectuals, they find this very interesting.

They find it very appeasing, very nice. A hadith rejecter can say whatever you want to hear. When you take out hadith, you can make everything permissible. Every haram can be made permissible. The deen will become the way you want to make it. Did you hear what I said? The hadith rejecter has the biggest, most prominent booth at an Islamic event. At an Islamic conference.

This is why it is important for all of us here to constantly be aware of the fitnah out there, all the time. If you don't know it, how is your kids gonna know it? Remember when we started teaching the one-year program, we started talking about Qadianis. I don't even think one person knew what a Qadiani was in the class. Are they extinguished? They don't exist? Of course not — they're spreading all over, and on college campuses, among young people. If you don't even know, you've never heard of the name, how are you gonna be able to protect yourself from it? That's my point.

Similarly, hadith rejection is a very serious issue. And not just hadith — the sunnah is the entire package. How did Nabi ﷺ live? So our ulama are known to be people who truly uphold the sunnah within their own lives. And now let's hear some of the stories. You're gonna be surprised at the degree.

The Story of Mawlānā Rashīd Ahmad Gangohī

Shaykh Zakariyya says it is sunnah to step out of the masjid with which foot? The left foot. And then which shoe should we wear first? The right shoe. And additionally, the method is: you put your left foot on top of the left slipper while you're putting your right foot inside the right slipper. And when you remove the shoes, the opposite — the first one to get removed is the left shoe, then the right shoe.

Now, this obviously is a very small, minute detail. But as they say, everything is in the details. You say it's not about the food — what did you tell me? Customer service. How do you greet? How do you present it? I made karahi for you. If you give it like this, who wants to eat from you like this? It's that smile, even if you give daal. But you say, JazakAllah khair. "I'm so honored you came to my house. Thank you." And you present it — the guest will relish and enjoy it. And you give the most amazing food but you disrespectfully hand it over — no one wants it. Everything is in the details. That's where sunnah comes in.

The details, the sunnah — the one who makes an effort today after hearing this, that "subhanAllah, this is how I'm gonna enter the masjid, this is how I'm gonna leave the masjid" — who is gonna be able to do this? The one who loves Rasulullah ﷺ. Coming and performing salah in the front row or in the back row, wherever — alhamdulillah, it's good. The hypocrites may do this too. Moles and spies may do that too. We talked about them the other day. However, a spy and a mole would never go outside and make sure he's stepping with his left foot out of the masjid and making sure he recites the du'a:

And if he forgets, he comes back inside and says, "I accidentally stepped out of the masjid with the right foot — I'm now going to do it with the left foot." You go and get it right. Who's gonna do this? An ashiq. A hypocrite can never do this. A lover of Allah and His Rasul will do this. That's why everything is in the details. Everything is in the small things.

The Danger of Taking the Sunnah Lightly

One day, a brother who had fallen away from the deen — big time, very far away — I had him do a reflection session with me. "Why are you in this state? Let's sit and figure out, why are you in this state?" And he had really gotten himself into very big, deep trouble in sin. After a long, lengthy reflection, Allah put something in his heart, and subhanAllah, he told me this. He said: when people would sit down and drink water in the sunnah manner, I would say, "Come on man, why are you making a big deal of everything?"

He said, "I literally belittled small sunnahs" — and the word "small" is inappropriate first of all; I should never say "small sunnah." He said, "I literally looked down upon the teachings of Rasulullah ﷺ. How did he sit? How did he eat? How did he drink? I'm like, come on yaar, why are you getting involved in this?" He had this in his heart. And he said, "This disrespect for the sunnah — the punishment is that now I'm involved in zina, in drinking, in this, that, everything, you name it. Not just small amounts — huge amounts." Even though he was a person who was connected to the deen, he linked it back to:

اسْتِخْفَافٌ بِالسُّنَّة — taking the sunnah lightly.

This is why the ulama say: not practicing a sunnah doesn't get you out of the fold of Islam. But making fun of a sunnah and looking down upon a sunnah is an act of kufr. We all have to respect the sunnah.

And today I have to say this very much so, because in previous times you had people who didn't even pray Jummah or Ramadan prayers. But dare you say something about the Prophet ﷺ right then and there — even if they had a beer bottle in the hand, they'll smash it on your head. Because their love for Rasulullah ﷺ was still there. They would say, "I am the worst slave of Rasulullah ﷺ." That's what they would say. "I am still a slave of the Prophet ﷺ, but I'm the worst one." Those are the statements a person would make.

And today, a person is leading salah, giving the khutbah, guiding the community — but subhanAllah, the statements that unfortunately come out of the mouth, in private and in public at times, make a person really doubt: do you really love the Prophet ﷺ? What is this all about? This is the era we live in — that the love of the Prophet ﷺ is truly diminishing from our hearts. And the proof is in the pudding: to what extent are you genuinely caring about the smallest details of the Prophet ﷺ's life?

Again, I share this because I need to hear this most. May Allah make me an ashiq of Rasulullah ﷺ's sunnah. May Allah make you all an ashiq of Rasulullah ﷺ's sunnah. And may Allah mold our lives so that they truly represent his life in every sense.

Witnessing the Sunnah in Practice

Shaykh Zakariyya says: Mawlānā Rashīd Ahmad Gangohī — on numerous occasions I noticed that whenever he came out of the masjid, he stepped out with his left foot, which he placed on the sandal. Then he stepped out with his right foot, slipped it into his shoe, and only after that wore his left shoe or sandal.

Alhamdulillah, I witnessed the same when I studied abroad. My ustaz did the same thing when they left the masjid. Countless times I'd be walking out with my teachers after namaz — Asr, whatever — walking with them, asking them a question. And I would continuously grab my slippers and watch how they put on their slippers, how they wore their shoes. The same tarkeeb.

Once a person came while Shaykh — Mawlānā Rashīd Ahmad Gangohī — had gone to the bathroom. When he returned, the person greeted him saying, "Janab Adab!" — which means, "Sir, my respects," in the Urdu way. Mawlānā Rashīd Ahmad Gangohī became upset and angry, and said, "Who is this inconsiderate man, so ignorant of the priorities of the sharia? Is this the way to greet? Why are you addressing me like this? Is this the method of saying salām?"

We don't need all these fancy terms. You can say fancy terms — Hazrat and all that — afterwards. First say salām. A person once came and said, "Hazrat Salamat." His face flushed with anger, and he replied, "The greetings of Muslims is essential here. What is this Hazrat Salamat?"

In his will, he advised: "My wife, children, and my friends are advised to embody the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, which is necessary for adhering to the sharia. Consider even the slightest contravention of the sunnah as the worst enemy. If you go even a little bit away from the sunnah, your destruction will start right here. Even a little bit of deviation from the sunnah."

Shaykh al-Hind and the Two Rak'ahs After Witr

Shaykh al-Hind's daily routine was to pray two rak'ahs in the sitting position after witr. Nafl. After witr. In the sitting position. So one of his students inquired, "Shaykh, the reward is halved for praying in a sitting position. If you pray sitting down, you get half the reward."

SubhanAllah. How many times do you say, "Man, I'm tired, it's the 23rd night, but I'm not feeling it — let me just sit down and pray." If only we had yaqeen: if you sell this here, you get fifty dollars; you sell it outside the door, you get a hundred dollars — why would you not walk ten feet and sell it for a hundred? That's what conviction, yaqeen, does. By standing, you get full reward; by sitting, it's halved.

So the student said, "I spoke to Shaykh al-Hind and said: why are you sitting and praying?" Shaykh replied, "I know this to be true, brother. I know that sitting down is half. But praying two rak'ahs in a sitting position after witr is established from the sunnah — the Prophet ﷺ did this."

Very likely because he had such a long tahajjud. His one tahajjud rak'ah would be longer than our taraweeh at times — most definitely. So Nabi ﷺ would pray rak'atayni khafeefatayni — two light rak'ahs at the end. And this is after spending the whole night, or a third or half of it, in ibadah. Now you're doing an extra two after witr.

A Note on Witr and Tahajjud

Because witr usually would be performed at the end — this is one common misconception, that people think: "I cannot perform witr earlier." So they leave witr with the imam. You have a thousand people performing witr salah after taraweeh. But some say, "Since I have witr, I want to pray it in the morning." In Ramadan, pray witr with the imam and the hundreds of people you have in the masjid. Because that is the only opportunity you get to pray witr in jama'ah — in Ramadan. You do not pray witr in jama'ah outside of that. And the reward for that is huge.

People think: "I cannot pray tahajjud if I already prayed witr." That's a very common misconception. No — pray your witr now with the jama'ah, and then of course pray your eight rak'ahs of tahajjud afterwards.

The command of delaying witr till the end is a mere suggestion — or something recommended — for a person who is one hundred percent confirmed that he will never miss his tahajjud. And you know, during the time of the Prophet ﷺ, there were sahabah who did not pray their witr in the early morning every night outside of Ramadan. They prayed their witr before they went to sleep because they would say, "We don't know if we're going to wake up." We're talking about the top companions. I'm just forgetting right now which sahabi it was — slipped my mind. But one of the senior companions — and every one of the companions is senior to us — would not pray his witr after waking up. He said, "What if I miss it? Even one day, if I oversleep — how am I going to deal with missing my witr salah?"

So in this day and age I would recommend that we all pray our witr before we go to bed. And in Ramadan time, pray with the jama'ah.

The Consistency of Shaykh al-Hind

It is said that those who served Shaykh al-Hind the longest — his most devoted attendants — said they could not recall the slightest lapse in his adherence to the sunnah, let alone a word or a deed against the sunnah or sharia. Not once did they see any one notch below what the sunnah is. Forget about saying something which would be against the sharia. Whether day or night, sickness or good health, on journey or at home, in public or in private.

This is a key thing. Day or night, sickness or good health — good health, many of us manage. But when the night time comes or when we are sick, when we are traveling — at home, when we are not traveling, okay. But when you are journeying, everything falls apart. In public or private — public is easy at times; private is more difficult. He always was conscious of following the sunnah and constantly encouraged his students in every possible way to do the same.

Haya — The Internal Compass

I remember one student who was about to graduate from the alim program. One day I saw him without covering his head — no topi — in the masjid. It happens: you forgot it somewhere, one salah, second salah. After the third or fourth time, I pulled him to the side and said, "My beloved brother, you are about to graduate as a scholar in a few months' time. I gave you the benefit of the doubt for one salah, for the second salah. But now it's this number of salahs, and you are a leader — you are not an average person. How is it possible that you do not feel any inhibition to walk in the masjid amongst the public and amongst your teachers with your head uncovered? There is some serious chip missing here."

Many of us who grew up in the '70s and '80s — before that even — you can't even walk out of your bedroom in a t-shirt, could you? In front of your dad, walking out in a banyan? Forget outside the house — inside the home, there is adab. Your father is there. You want to be appropriately dressed. And if a person says, "No, I can be in my shorts" — the way you are in the bathroom is different than the way you are in your bedroom. The way you are in the bedroom can be different, but the way you are outside in the hallway of your home has got to be different. The way you are in the living room and dining room with family — especially with the opposite gender — your sister is there. It can't be the way you are dressed with your brother. It has to be different. There has to be that haya: that's my sister, it's not my brother. So the way I'm dressing, there has to be a certain level of common-sense haya.

Now I'm inviting guests over, or I'm going to someone's house — I can't come in my rags, shirtless and in shorts, going to a friend's house. How is that possible? That happens when a person loses the chip called haya. When a person loses his internal inhibition — that moral compass that tells him what's acceptable and what's not.

You know, people say someone is "socially awkward." He doesn't know how to speak, he just sits there and says things that are very weird. That's what it is — socially awkward. You don't know how to talk to people or how to act in a certain public place. "This is a question I can't randomly ask a stranger; I can't ask this of someone who is an elder." Sometimes people need to be taught, or sometimes there is some internal issue — maybe a psychological issue — because of which they come off that way. Similarly, some people lack this haya, which makes them do absolutely awkward and inappropriate things without even realizing it. And this syndrome is at an all-time high right now. Haya is just leaving us. SubhanAllah.

