Smiles of the Messenger: Insights into Prophetic Character | Shamail Session 5 | Shaykh Tariq Musleh

Smiles of the Messenger: Insights into Prophetic Character

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. O Allah, all praise is due to You until You are pleased, and all praise is due to You when You are pleased, and all praise is due to You after You are pleased.

There is no power or strength except with You. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon the Master of Creation. Our Beloved, our Intercessor, and the pleasure of our eyes, Muhammad, peace be upon him. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon him in the beginning, and send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad in the hereafter. And send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad in the highest heaven until the Day of Judgment.

We begin by praising Allah and thanking Him. We thank Allah for every and each one of the blessings that He has given us. We thank Him, Jalla Jalaluh, for the blessing of Islam — the blessing of the embodiment of Islam in my beloved and your beloved, Sayyid al-Anam, Rasulullah ﷺ.

Who Would We Be Without Rasulullah ﷺ?

My dear brothers and sisters, I begin by asking you a question. Who would we be without Rasulullah ﷺ? What would our lives look like without Rasulullah ﷺ? What would the general worldview of a believing woman and man be in the absence of the Prophet ﷺ?

One of the Sahaba, radiyallahu ta'ala anhum, he says in a very famous narration, that there is no day brighter than the day that the Prophet ﷺ entered Medina. And another narration that there is no day more illuminated than the day that the Prophet ﷺ was born. And there is no day that was darker and more gloomy than the day that we lost the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

And so gatherings like this, in which we study the Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, and in which we go through the Shama'il of the Prophet ﷺ, are truly, without any exaggeration, a gift from Allah to you. And so we thank you, O Allah, for that gift. Make no mistake — this gathering, every moment with our Mashayikh, we ask Allah to bless and preserve them, in which we learn and we discover the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — this is Allah Ta'ala gifting you. Something that I swear to you by Allah, in this day of Allah, is more valuable than the world and everything in it.

The Shama'il and the Portrait of the Prophet ﷺ

I knew that Mufti Abdul Wahab, hafidh of Allah, may Allah bless and preserve him, told me, you're going to come during the Seerah intensive. And I said, with my honor and pleasure. And then I realized that he intended for me to have the pleasure of joining you all in the Shama'il.

In all of our lives, there's a moment in our learning that is embarrassing. And my moment of embarrassment is actually connected to the Shama'il. Because in my third year, I remember going to my Shaykh and I said, "Shaykh, the break is coming up." And in Medina, when we were studying, the breaks were like a low season of academic studies, so we would study more privately with the Mashayikh. I said, "Shaykh, the break is coming up, let's study one of these wild texts that very few people study." He said, "Insha'Allah Ta'ala, we're going to cover the Shama'il." I said, "Shaykh, I'm in my last final years, we've already finished and completed the Shama'il. And the Shama'il is for beginners. So let's go on from the Shama'il. Let's go to the more exotic texts that are less visited and more for senior students." Kind of like brushing my own shoulders off. Here I am, senior student, please treat me like one.

My Shaykh, when he liked me, he would call me, "ya Palestini." When he didn't like me, he would say, "ya Amriki." So he said, "ya Amriki." I was like, oh God, someone put the seatbelt on for this one. And so he says, "ya Amriki, knowledge is not something we complete. Knowledge is something that completes us. You didn't finish or complete the Shama'il. The Shama'il completes you. And you are far from being complete."

And as I was thinking of digging a hole and just throwing myself in it at that time, I realized that subhanAllah, sometimes we visit texts and we would revisit the Shama'il at least once a year. And a lot of times we thought that we were going to a part of our tradition that we knew. But it's not the tradition that ought to change, it's us that changes. So learning to engage consistently in the tradition of the Prophet ﷺ and in texts like the Shama'il is an opportunity for us to continue to evolve in our perception of ourselves, evolve in our relationship with Allah, Jalla Jalaluhu.

