Be the Best - Shaykh Aqeel Mahmood

Be the Best

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds.

Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. Whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims.

O you who have believed, fear your Lord, Who has created you from one soul, and has created from it a wife, and has spread among them many men and women. And fear Allah in Whom you ask for help and mercy. Verily, Allah watches over you.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak the truth. He will correct your deeds and forgive your sins. And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great triumph.

As for what follows: the best of speech is the Book of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad ﷺ. The worst of things are newly invented matters, and every innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

The Human Desire to Be the Best

From a young age, we're always told by our parents, our teachers in school, to always aim to be the best in everything that we do. And it becomes such an integral and important part of our upbringing, and even of our adult life, that people pay special emphasis to what position they are with regards to certain fields and certain specialties. When you're young, you're compared with others.

When you have exams and the results come out, people want to see who's number one, who was the best. When you play sports, you want to be number one, you want to be the champion, you want to be the best. And this isn't just something that's at a young age, but it's also something that develops and it continues when you become older.

Those things that you aim to be the best at change, but the idea is still the same. Everyone wants to be the best in whatever it is that they're doing. And most of the time, it's related to their jobs, or the way they look, their appearance, or the reputation that they have.

So a person may want to be the best at his job. You have the best employee of the month. Some places, they'll have this on the walls — who was the best employee of the month or of the year. Companies will be compared and the one that made the most amount of money will be considered the best. The best sports company, the best company in whatever field you can imagine. People always love to quantify.

And so even when we look at entertainment, there's always the best teams. Who is number one? Who's number one in the premiership? What's the fastest car? And we always look at what's number one, even ourselves. We always try to compete with others and try to be the best.

Whether it's how eloquent we may be, how best dressed we are, how much money we have, how financially successful we are, and how wealthy we are. We compare ourselves to our neighbors and we look at their homes and we compare their homes with ours. We look at the cars parked on the drives and we think, I want my car to be better than anyone else's car in this neighborhood, on this road.

And so this idea of being the best is something which people crave. And they love the praise that's attached to it. Because obviously if you're considered to be the best in whatever field it may be, there's an element of praise and recognition attached to that. People will recognize you. People will know you as a result of you being the best. And they'll praise you. And you'll feel good. You'll feel this sense of accomplishment and achievement.

The Standard That Truly Matters

But what's interesting is that Allah also considers some of us to be the best. And the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in many ahadith — which we'll try to mention at least seven or eight of them today — also told us about the best. Who in fact are considered to be the best. Not when it comes to our financial income, or in terms of our families and what our children accomplish when they're older or even in school. Or in terms of who has the best car, the best house, who's the best dressed. Who is considered to be the best in the sight of Allah. And ultimately that's the most important thing in a Muslim's life.

Because you can get all the recognition that you can get in this dunya, in this world, from all the human beings. And it's happened. This has happened in history, in the past, where people have been praised. People have been recognized for their achievements. Whether it's on the battlefield, whether they were great leaders of their companies or great leaders of their nations. People have been considered to be the best.

But ultimately, if the whole world was to recognize you as being the best, the richest, the smartest, the best in whatever field — at the end of the day, if Allah doesn't recognize you as one of the best, then really brothers and sisters, in reality, it doesn't make any difference. It doesn't matter how much money you have, how well dressed you are, how smart you are.

You could be the smartest person in terms of your IQ, but you could be from the inhabitants of hellfire. A believer is smarter than the one who has the highest IQ because he understands how this world is. And he understands the idea of a creator. A person can be the best dressed, known for wearing the most expensive clothes. There are individuals in the world who wear clothes that are brand new, designer clothes, once and then they don't wear them ever again. That's how obsessed they are when it comes to the world and the dunya. But this individual, in the sight of Allah, will be considered a spendthrift, a money waster, somebody who's sinful. He may be in the hellfire.

So when we compare and we look at each other and we try to compete with one another, Allah tells us in the Qur'an:

Compete in that which is good. Try to be the best in that which is good — whatever Allah and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ have told us is good. And when Allah gives us these standards of what actually is the best, who is the best in the sight of Allah, that's really what we should be aiming for.

Because if it was the other way around, and no one even knew us, and maybe we were the most unpopular of people — people didn't even like us — but if Allah considered us the best, if Allah is mentioning us to those who are around Him, the angels, if Allah is praising us, if Allah is going to reward us as a result of us striving to be the best in His eyes, then this is worth more than anything anyone could accomplish in this dunya.

And so I wanted to go through some of these ahadith. And these ahadith will speak for themselves. Because they are very clear ahadith. They're not ahadith which are complicated or difficult to understand. Each and every single one of us can look at these ahadith, and we can make our minds up about which one of these ahadith we could implement in our lives. Because from the blessings of Allah with this religion of ours, is that the best aren't specific individuals who have to have a specific amount of money, or a certain physical amount of strength, or a certain type of memory. These multiple ahadith discuss and cover a wide range of topics. And this is from the mercy of Allah.

The Eight Ahadith: Who Are the Best?

Hadith 1 — The Best Manners

The first hadith I wanted to mention, brothers and sisters, was a hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr radiyallahu anhu, when he said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3559; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2321)

That the best of you, in the sight of Allah — not in the sight of the people — are those who have the best manners. Those who have the best akhlaq. Those who are known for their good character.

And so we have to reflect on ourselves and think about whether or not our akhlaq are such that if other people had the same manners and etiquettes that we have, we would praise those people because of the manners that they have. We have to look in the mirror and decide for ourselves whether we fit this hadith in terms of being the best in the sight of Allah, with regards to our etiquette, with regards to our manners.

And then look at those who are around us. Think about those who are known for their akhlaq and their good manners — from your family members, from your relatives, from your friends, your neighbors, people you meet, acquaintances. And think about what makes them people who are praised as a result of their good manners. It may be the way they speak, it may be the smile on their face, their body language.

So reflect on this hadith, brothers and sisters, about having the best of akhlaq — akhlaq which of course we attain and learn from the best of creation, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Of course he was the one who had the best character. And if we want to understand how we can have the best akhlaq in order to be from the best in the sight of Allah, we only have to look at the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and look at how he behaved with human beings — those who are older, those who are younger, with the Muslims and with the non-Muslims, with animals. And reflect and compare how he behaved to how we behave on a daily basis.

Hadith 2 — The Best Companions and Neighbors

The second hadith, brothers and sisters, also narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr radiyallahu anhu, when he said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1944)

That the best of companions, the best of people in the sight of Allah, are those who are best to their companions, those who are best to their friends. And the best neighbors in the sight of Allah are those who are best to their neighbors.

Because you're doing whatever you can for those people that you care for, or you say you care for. And that's why it may be the case that we may have acquaintances, we may have friends — or we may call them friends — people we work with, people we study with in school, people we meet on a regular basis. But really, if we were to fall into a calamity, if we were to be in a situation where we needed help, there would only be maybe a handful of people that we would really be able to turn to. And an individual only knows this when a calamity actually befalls him. And that's when he realizes who those friends really are — the ones who would help him and aid him and assist him and care for him and be there for him when he needs them.

We may have a habit of competing with our neighbors. And we may have a habit of trying to criticize everything that they may do — in terms of how they may behave and what goes on in their homes and who comes in and out of their houses and at what times and how they park their car and where they leave their wheelie bins. But the best of neighbors are those who treat their own neighbors in the best of ways. Those who care for them. Those who, when they see and notice their neighbors struggling, they're willing to help them.

And there are cases, brothers and sisters, of such neglect in some communities — of neighbors not even knowing the conditions and circumstances and situations of people who are living next door to them. And it's been so bad that in some cases, people have neglected their neighbors to such an extent that even if they hadn't seen them for a number of days, weeks or months, they wouldn't care. It wouldn't be an issue for them.

They wouldn't have this care and concern to the extent — and this has happened — that people would walk past and the rubbish would pile up in this person's house and there would be no care taken of the lawn, and they would criticize and mock and make fun of this individual: "Look at his house compared to mine. Why isn't he taking care of this house? It's embarrassing to our neighborhood." And then a stench would start coming from the house, and eventually it became so bad they would call the police. And when the police went in, they noticed that the man had been dead in the house for a number of weeks and no one had even paid any attention. This has actually happened. And this is the level of neglect that can take place when a person doesn't have this care and concern for his neighbors.

Hadith 3 — The Best and the Worst of People

The third hadith, brothers and sisters, narrated by Abu Hurairah radiyallahu anhu. He said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2263)

Shall I not inform you of those who are the best, and also inform you of those who are the worst? He said: those who are the best are those from whom you expect good. You expect whenever you see them, whenever you meet them, whenever you interact with them, that they're only going to bring that which is good. And you feel safe from their evil — meaning when you see them, you want to meet them. You want to approach them. Because you know when you meet them and you give them salam, they're going to respond kindly. They're going to show good akhlaq. They're going to be happy to see you. They're going to ask how you are. And you're safe from their evil. You know if you meet this individual, he's not going to harm you in any way whatsoever — physically, verbally, psychologically, emotionally. He's going to care for you. You feel safe in his presence. This is the individual whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ told us is the best of people.

And then he mentioned the worst: the one from whom you don't expect good, and you don't feel safe from his evil. When you see them, you avoid them. You run a mile. You don't want to be anywhere close to them. Because you know every time you interact with them, they're going to say something. They're going to mock you, make fun of you, they'll swear, maybe even physically harm you by the way they behave. They have habits that you don't like. And so you avoid them, and you don't feel safe from their evil, and there's no good in that person.

And this is something we have to think about and reflect on ourselves. How much good do we show when we interact with other people? And do we show evil? Do we have this intent to cause harm in whatever manner it may be when we interact with other people? When we approach a gathering or approach an individual, are they uncomfortable in our presence? Do we have this intention of causing them harm, mocking them, making fun of them, showing our superiority over them? Because if that's the case, we may end up being from the worst of people.

Hadith 4 — The Best to Their Families

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also narrated another hadith — hadith number 4 — narrated by Aisha radiyallahu anha. She said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3895; Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 1977)

The best of you are those who are best to their families. And a similar narration by Abdullah ibn Amr radiyallahu anhu: that the best of you are those who are best to their women. And I am the best to my women. ﷺ

So the best individuals in the sight of Allah are those who are good and show politeness and are courteous and show good akhlaq to strangers — because anyone can do this. Whenever you meet a stranger, you're going to show good manners. You'll show good akhlaq. You're going to show good etiquette. You're going to think: I've never met this person before, I have to be good. And this is something most of us do, if not all of us.

But what's harder to do, brothers and sisters — and this is what's making these specific elite individuals from the best in the sight of Allah — is that when they go home, when the guards are down, when there's nobody watching, when they can relax, they still have that akhlaq and that etiquette towards their own family members. Because most of the time, when we go home and there's no one else watching, we can let our guards down. But when we let our guards down, in many cases, that means we end up showing less akhlaq and less good manners to those who are closest to us. And really, they're the ones who'll be influenced the most by the way that we behave.

Because you are influenced by the people you socialize with. And this is why the Messenger of Allah ﷺ told us:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4833; Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2378)

A man is on the religion of his friend, so look at who you become friends with. Look at who you're socializing with. And that is nowhere more true than with our own family members — the people we're interacting with, mixing with, influencing, and who are influencing us. Our children see us and pick up things. They'll pick up the way we speak or the way we behave and they'll behave in that same way.

And so in fact, if there's any group of individuals that we should show the best akhlaq to — according to this hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — it is those who are closest to us, our own family members. Because that's the first school of our children. That's where they'll get their education from. Because children, those who are young, they'll look at their parents, they'll look at those who are older than them, and they'll think — especially with parents — that everything that they do is fine, it's good. My parents can't do anything bad. And so whatever the parents do, they'll think it's acceptable.

And that's why it's so dangerous when a person behaves in a way which is wrong or inappropriate in front of his own children. Because these children are your future. They could potentially be your sadaqa jariyya, your ongoing charity, based on your behavior. And if your behavior is bad and evil, then it's not going to benefit you in the akhira — instead it'll cause you more harm. Because instead of increasing your good deeds, you're increasing your bad deeds, as a result of passing on bad habits to your children.

Hadith 5 — The Best in Relation to the Qur'an

Hadith number 5, narrated by Uthman ibn Affan radiyallahu anhu. He said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5027)

The best of you are those who learn the Qur'an, and then they teach it to others. In whatever capacity a person can do — if you know a short or small amount of Qur'an, teach whatever you know to others, and you'll be considered from the best of people. And of course the more you know, the higher you are in status with Allah. And you could be from the best of people, simply by teaching others whatever you know from the blessed Qur'an.

Hadith 6 — The Best Who Feed Others

Hadith number 6, narrated by Suhaib radiyallahu anhu. He said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 18096)

That the best of you are those who feed others. Those who provide food and drink for other people. Those who take care of others' needs when it comes to their food and drink. Think about the last time that you invited somebody to your home. Or you gave somebody food and drink — somebody who asked for some help or for some aid on the streets, a beggar, a homeless person. When was the last time you invited people to your home and fed them? Because this is one of the ways a person could attain the status of being from the best in the sight of Allah.

Hadith 7 — The Best Who Remind Others of Allah

Hadith number 7, narrated by Asma bint Yazid radiyallahu anha. She said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 27613; Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4119)

Shall I not tell you of those who are the best? They said: Of course, O Messenger of Allah. He said: The best of you are those who, when they are seen, it reminds the person who sees them to remember Allah.

So when you interact with somebody and you talk about the dunya and you don't include adhkar and remembering Allah and praising Allah, you don't remind them of the deen — you won't be from this category. But when somebody is praising Allah, mentioning Allah's name, remembering Allah in gatherings, and as a result of this, you hear them or they hear you and they start to remember Allah as a result of the way you behaved, as a result of the things that you said in that gathering, in that conversation — you'll be considered from the best of people.

These are some of those standards, brothers and sisters, that all of us should aspire to attain and be like — to be the best in the sight of Allah.

Summary and the Final Hadith

Brothers and sisters, we were talking about those who are considered the best in the sight of Allah. And we said that being the best is something we all aspire to in this dunya — financially, whether it's physically the way we look or in terms of our appearance, our children and how they come across and what they do and their education and their studies, or their jobs and their careers. A person always aspires to be the best.

And we mentioned these ahadith which truly and really should be our standards of how we should try to be the best — not in the sight of human beings and the dunya, but in the sight of Allah. We mentioned those who have the best akhlaq, those who are best to their family members, those who are best to their women — and it could be their spouse, it could be their mothers, their sisters, their daughters. These ahadith that we've mentioned are varied, and each and every single one of us can pick whatever we feel we're able to implement in our lives.

Hadith 8 — The Best: A Long Life Filled with Good Deeds

And I want to conclude, brothers and sisters, with this final hadith — hadith number 8 — narrated by Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu. When he said that a man came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said: O Messenger of Allah,

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2329; Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 17)

Who are the best of people? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ told us: the one who has a long life — but not just this — and he excels and he does good deeds. This is the greatest of individuals. Because Allah has blessed you twice. He's blessed you with life — to be able to live this blessing which may end at any time. And at the same time, along with this blessing of life that He's given you, He has given you opportunities, chances, moments. He's put you in circumstances. He's made you a believer. He's given you understanding and knowledge. And as a result of all of this, you end up doing righteous deeds. So along with this blessed life that you have, which could end at any moment, Allah has blessed you by giving you the ability to be able to do righteous deeds. And this is the best kind of person in the sight of Allah.

We ask Allah that He makes us from the best of people in His sight, and that Allah gives us the ability to be able to accomplish and achieve and follow and act upon at least one of these ahadith — or even more.

Al-Fatiha.