I remember one of my ustads in South Africa. He said, "You Americans, you English people, you have no haya." He was talking about some of his British cousins who came to visit Africa. He said, "SubhanAllah, I was in a national park, and all of a sudden, just the way one sibling spoke to another sibling about their private matter — in a van full of people. I was just like, I hope I didn't hear that." He said, "How did you lose your haya much quicker than us? Because you're sitting and living among people who have no haya. And now you think it's acceptable to speak to someone about your private issue."

These things — it doesn't mean you cannot reverse this; you can reverse it. We have to correct people and say, "This is not acceptable." Just like a small kid who does something random — you teach him. Similarly, we have to teach our 19-year-olds how to act. We have to teach our 13-year-olds what to speak and what not to speak.

If we do not correct them — my point is, this scholar was about to graduate, I corrected him. If I didn't, because I know if I don't now, no one's ever going to do it. And it'll just become the norm. And when people look at the imam, they'll say, "It's not even important — the imam comes for Jummah without it." And then someone says, "Is the whole deen on this? Is the deen in the topi?" No, it's not. I never said it was. But there are around 200 hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ covered his head. Do we sit there and look down? And have I become some big 'Allamah because I'm wearing a topi? Absolutely not. Everything with moderation. But there is a status that a scholar has to uphold — the one who leads in the front. He truly has to be a role model.

Maintaining Standards While Remaining Approachable

This is why I tell my students: don't try to be gangster-style with the youth. "No, I want to be approachable." My friend, be approachable — but make sure you have your own standard. Make sure you are not stooping to that level. "If I don't smoke hookah with the kids, they're not gonna talk to me" — that is a lie. The amount of young people and the information I have about this community, alhamdulillah in 20 years — I challenge any youngster to match that. I don't smoke hookah with anybody. I'm not on the dance floor. I'm not in any mixed gathering just for the sake of a walimah. But when people have problems, they come and pour it out. So who said you have to lower your standard and sin at the level people are sinning in order to be relatable?

I heard a scholar say — in a group full of scholars — "We go to these events and we mingle and we do things which are questionable to you. But wallah, our intention is pure. We want to be approachable. If we don't go there, where will the youth ever reach out to us?" Tell me — how many youth have reached out? What's the worst case you've dealt with?

Stop fooling yourself by saying things like this. This is shaitān and nafs. Because you're enjoying that. Slowly, even when no one asks you a question, you're still showing up to these places. There is no one who is our example besides Rasulullah ﷺ. That's where the sunnah comes in. Are you going to say the Prophet ﷺ was not approachable? Find me one hadith where the Prophet ﷺ went against the sharia to make himself approachable. Where did they get this idea from?

Remember: if you want change, if you want someone to change, they have to come to your turf. They have to come to the hospital. No doctor treats people on the street. No dentist pulls out someone's tooth in a random spot. You come in, you say, "I'll pay you $250 plus insurance — please help me." Then the person gets helped.

And this is an important piece of advice to the students of knowledge who listen to these talks. Our job is to make sure that we don't judge anyone, and always say: today I'm sitting here and you're sitting there. It can be that in twenty-four hours, you could be sitting here and I'm outside the door. And it has happened like this. So do not ever become arrogant over our position or our so-called external aspects of faith that we practice. No one knows the condition of the heart besides Allah.

But make sure that in the process of that, we do not water down the deen. Because when a scholar or a public figure waters down the sunnah and disregards it, they will open the floodgates for the general community to start taking their deen easy. And how are we going to face Allah having facilitated thousands of people leaving the sunnah?

A very public figure, in a talk with probably 10,000–15,000 people attending — subhanAllah — made a disparaging remark against the miswak. Honestly, I trembled when I heard that. Filled with rage listening to a person saying that, but at the same time filled with fear — what's going to happen to his ending, his khātimah? When a person can say this about an action that was the very last thing Rasulullah ﷺ did before he passed away — how dare you, on a public platform, as a representative of deen, make a remark about the miswak?

The aspect of following the sunnah in private and public is very necessary. And I say this to dads and moms whose sons or daughters are studying in madrasah: please make sure you do not give any leeway to your kids in losing out on the sunnah. Don't think that because your son or daughter is becoming a hafiz or an 'alim, they are too senior to be corrected.