For each and every single one of us, there is an internal image — as one of the scholars of Tasawwuf mentions — an internal image that we have of Sayyid al-Anam Rasulullah ﷺ, a portrait of the Prophet ﷺ. And the more that we know him, the more that we study him, the more that we discover him ﷺ, the clearer that internal portrait of the Prophet ﷺ becomes.

And it isn't just under the idea of knowing someone for the sake of knowing them. And it isn't even knowing them for the sake of loving him ﷺ — that would be enough. But Allah Jalla Jalaluhu allowed the portal to the Prophet ﷺ not to just be about knowing him, not just to be about loving him, but in the process of discovering Rasulullah ﷺ, you will without a shadow of a doubt discover yourself. You will find yourself. You will find the most beautiful parts of who you are. You will find the most incredible character, talents, and skills that you have within yourself.

One of my favorite things about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is that the Prophet ﷺ had so many things to love about him, but my favorite is his ability ﷺ to open people up — to find within them a talent, a skill, a brilliance, a beauty within them that they didn't even see within themselves. He ﷺ was the seeker of their treasure. And he would dig out the treasure inside of them. He would sift through the trauma of people. He would sift through the imperfections and embellishments of you and I. And he ﷺ used to sit with the Sahaba, and he would sift through all of the heaviness, the pain, the difficulty that they would carry, and he would show them the beauty, the brilliance, the righteousness of who they are.

So many of the Sahaba said, "We didn't know who we were until we knew the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. We didn't know what we were capable of until we spent time with Rasulullah ﷺ. We didn't know the type of relationship that we could have with Allah until we spent time with Rasulullah ﷺ." And so for that reason, we were gifted the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — because even 1400 plus years after his passing ﷺ, the same thing happens to you and I when we study his life, when we engage with his tradition. The same thing that happened when he sat with Abu Bakr. The same thing that happened when he was in the presence of Abu Ubaydah. The same thing that happened when he ﷺ was with the youngest and the oldest, the richest and the poorest, the black and the white. The Prophet ﷺ sees, my dear brothers and sisters, treasure in you.

And this Sunnah, these Shama'il, this Seerah — this is exactly how the Prophet ﷺ shows us our treasures. Every year, every month, every day that we sit with the guidance of the Prophet ﷺ is not just an opportunity to study him. It's an opportunity to discover and better ourselves. We ask Allah to make us from those people.

The Elite Servants of Allah: A Hadith to Sit With

Amongst what the Prophet ﷺ invited us to doing is to be in gatherings like this. And so I wanted to begin with a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that every time I pick up the phone to text Mufti Abdul Wahab, more often than not I remember this text.

One of the things that we've talked about is that there's the ability to see with your eyes — and this is valuable. It is

It is from the greatest of Allah's blessings upon us — the ability to see. And yet the ability to see with the heart is the most valuable capacity the human being has. The ability to have what is called بَصِيرَة. Basirah is when you look at the ayat of Allah, and the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, the prophetic guidance, and the words of Allah Jalla Jalaluhu, and the signs of Allah around us, and you can see it and feel it with your heart and soul.

When we engage with the Prophet ﷺ and his statements and his stories, there is an active effort that we must put forward individually — and I remind myself first and foremost — to hear it with our hearts, to feel it with our souls. And so my beloved and your beloved never said a word except he knew that there is someone out there that would benefit from it. So these words of the Prophet ﷺ are healing for you.

The Prophet ﷺ said in an authentic hadith:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 3527; also referenced in related narrations in Musnad Ahmad)

"From the servants of Allah are servants of Allah." This tells us that the default position of all people is that everyone is a servant of Allah — شِئْنَا أَمْ أَبَيْنَا، اعْتَرَفْنَا أَوْ رَفَضْنَا — whether we acknowledge it or we don't, whether we accept it or not, we are all servants of Allah Jalla Jalaluhu. But from amongst the servants of Allah, there is an elite group of Allah's servants. We ask Allah Ta'ala to make us from those people.

