Haya: The Lost Virtue | Juma' Khutba | Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

Beloved brothers and sisters, dear listeners and youth. Every single community and every single group of followers of a religion have certain traits that they are known for. Just like people from a specific ethnicity, a specific part of the world have certain traits, certain characteristics that they are well known for, be it good or bad.

And of course as Muslims, there are so many various aspects that we focus on. Our Qur'an teaches us, our Prophet's teachings focus on. And the Prophet himself as the mastermind of producing an amazing group of highly cultured, highly refined individuals when the raw material was so difficult to work with that the world had given up on them.

And the Prophet took that raw material and created the best of humans after the Prophets. None other than the companions of the Prophet. So there are so many things that we could be focusing on. And there's so many things that we could be known for. But I'd like to share with you one of many ahadith where the Prophet speaks about this ummah.

The Characteristic of Islam

In one narration the Prophet said:

Every single religion, every single group of people who follow a religion have a characteristic. And the characteristic of Islam, meaning the salient feature of Muslims and the salient character of Islam is الحياء. The Prophet said it's الحياء.

And then he mentioned:

The one who has no حياء has no دين. It's not possible for a person to have iman and Islam while being absolutely bankrupt of حياء.

Understanding Haya

حياء, beloved brothers and sisters, is such a beautiful comprehensive term. If we understand it, we've grown knowing using this word, we know exactly what we're talking about. Words, sometimes we fail to be able to explain concepts that are just so vast, so important, and understood in society. But we have difficulty expressing it.

But imagine, subhanAllah, we're dealing at a time when there is a huge lack of it. How challenging it would be to explain this word. But one definition, for example, is:

That this is a characteristic that encourages people to do that which is praiseworthy. Anything that is praiseworthy, they're motivated, they're self-motivated to do those things which are praiseworthy in society, praiseworthy in the masjid, praiseworthy at home, praiseworthy with non-Muslims, praiseworthy with fellow citizens, praiseworthy with the creation of Allah, be it plants, animals, be it other natural resources. Just doing what's right. You're motivated naturally.

Your internal moral compass is pushing you to do things which are regarded as praiseworthy. And then تَرْكِ الْقَبِيحِ - It holds you back from doing things which are regarded as lowly, which are regarded as unbecoming of a believer, unbecoming of even a human. From the fear of being reprimanded for it.

Being reprimanded by Allah, being reprimanded by our parents, being reprimanded by our teachers, being reprimanded by society, by our children, whatever it may be. So it is an internal mechanism that holds a person back from doing so many things that they otherwise may have been prompted to do so. And so this has been called the most salient feature of Islam.

The Depth of the Word Haya

And the Arabs, they use the word حياة and حياء both words in the Quran. حياة, you know, means life. And حياء is this concept which is loosely translated with a lot of flaws in the translation as modesty or as bashfulness or as inhibition from doing something wrong or as timidness from doing something wrong.

Every single word that is there in English, the scholars of the language say, none of them do proper justice to the word حياء because all of these English translations have certain connotations within it that do not properly convey the message of حياء because حياء has no weakness in it. There's no weak points in it. When a person is say, for example, timid or has inhibition or has bashfulness or has modesty, there's loads of things that are part of this word that are not found in حياء.

The person who's got حياء, for example, yes, he or she is bashful from doing something which is wrong or timid from doing something wrong or inhibited from doing something wrong. But at the same time could be the one who's got the most valor and most courage like the Prophet who's known to have the greatest embodiment of حياء on one side as well as being a person, a general who's riding bareback on a horse. When Medina shakes up, wakes up at the middle of the night with a huge thunderous sound, the companions running out of the home wondering as the enemy attack, what's going on? Where's our Prophet? They go, see him, he's not present.

And they're worried even more only to wait for some time to see that the Prophet is coming back from the darkness outside of the Medina, from the outlier areas of Medina saying, don't worry, everything's taken care of. That's courage, always available front and center to defend the Muslims. But at the same time when the companions describe him, they say he had more حياء than an unmarried girl in her carriage.

He brought these two things together. So if you translate it as inhibition or intimidated or being inhibited from something wrong or timidness, you don't see that aspect of valor and courage in there. But حياء, like I said, has no negative points to it. Every single thing about it is positive.

Haya Only Brings Goodness

One companion was encouraging another companion to lessen his level of حياء for some whatever reason he may have seen that he wasn't able to demand fully his rights or whatever the case may be. The Prophet instructed him not to say such words to his brother, not to hold back his brother from the heightened level of حياء he had.

And he said, for indeed حياء will only bring:

حياء will only bring goodness with it. It will always bring goodness with it.

It is an internal compass that if it weren't present, we will end up doing many of the things that society asks us to do, our نفس asks us to do, our group of friends may ask us to do. But it's an internal compass that say, no, I'm not going to do that.

Haya and Iman are Partners

My beloved friends, it's so integral to our society that the Prophet didn't just say this, he said:

That إيمان and حياء are two partners.

When one of them is lifted, the other one is on the way out as well. When حياء leaves a community, when حياء leaves an individual, then you can pretty much expect that the next thing to go out will be their faith.