Your daughter and son do not need to become hafiz — they do not need to become 'alim — to avoid the fire. What they may get questioned for is if they do not follow the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. That is the most important thing we need to focus on in our homes. Do they respect, love, and adhere to the sunnah or not?

"Why do I have to sit on the floor and eat? Why do I have to eat with my hands? Why do I have to say bismillah? Why do I have to do this?" Why? Because your Nabi did it. Do you love him or not? What's the deal? Don't keep asking why. Our job is to follow to the T whatever Rasulullah ﷺ did — whether we understand it or we don't understand it.

How much do you understand going around the Ka'bah seven times? How much do you understand running between two mountains that no longer exist in their original form? How much of that do you understand? How much do you understand putting two pieces of white cloth around yourself? How much of that makes sense to you? But you do it — and you ask ten or a hundred questions about Hajj too. Did dam happen? Do I have to repeat it? Do I have to do Hajj again? Because you want to follow it correctly. That same adherence to the sunnah has to come in the way you and I wear our shoes, the way we enter the bathroom, and the way we wash ourselves. All of it is sunnah.

Shaykh al-Hind and the Fruit of the Season

It is said of Shaykh al-Hind that the sunnah was second nature to him. Each sunnah was performed with a natural ease. But at the same time, he was never one to start citing hadith to prove himself or to make himself revered by others. He coolly practiced the sunnah as though it was his own, because he had adopted it so fully. He wasn't constantly saying, "The reason I'm doing this is because of Qāla Rasulullah this, Abū Dāwūd said this, al-Bukhāri said this."

It is said that when the first fruit of the season was offered to him — we don't have that concept in America, because you have fruits from all over the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can find mangoes in January and in July. But when you don't have that type of marketplace, there is seasonal fruit. When the first fruit of the season was offered to him, he would smell its fragrance and then put it on his forehead. And then he would call for a child and give it to him.

He was acting upon the hadith of taking the first fruit of the season and doing exactly as is narrated — smelling it, placing it on the forehead, and as an act of shukr, gratitude to Allah — alhamdulillah, we are in fruit season. Our deen teaches us this. When was the last time you and I were grateful for an apple? We don't even take a look at it. We're just going for all the unhealthy stuff. Look at Nabi ﷺ — taking it, smelling it, "Alhamdulillah, there is a fruit!" And then, first thing, giving it to a child.

But then — and this is something deep — it is said of Shaykh al-Hind that after giving the fruit, he would say, "I'm just checking to see if the rain had stopped," and would raise his face and hands toward the rain drops. Meaning: he did not even want those around him to think, "Wow, Ustad ji, you are practicing upon such subtle sunnahs — you are a really pious person."

Do you get how deep this is? He is practicing the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ in treating the fruit this way. But those who are around him — he feels at that moment that if they realize this is a sunnah which has been forgotten, it will lead to them revering him more. And that reverence could lead him to arrogance. Did you all get this? It's very deep. Shaykh al-Hind wants to follow the sunnah, but at the same time does not want people to revere him too much, which might lead him — possibly, possibly — into self-conceit, which would be a very big sin. So he is doing tawriyah and covering it up by saying, "I'm just seeing whether the rainfall has stopped or not."

Imām Ahmad ibn Hanbal and His Tears

It reminds me of Imām Ahmad ibn Hanbal. When he used to teach hadith, sometimes he would cry — tears would come. And it comes in the books of history and the books recording the lives of the pious predecessors that Ahmad ibn Hanbal would reach for his handkerchief and say:

"How severe this cold is!" — covering up his tears as though he had a cold, when he did not.

He was crying — but he did not want even his students to see that he was crying, lest it create more reverence in their hearts for him, and lest that reverence create arrogance within him.

لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ — look at the depth of this. Our ulama taught us: don't just act upon something because you saw some benefit, or because one person got benefit. Understand that the nafs and shaitān are so khabīth — so deeply evil — that while you and I plan at most for one month or one week, shaitān and nafs are planning for the next 60–70 years until our death. I'm serious. They are studying our family's genealogy. They know the weak points of our fathers and mothers, of our grandparents, of someone who came 300 years ago in our lineage. And they know that same bloodline is running in me. It's all planned.

We think, "Oh, some people plan 100 years in advance." No, my friend — we don't know the planning of shaitān and his army. Allah has equipped them with this for this very purpose. Their job is to be a powerful source of misleading. So when they are out to mislead someone, who do they look at? The entire lineage.

Iblīs and the Clay of Ādam

This comes in authentic hadith — it came to my mind right now. It comes in the Sihah Sitta — one of the six books of hadith. We studied it in class a few years ago. When Ādam (peace be upon him) was being formed, still in a state of clay before the rūh was placed in him — guess who came for a tour? Iblīs. He did a tour. In the hadith, he is going around the body of Ādam — still clay, no soul — and he started looking for holes.

He said — let me check out the newest creation before anything has even happened yet, before he's even been commanded to be prostrated to. Iblīs is already walking around to see: "How do I break this one?" If any of my students here could find this hadith, I'll quote it properly tomorrow. But this is a powerful hadith from one of the six books. He went around and started looking for a way into Ādam (peace be upon him) before his soul had even been given to him.

That is how old Iblīs is. And that is how profoundly evil he is. He doesn't even leave clay — a mold that doesn't even have a soul in it yet — and he's after that. How evil is this? Allah is the only one who can create such evil — He created him this way. This is it. He's a source of evil. That's his job — to mislead you and me. And may Allah protect us an infinite number of times from him.

SubhanAllah. The ideas of our ulama have this firāsah and this blessed nūr of sunnah — they realize that the protection from all Iblīsī efforts is in sunnah. That's the only way to protect yourself.

So look: Shaykh al-Hind is crying, but he covers it up. He is following the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ with the fruit, but he covers that up too. Because following one sunnah might lead to a major sin — thinking of himself as superior. May Allah grant us the understanding of what has been covered today, and allow us to practice it.

The Hadith: Iblīs and the Hollow Nature of Ādam

The hadith of Sahih Muslim: When Allah created Ādam in paradise, He left him for as long as He willed. Iblīs began to walk around and look at him. When he saw that Ādam's body was hollow, he concluded that human beings would have weaknesses and desires. This is one of the reasons Shaitān later became arrogant and refused Allah's command to prostrate to Ādam. Allahu Akbar.

That last point is very deep. When Iblīs saw the fact that Ādam (peace be upon him) was hollow, immediately — at that very moment — arrogance took root in him. But he couldn't show it at that moment because there was no occasion yet. Ādam was just clay, not even a soul. So later on — hundreds or thousands of years later — when Allah said, "Show respect," Iblīs could not forget that scene. "Really? I need to prostrate to you? I saw you when you were nothing. I know you since you were a child." That is filled with Iblīsī arrogance.

What does it have to do with anything — who someone used to be? If someone is quoting to you Quran and hadith, just follow it. Do you ever say that to your doctor, your dentist, when he's working on your teeth: "I've known you since you were a kid"? He'll say, "Okay, let me make this feel like you're a kid" — and bring out your teeth. You don't say that. So why is it that when someone corrects us, we say, "I know you since you were a kid"? This is a really powerful point — that Iblīs could not forget that scene, and said, "How dare I prostrate in front of someone who I know has weaknesses?" SubhanAllah.

So don't go after the weaknesses of people you're trying to benefit from. This will deprive you.

Serving the Shaykh — A Personal Story

When I applied to become a khadim — a student in service, as an attendant — of Hazrat Mufti Qadar Haqq, they would choose two to three students a year. I applied for that position, and subhanAllah, I did istikhārah. And my du'a was:

"Ya Allah, never allow me to see any flaw or fault of my ustad. Because my purpose of getting close to him is to benefit from him. And if I get close to him and I see a flaw or fault, that's not going to harm him — it's going to harm me."

And alhamdulillah, Allah accepted this du'a. Honestly, I served him for five years. Never in a single moment did I seriously say, "Oh my God, why did he do this? I can't believe this." Alhamdulillah — I was very close with him, in his house, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and whatnot. But this was something Allah — He is amazing — just kept veiled.

We have to understand: nobody is flawless. But make sure you make this du'a for yourself right now — ya Allah, whoever I am trying to benefit from, allow their faults to be veiled from me. Because they will otherwise only harm us.

Wa min Allāhi at-tawfīq.