When one of the scholars was asked, "What's the difference — مِنْ عِبَادِ اللَّهِ عِبَادًا — from the servants of Allah, there are servants of Allah? It seems repetitive." He said, "There are people that know they are servants of Allah. And then there are those that have yet to discover that they are servants of Allah. How foolish is the servant who doesn't know he's a servant. How foolish is the servant that thinks he's a master."

The hadith continues — لَيْسُوا بِأَنْبِيَاءَ — that these are a people that are not prophets or messengers. يَغْبِطُهُمُ الْأَنْبِيَاءُ وَالشُّهَدَاءُ — that on the Day of Judgment, there will be a healthy and righteous envy between the prophets and the messengers and the martyrs — and we have witnessed the martyrs of Gaza, and it looks like you're witnessing Sahaba. Radiyallahu ta'ala 'an al-jami'. We ask Allah Ta'ala to accept the martyrs all over the world and particularly our brothers and sisters in Gaza. That there is a group of people — the servants of Allah, the elite servants of Allah — that on the Day of Judgment, the prophets and the martyrs will wish that they were in their position. How incredible is that? How remarkable is that?

The Prophet ﷺ says this to the Sahaba. I want you to sit in this hadith. Because when you sit in it long enough, you're able to unravel the layers of beauty it has. The Sahaba did not say مَنْهُمْ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ — "Who are they, O Messenger of Allah?" — so that maybe we can qualify. Because the Sahaba's capacity of humility was so deep that they said, "There is no way that we are going to be a people that the prophets and the martyrs will have a healthy, wishful envy of on the Day of Judgment." So they didn't say, مَنْهُمْ لَعَلَّنَا نَكُونَ مِنْهُمْ — "Who are they so that maybe we can try to be like them." They didn't even say that.

The Sahaba say, مَنْهُمْ لَعَلَّنَا نُحِبُّهُمْ — "O Messenger of Allah, who are these people that are the elite servants of Allah, and the people whom the prophets and the martyrs will be envious of on the Day of Judgment — who are they, so that we can love them?" Not so we can be them. So we can love them.

And the Prophet ﷺ says: هُمْ قَوْمٌ تَحَابُّوا بِنُورِ اللَّهِ — they are a people who love each other. Tahabbū — it's an active, engaging love. بِنُورِ اللَّهِ — what ignited this love? What ignited it was the love of Allah and the light of Allah. مِنْ غَيْرِ أَرْحَامٍ وَلَا أَمْوَالٍ يَتَعَاطَوْنَهَا — they don't have any familial ties, they're not both from the same background, they don't have business between them. These are a people who — why they love each other — is Allah.

Look at how the Prophet ﷺ describes them: وُجُوهُهُمْ نُورٌ عَلَى مَنَابِرَ مِنْ نُورٍ — these are a people whose faces are light and they are sitting on thrones made of light. لَا يَخَافُونَ إِذَا خَافَ النَّاسُ — they are not afraid when they see everyone around them afraid. وَلَا يَحْزَنُونَ إِذَا حَزِنَ النَّاسُ — and they are not in complete despair or sadness when everyone around them is shattered and broken.

And then the Prophet ﷺ recited the ayah:

Verily the people of Allah — they are a people who have nothing to fear and nothing to be anxious about on the Day of Judgment.

And so from this I wanted to begin as an introduction to allow you to know that whatever love you've experienced in this gathering, it is a key to Jannah. When we find people that we can love for Allah, with no worldly strings attached — that love, I swear to you by Allah, is the most valuable asset that this world has to offer. A love that's rooted in Allah is because it is rooted in Allah — when everything else in this dunya expires, that love does not expire, because it's rooted in the One that never expires: Allah Jalla Jalaluhu.

But if why we love each other is the dunya, then the nature of this world is that every part of it is expirational. So when we lose sight of loving each other for the sake of Allah, we actually create strings in this dunya, and the second that those strings break, our love for one another begins to expire. So choose in this gathering right now — take a moment to love for the sake of Allah. Love the people around you for the sake of Allah. Love the people in the masjid for the sake of Allah. Love the people on the Miftah campus for the sake of Allah. And this significantly impacts your dunya, and it also impacts your akhira.

And that's why Imam Ibn al-Qayyim says:

He says love for Allah is a divine gift that Allah gives — مِنْحَةٌ رَبَّانِيَّةٌ — it's not a gift that you're giving to each other. It's Allah placing within you the capacity to love for Him. وَسِرٌّ مِنَ الأَسْرَارِ الإِلَهِيَّةِ — and it's a secret from the secrets of Allah. Because so much goodness comes from being able to love for the sake of Allah.

And with that I declare openly and proudly that I love each and every single one of you for the sake of Allah. And I pray to Allah that because of the love that we exchange for His sake, that we are granted the shade under the Throne of Allah Ta'ala, the day that there is no shade but that shade.

The Smile of the Prophet ﷺ

We'll be talking today briefly about the smile of the Prophet ﷺ. And we'll begin by saying that the famous ayah that we have at this point, etched into our hearts and carried with us in our souls, is:

This ayah, after this intensive and all of the affiliated lectures, is an opportunity for us to again enhance the image of who Rasulullah ﷺ is. When we are able to get a clear, vivid image of who he ﷺ was in our hearts, we can then strive every single day to be like him — to smile like him, to dress like him, to eat like him, to engage with our enemies and our loved ones like him.

One of our teachers says: if we engaged with our family, our spouses, our children, our parents, the way the Prophet ﷺ engaged with the hypocrites and the enemies of Allah, then the world would be a better place. If we engaged with our family, our spouses, our parents, our children, the way that he ﷺ engaged with his enemies and with the hypocrites — then our marriages would be and our families would be better than the state that they are in. But it requires us to not just have that image, but to begin to illuminate that image of who he ﷺ was in our lives.

The Hadith of Jabir ﷺ

The first hadith that we will cover is the hadith of Jabir radiyallahu anhu, in which he says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Kitab al-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyyah, Hadith 9)

The calf of the leg of Rasulullah ﷺ was slightly thin. His laugh was only that of a smile. Whenever I visited Rasulullah ﷺ, I thought he used kohl on his eyes, whereas he had not at that time used kohl.

The part that we want to focus on here is that he ﷺ — in the most descriptive features that were mentioned of him — was his smile. Why is this important? Because that means it was such a signature part of who he was ﷺ that people did not have the capacity to describe the Prophet ﷺ without mentioning his smile.

The Prophet ﷺ — such a dominating feature of who he ﷺ was — is the smile that he had ﷺ. It was so pronounced that we have zero narrations in which he is described to us, except that his smile is referenced. It was a part of the default of who he was —

فِي كُلِّ أَحْوَالِهِ، فِي سَفَرِهِ وَفِي حَضَرِهِ، فِي صِحَّتِهِ وَفِي مَرَضِهِ، فِي لَيْلِهِ وَفِي نَهَارِهِ — in his travel and in his residence, when he ﷺ was healthy and when he was sick, in all of his circumstances. He ﷺ was one who was known for his smile.

Brothers and sisters, hear this. It was inescapable to know the Messenger of Allah without knowing his smile. How many people have met you? Have made coffee for you? Have interacted with you? And they know everything about you but your smile. Because that's a part of you that they never saw.

The Hadith of Abdullah ibn al-Harith

That's why the hadith that comes to us from Abdullah ibn al-Harith radiyallahu ta'ala anhu — he says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Kitab al-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyyah, Hadith 216)

"I did not see anyone that smiles as much as I saw the Prophet ﷺ smile."

Let me ask you a series of questions. Has your spouse seen anyone smile more than you? Has your mother seen anyone smile more than you? Have your children seen anyone smile more than you? In your friend circle, are you the most smiling of them? In my family, in my friend circles, in my community, in my world, in my entire life — I never saw a single human being smile as much as I saw the Prophet ﷺ smile. It's incredible.

The Hadith of Jarir ibn Abdullah

But then there's a hadith of Jarir ibn Abdullah that gets even more personal:

"The Prophet ﷺ never saw me — never made eye contact with me, never engaged with me — except that he ﷺ smiled in my face. Never, not once."

My dear brothers and sisters, what about when he had two stones tied to his stomach? What about when the enemies of Islam were conspiring to take his life? What about when he ﷺ was burying his own loved ones? What about when he ﷺ was just having a bad day? مَا رَآنِي رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ إِلَّا تَبَسَّمَ فِي وَجْهِي — except that he ﷺ smiled in my face. That's incredible. فِي كُلِّ أَحْوَالِهِ — in all of his circumstances.

The Smile as Charity

Imam Ibn Uyaynah, rahmatullahi alayhi wa ala al-jami', says:

He says that a smile is a source of love. When you start your interaction with someone — every day we see people that we've never seen before — and if the first experience that they have with you is a smile, then that places an immediate love in their heart for you. It is a source and a root for love.

And on the Day of Judgment, everything lines up. That person that you see at the gas station every day. That person you interact with at school. The person you run into at the gym. That individual who you see every day — on the Day of Judgment, they will know who you are and you will know who they are. And everyone will be seeking the deeds of one another. And they will say, "This person knew Allah and did not share Allah with me. This person knew the Messenger of Allah and did not invite me to the Messenger of Allah." And one of the greatest ways that we can invite to Allah and His Messenger is by smiling in the faces of one another.

And it's not just that — but in fact what it does is, as the Prophet ﷺ taught us in an authentic hadith in Tirmidhi:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1956)

That when we smile in the faces of our brothers and sisters, it is an act of charity. And the scholars dissect this hadith, because generally the western phenomenon of charity is one-dimensional — the idea that when I give charity, who is served? The receiver and not the giver. The Islamic methodology of charity is that who is the greatest beneficiary of an act of charity? The giver. The giver is the greatest beneficiary. Not the receiver.

The Islamic dimensionality is multi-layered. Part of it is that the charity of a believing man and woman is a greater benefit to the one giving than it is to the one receiving. Because the one that is giving is being honored by Allah to be a giver. What did Sayyidah Aisha radiyallahu ta'ala anha used to do? She used to perfume the money as she prepared it to be given. Because she said, "This is money from Allah that I'm giving for Allah."

And so when the Prophet ﷺ says تَبَسُّمُكَ فِي وَجْهِ أَخِيكَ صَدَقَةٌ — that smiling in the face of your brother or sister is an act of charity — it's not to say it is an act of charity that benefits the one in whose face you're smiling. Rather, for you to be smiling in their face is an honor for you. It's a tawfiq from Allah for you.

Because a lot of times, why don't we smile in the faces of others? One of our teachers began a talk similar to this one about the smile of the Prophet ﷺ and he said something very powerful. He said, "One of the most abandoned Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is the Sunnah of smiling." And I was shaken. The Shaykh said, "The reason why we don't smile is because we feel that people need to earn our smiles."

But this hadith of the Prophet ﷺ — تَبَسُّمُكَ فِي وَجْهِ أَخِيكَ صَدَقَةٌ — smiling in the face of your brother or sister is charity — is a clarification that it is not something that is earned. It is the right of the creation of Allah amongst you. It is their right. Did Allah not fashion them? Did Allah not create them? Did Allah not beautify them? Did Allah not beat their heart, blink their eyes, give them life, create them? If all of this was done to them by Allah, who are you not to smile in their faces?

So تَبَسُّمُكَ فِي وَجْهِ أَخِيكَ صَدَقَةٌ is a reframing that says people don't need to earn your smile. People don't need to earn your kindness and gentleness. Rather, it is an act of charity that you engage in so that Allah can honor you and elevate you through it — not so that you can honor and elevate others through it. You are not the giver of honor. You are the receiver of it when you choose to give in charity, and specifically when we choose to be a people who are smiling for the sake of Allah.

Moments When the Prophet ﷺ Smiled: A Discussion

I ask Allah to reward you all and to bless you all. And I ask Allah that every moment that you are in these gatherings, that you be surrounded by the angels, and that you be mentioned by Allah, and that Allah allows this gathering to be gathered again عَلَى سُرُرٍ مُتَقَابِلِينَ فِي جَنَّاتِ النَّعِيمِ — on thrones facing one another, insha'Allah Ta'ala, in the highest gardens of Jannah.

This is about Allah Ta'ala witnessing you remember Him. This is about Allah hearing you discover yourself through Rasulullah ﷺ. Wallahi, you all inspire us more than you can ever imagine — to see this dedication and commitment.

I want every row to work together to think of a time the Prophet ﷺ smiled. Any moment that's mentioned cannot be mentioned again. So the first group is luckier than the last group. But the last group gets the deeper reward, insha'Allah Ta'ala.

Example: The Incident of Aisha and Zaynab

One time Rasulullah ﷺ was visited, and his wives Aisha and Zaynab radiyallahu anhuma were there. And Zaynab brought a dish with food, and Aisha got jealous and dropped it and broke the plate. So then the Prophet ﷺ just brushed it over, smiled, picked it up, put it in a different plate, and moved on.

That famous moment in which the Prophet ﷺ broke the tension of a moment of stress — the Prophet ﷺ could have reacted with anger on top of anger, could have gotten frustrated with Aisha. But the Prophet ﷺ knew that behind that moment of jealousy was in fact love for him ﷺ. Look at that emotional intelligence that the Prophet ﷺ was displaying — that he ﷺ was able to see that as an indication of her love for him ﷺ.

Example: The Conquest of Khaybar and the Return of Ja'far

When the Prophet ﷺ and his companions conquered Khaybar, and Ja'far radiyallahu anhu came back on the same day, the Prophet ﷺ said, "I don't know whether I'm happier that we conquered Khaybar or that my cousin Ja'far radiyallahu anhu is back." And that was one of the most joyful expressions ever witnessed of him ﷺ.

There's something to be taken away from that. There's another narration you reminded me of — that people's happiness brought happiness to the Prophet ﷺ. There's a narration that the Prophet ﷺ was entirely zahid — he ﷺ did not care much for the matters of the dunya. And yet one time a caravan came into Medina with a lot of worldly possessions, and the Prophet ﷺ smiled — a beautiful, radiating smile — not because he ﷺ was happy with what he saw of material things, but because the happiness that he saw in the Sahaba made him ﷺ happy. And that's something that requires conditioning — to love people so much that their happiness brings you happiness. And that's something that the Prophet ﷺ mastered.

Example: Abu Bakr, the Disbeliever, and the Angels

One time Rasulullah ﷺ was standing, and Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu and a disbeliever were having an argument. The disbeliever kept saying things to Abu Bakr, and Rasulullah ﷺ was smiling. Then after some time, when Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu tried to explain and clarify himself in response, Rasulullah ﷺ turned and began to walk away. Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu came back and said, "Ya Rasulullah, how come when the disbeliever was speaking to me, you were smiling — but when it was my turn to speak, you were leaving?"

So Rasulullah ﷺ said, "When he was speaking, the angels were there answering on your behalf. But when you began to clarify yourself, the angels left and Shaytan came. So wherever Shaytan comes, I will not be there."

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow those smiles to continue to illuminate our faces, to make us from the people of the smile of the Prophet ﷺ, and to gather us with him ﷺ in the highest stations of Jannah. And with that, insha'Allah Ta'ala, we will break for Salah.