And like I said, the original word حياة and حياء, look at the relationship. Just the taa marbuta at the end of حياة - حياة means life.

Meaning, according to the original usage of this word amongst the Arabs, that in a man or a woman who does not have حياء, it's as though they have no حياة. If they don't have حياء, it's as though they are a dead corpse. Naturally a dead corpse, it can't defend itself, it has no sense of honor, it has no sense of covering itself.

None of that stuff is dead, finished. There's no life in it, it's lifeless. So a society or a man or a woman that lacks this central aspect to the Muslim community and the Muslim individual is as useless as a dead corpse.

Prophetic Wisdom: When Haya is Lost

In another narration, the Prophet said:

He's sharing a hadith that's been passed down from all the prophets. He's saying, this is a statement that people have received from all the previous generations of prophets. This is prophetic wisdom, not just his. This is something that's been passed down. And that is:

That if you lose this beautiful characteristic of haya, you might as well do whatever you want. Meaning there is no stopping anymore. There's no stopping anymore. You've broken the barriers and there's no way to stop the flood to come through.

The Crisis in Our Society

When you look my beloved friends today on social media or anywhere else around, just how youth are honoring or rather dishonoring elders. Whether it's on a school bus, whether it's in a school classroom. Now it's like a new thing to do, latest thing on social media of videos of students physically, physically attacking their teachers, physically attacking the TAs, physically attacking employees of a school. Besides the torture of two huge young men pouncing on a guy or a girl or a lady, an old lady, 60-year-old lady, being pounced by men of our society and women.

SubhanAllah. All the continuous videos, non-stop they're coming, of fights that are breaking out in restaurants, in schools, in high schools, in colleges, everywhere. Where is the haya? Kids fight, but you have an elder, you have an old person, you have an elderly lady, you have a teacher, you have a person that naturally haya was supposed to say, I'm fighting here, but you walk in, I'm gonna stop.

When a grandmother walks in, usually grandkids would stop fighting. We fought with little kids. When we were little children, siblings, grandmother would knock and stop it. We weren't scared of her. We had haya from her. We knew that we can't disappoint our grandmother. We can't disappoint our mother like this. We need to stop it. We need to cut it out.

When haya is not present, then literally hell breaks loose in society. It becomes a jungle. A jungle not of men rolling around, but rather, subhanAllah, animals who have absolutely lost their animal instinct as well. Because within the animal kingdom, there is still hierarchy. Within the animal kingdom, there are boundaries. And there is respect.

But subhanAllah, when human beings lose their haya, بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ. As the Quran says, we become more lost and more astray than even livestock.

Preserving Haya in Our Lives

And beloved brothers and sisters, us as a society, we have to make sure we don't go down that path. No matter what happens around us. We have to make sure that haya in the communication between spouses, no matter how angry you are, our speech is regulated by haya. How can I say this to my spouse at the end of the day? No matter how angry I am.

How can I speak like this in front of my father or my mother? When my mother and father walk in, how can I be dressed in the same manner I am in their absence? When guests come over, how can I be dressed in the manner I am in my bedroom? When I go to someone's house, how can I act as though I just walk out of my bed and came? When it comes to our meeting, greeting, dressing, communication amongst each other, parents to children, children to parents, teachers to students, and society in general, we have to ensure that we have haya in our communications, haya in our interactions.

Study and Learn

Beloved brothers and sisters, this is a topic we need to study. The Qur'an is replete. The Qur'an you'll find in Surah Al-Qasas between the interaction of Musa and the daughters of Shu'ayb. The word haya is mentioned. Whenever you hear about the description of Jannah, you'll see haya mentioned.

Study these verses of the Qur'an and then look up any book of hadith, be it Riyad Al-Saliheen or whatnot. Let us go through the chapter of haya at home. With our family. When we start reading this, we'll start remembering where we were supposed to be. Etiquette and modesty, bashfulness and haya is something that is intrinsic to who we are. If we lose this, we lose our identity.

And what awaits a community that loses it, we don't wanna even go in that direction. My beloved friends, spending time with people of modesty, spending time with elders, our brothers and elders who are sitting mashallah on the chairs, seniors, they are people of haya who are born in a generation beyond ours. And in which they knew what adab were, what etiquettes were, there was expectations, there was a whole system of adab.

That's what they lived on, they thrived on. We need to spend time with them. Our youngsters need to spend time with their grandparents and elders of the community to see just watch, look how he talks, look how he sits, look at how he communicates. This is what we need to learn.

Conclusion and Du'a

By reading from the Qur'an and sunnah, this description, and spending time with people who have that, we hope Allah brings this haya sifah back into all of us, into our loved ones. And this should be a daily du'a that ya Allah, make my children, my progeny, myself, my spouse, my parents, men and women of haya, men and women of adab, men and women of great character.

And ya Allah, save us from ever losing this great important characteristic that is meant to be intrinsic to who we are. I ask Allah to accept these duas on our behalf and inspire you and I and our communities, inshallah to make a concentrated effort to revive this beautiful characteristic and this ever important characteristic of haya within us and inshallah thereby reviving it in society in general.

Alhamdulillah wa kafa wa salatu wa salam wa ala rasulillah qala Allah: