Refined Manners

Refined Manners

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him and seek His assistance. We seek refuge with Allah from the evil within ourselves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. Yet whomever He allows to go astray, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no God worthy of worship except Allah alone. He has no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger.

O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared. And do not die except in the state of Islam.

O you who believe, fear Allah and speak the truth. He will direct you to do righteous good deeds and forgive your sins. And whomsoever obeys Allah and His messenger, he has indeed achieved a great achievement.

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَأَحْسَنَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

Brothers and sisters in Islam, in the khutbah before last — meaning the Jum'ah before last — it was about the importance of manners in Islam. And in this khutbah insha'Allah, we're going to be talking about refined manners, a high level of good manners.

The Prophet's Manners Were the Qur'an

No one had better manners than our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, who is the son of the companion Zubayr ibn al-Awwam — Urwa is his son and he was not a companion. He never saw the Prophet ﷺ. His older brother Abdullah was a companion, but he was born after the death of the Prophet ﷺ. So he never met the Prophet ﷺ.

So he goes to his aunt, Aisha radiyallahu anha, and he asked her, how were the manners of the Prophet ﷺ? Meaning, I didn't see him — describe his manners to me. She said, do you not read the Qur'an? He said, yes. She said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 6, Hadith 261 — narrated by Aisha radiyallahu anha)

She said, his mannerisms were the Qur'an. What does that mean? It means whatever good you find enjoined in the Qur'an, you would find it in the Prophet ﷺ. Whatever evil was prohibited, and whatever you were commanded to stay away from, you would find the Prophet ﷺ staying away from it. So he was as if he was the embodiment of all the values in the Qur'an into one man ﷺ.

So we're talking about refined manners. Meaning, these are violations that if you do them today, no one would say you have bad manners. But if you continue to do them, no one will also describe you as having a very high level of manners — meaning refined manners.

Never Interrupting Others

An example would be interrupting. Interrupting people is something that is so common now that it has become an art form. There are people who are experts in interrupting. They wait for you to finish the sentence, and as you take your breath to say the next one, they cut you off immediately. And they think they're talented in doing so. And because it's so common, if you interrupt people today, you may not necessarily be labeled as someone who has bad manners. But you'll never keep interrupting people and have people say you have very refined and very high quality manners.

One of the interesting things you will notice in the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ is that he never ever interrupted anyone. No matter what was being said to him, he never ever once interrupted anyone. Even in extreme circumstances.

In this incident, Utbah ibn Rabi'a tells the Quraysh, would you like for me to sit and negotiate with Muhammad ﷺ, so that he would stop preaching this message of his? So they said yes. So he goes and he asks for a sitting with the Prophet ﷺ. Look at his introduction. In his introduction he says, you have come and you have separated the people, and you have weakened our position, and you have insulted our gods, and you have insulted our ancestors, you have made them kuffar, our ancestors. So listen to me, I'm going to present you with a couple of solutions — perhaps you might accept one of them.

The Prophet ﷺ tells him:

(Mentioned in Seerah Ibn Hisham and Tafsir Ibn Kathir in reference to Surah Fussilat)

Say, O Abul Walid — because now he's referring to him with his kunya, which is a more respectful way of referring to someone. Even though he's coming with these accusations, even though he's coming and being insulting, the Prophet ﷺ didn't defend himself, didn't say, I never said this and I didn't do that. He tells him, say, and then he refers to him with the best way he can refer to him, and he says, I will listen.

And then he gives him these four suggestions or propositions. Listen to them while remembering that he is speaking to the last Prophet of Allah on earth. How inappropriate is it to speak to the last Prophet of Allah in this way? And think — what if someone spoke to you in this way?

He tells him, if you're practicing Islam because you want girls, I'll introduce you to the girls. If it's money you want:

We'll gather our wealth until we make you the richest one amongst us. And if all of this claiming to meet Jibreel and receiving messages from Allah is just because you want money, we'll give you money. What an insult. He says, if it's sharaf — you want position and recognition:

We'll make you in charge of us, so that we will not make a single decision without consulting you. And if it's mulk — you want to be the king, if it's leadership you want:

We'll make you our king, we'll make you our leader. And if you're sick — if you're saying all these things because there's something wrong with you — we will get you the best of the doctors and we'll spend so much of our wealth until you're cured.

Imagine someone speaking like this to the last messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ never interrupted him. And me and you, we would have interrupted him from the first one. But the Prophet ﷺ listened to all four of these insults and never interrupted him. And when he was done, the Prophet ﷺ said:

Are you done, ya Abal Walid? You never ever find the Prophet ﷺ interrupting anyone. Anytime you look in the seerah, you will never ever find this. This is from refined manners. So don't interrupt people.

Because the other benefit when you don't interrupt someone is that when someone is speaking to you, their thought is still not complete. And they don't believe that you've heard them. So when you interrupt them, they're not listening to you now. They're either rewording what they want to say to you, or they're frustrated. And that's why one of the techniques in communication they teach you — if you want someone to listen to you, it's very simple: all you have to do is listen to what they're saying. When they recognize that you're listening to them, they will reciprocate and they will listen to you in return. But when you cut someone off, they still didn't get the thought through. And now they're rewording it, rephrasing it. And they're not really listening to what you're saying. So you benefit very little from interrupting someone, because now they're just thinking of how to rephrase what they're saying.

Another communication technique they tell you — when someone keeps repeating an argument to you, what they're really telling you subconsciously is: I don't think you heard me. All you have to do is rephrase what they're saying back to them, and that will satisfy them, knowing that you've heard them. So all these benefits you get just from not interrupting people, along with it being from very, very good and high quality of manners.

Not Starting with "No"

There are so many other things that can follow from that. For example, not starting a sentence with "no." Because when you start a sentence with "no," you're dismissing every thought, every argument, everything the other person just said. They just gave you their entire thought — what they're thinking, what their opinion was — and you began your sentence by just saying "no." Everything you just said was wrong, or I don't accept anything you just said. And perhaps you accept some of the things, but when you say "no," that is what it conveys. Or for the Arabs, لَا. This is a common thing — start anything with لَا. Even, "are you okay?" لَا. Just so used to saying لَا at the beginning. No for everything. It is so dismissive and it's not from good, refined manners.

On top of that also, when someone says, "I agree with everything you said, but..." — they teach you in communication that when you say that, when you say "I like what you said, but..." — in their mind it erases everything that you just said before. So the minute you say "but," it cancels the introduction you gave. "I agree with what you said, but..." — that means you don't agree. Why are you saying "but"? So they teach you to replace it with "and." "I agree with everything you said. And I think if we add this and that..." and then you continue with what you're saying. Because when you do that, you erase in their mind all the introduction — what they call the wind-up — and the curve is no longer coming after "but." All these things, we're so used to in our day-to-day conversation. And they don't make us bad-mannered, but they also don't take us to the next level of having the very best of manners.

Indirect Insults

Now we move on to indirect insults. Because if we're talking about direct insults, then we're straight up talking about bad manners. But we're not talking about bad manners — we're talking about having better and refined manners. So indirect insults — and this is something that's very common. You insult someone indirectly, or you leave room for doubt, or you leave room for an insult towards them.

So they ask you, do you believe brother so-and-so stole from the masjid? How will you defend him? If you don't have evidence, but you also don't particularly like him, you might defend him, but leave room open for a possibility: "La hawla wallahi, I've only known righteousness from him. And I don't think he would ever steal from the masjid. Even though three people saw him, and so-and-so swears by Allah that he did it, but I don't think he did it." He didn't close the door. You left a gap open. You left the possibility open.

Look at how the righteous closed the door completely. This is the incident of the ifk — the accusation against Aisha radiyallahu anha. The Prophet ﷺ went and asked Zaynab bint Jahsh what she thought of the whole incident and her opinion on Aisha. So Zaynab radiyallahu anha now has an opportunity to get an edge over Aisha. Aisha radiyallahu anha said that Zaynab was the one who was her peer — next in competition to her in beauty and in her love for the Prophet ﷺ. So she had a lot of motive here to just say something negative so she could be in the number one position. But what do the people of taqwa say?

She said, O Prophet of Allah, I protect my hearing and my eyesight — meaning from claiming that I've heard or seen anything that I haven't. By Allah, I know nothing except good about Aisha. Did she leave the door open? Did she leave any possibility? No — she completely shut it down. She didn't leave room for an insult or an accusation. Because you can defend someone and still leave room for an accusation.

The Prophet's Gentleness with Aisha in the Same Incident

Likewise, in the same incident, the Prophet ﷺ — after a full month of stress in the city, anxiety, and no revelation coming down — finally comes to open up the subject with Aisha radiyallahu anha. And you learn in fiqh that the judge is supposed to be very explicit in such cases because it's a matter of life and death. So you're supposed to use very explicit language. But what does the Prophet ﷺ say to Aisha radiyallahu anha?

He said: To proceed, O Aisha — I have heard such and such about you. Such and such. He didn't use explicit language. He said, "I heard such and such about you." He wouldn't explicitly say the word zina, fornication, which would be such a hard word for her to hear from her beloved husband ﷺ. And so the scholars said, from the manners of the Prophet ﷺ, from his refined manners, is that he never ever approached you with that which you hated to hear.

And so many times people come pretending to be caring and consoling, and they're throwing in an insult. And Allah knows what is in the hearts. Like someone got fired — if someone gets fired, the last word they want to hear from anyone in the community is the word "fired." But someone will come with a fake concerned look on their face, pretending to console him and make him feel good. "I'm so sorry, we heard you got fired." And boom, they throw in that word, just to hurt them. Or a woman is divorced, another sister comes pretending to care: "We heard you got divorced." Or, "We heard your husband took a second wife." These things — Allah knows. Allah knows when you indirectly want to insult someone.

Conveying an Insult from Someone Else

Or worse yet — when you convey an insult from someone else. A man came to the companion, the sword of Allah, Khalid ibn al-Walid, and he said:

So-and-so insulted you. So Khalid ibn al-Walid tells him:

He said, that's his book — what the angels are writing in his book, that's his saheefa. He can fill it with whatever he wants. You dictate, the angels write. He wants to insult me — the angels will write it, and that's what he will put in his book. But the point is: the person who is coming to convey to you that someone you didn't hear is insulting you somewhere else.

A man came to the scholar Wahb ibn Munabbih, rahimahullah, and he said, so-and-so insulted you. So Wahb ibn Munabbih tells him:

He said, the shaitan couldn't find a messenger besides you? Are you the only messenger the shaitan found? Someone insulted me in the other part of town and you come and convey it, bring it all the way to me? What kind of a job is that?

A man said to another, so-and-so insulted you. He said:

He shot an arrow at me, but he missed. So why did you carry it and come all the way and put it into my heart? And that's why there's a saying that says, the one who conveys the insult to you is the one who insulted you. So it's an indirect insult. Someone comes to you and says, "I didn't say this, but so-and-so said this about you." So-and-so said it — and I was having a good day, it never reached me. And now you're bringing it to me. So then you're the one who's really insulting me. You're the one who's bringing it to me.

(A well-known Arabic saying, not a hadith)

Imam Al-Shafi'i — a man came to him and said:

So-and-so mentions you negatively. So Imam Al-Shafi'i tells him:

If you're speaking the truth, then you're a nammam — someone who is an instigator, who brings news from this person to the other to cause problems between people. And if you're lying, then you're just a dissolute person who has no moral restraint.

There is a hadith mentioned by Abu Dawood, al-Tirmidhi, Ahmad, al-Bayhaqi, and others. Some scholars consider it a hasan hadith, while others consider it weak. We mention it only because the meaning of it is correct. It is narrated by Ibn Mas'ud that the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Abu Dawood, Hadith 4860; Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3896; Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 3759 — narrated by Abdullah ibn Mas'ud; graded weak by some scholars)

Do not let any of my companions convey anything bad or negative about anyone else. Because I love to come out to you with nothing in my heart against anyone. I don't want to come out from my home and come out to meet people with some kind of anger against someone because of bad behavior or because of something that shouldn't have been said. So don't convey this kind of bad news to me. Don't convey to each other these kinds of bad news.

So these are from the refined manners. These are violations that are happening all the time. People will copy and paste an insult and send it to you. Like, I was having a good day until you send it to me. So you're the one bringing it to me. Don't do that. Don't indirectly insult someone. Don't pretend to console someone while you're actually there to put a knife in their back while they're unaware. Don't interrupt people all the time. Don't start with "no." Don't argue all the time.

One of the biggest problems we have now is everybody feels they know about everything because they watched a two-minute video on the internet. So, خَلَاص, they're an expert in the field. So everyone's an expert, and everyone's disagreeing, and everyone argues, and everyone wants to out-talk the other. But in the end, there's no benefit in all of it. And it's not from good, excellent, refined manners — and definitely not from the manners that were taught to us by the Prophet ﷺ.

I say this and ask Allah's forgiveness for me and for you from all my sins. So ask His forgiveness. Indeed, those who ask for His forgiveness shall prosper.

Second Khutbah: Listening in the House of Allah

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon His trustworthy Messenger and upon his family and companions.

One of the reasons behind this khutbah is that last week, we had a guest who flew all the way from Seattle, Washington, to come and to address our community. And we had been planning for this for months — emails going back and forth — so that he could come here and ask for funds to assist his community. He oversees hundreds — not 100, but hundreds — of youth. And he does programs for them and everything that he does. And he knows well of our masjid and of our community. So he flew all the way here to ask for donations, to ask for help.

And for those of you who don't know, a lot of masajid are very difficult when it comes to fundraising in their community. They have stipulations, some of them impossible to meet — these are true stories. Some masajid will say, you can fundraise, but give us 3,000 and you can keep the rest. Sometimes all they fundraise is 2,000 and they still want the rest. It's incredible. But we don't have that policy in this masjid, and we have a generous community — may Allah reward all of you.

So the man flies all the way over here. And then when he got up to speak, people in the back — the ones who were in a hurry to get out of the masjid — they started speaking. And he kept asking them, please brothers, listen. And they still kept getting louder and louder. We got up and asked everyone to be quiet. And it didn't work for except two seconds. And people kept going on and on and on. This is problematic, because it's part of bad manners — that's the truth.

Because someone might say, well, I don't care about your announcement. Allah commanded Friday prayer. He didn't command listening to all the news and the announcements after the salah. Or: I don't live nearby. Or: I only pray in this masjid because it's close to where I work, so I have another masjid that's more important to me and I attend their events and I care about their announcements. Or: I'm not coming to this event. I'm not going to be in town, so I don't need to hear the announcement. Or: I just don't care.

But it's common courtesy. If someone is watching a movie, you don't interrupt him like that. If someone's on the phone — even if he's backbiting on the phone — you don't cut him off. But when it comes to the announcements in the house of Allah, لَا — who cares? And I want to greet this guy, because I'll die if I don't greet him right now. And I can't wait two minutes until just the announcements are done.

What about just listening to the announcement? Even if you're not going to attend any of them — just to know what's happening. Just to know that there's a care dinner. And one day you might need care. Or just to know that there is a session happening or a conference happening. What if I truly don't care? But just out of courtesy, for those who do care, I'll stay quiet for a minute. Or I won't greet people verbally out loud — just a wave or something — so people can listen. We want a high level of good brotherhood in our community.

The Level of Brotherhood: Ibn Abbas on Those Who Have a Right Over Him

And I'll give you an example of an incredible level of brotherhood. This is narrated and mentioned by Imam al-Dhahabi in his famous book, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala, referring to the great companion, Abdullah ibn Abbas radiyallahu anhuma. He said:

There are four types of people who have a favor and a right upon me. Four types of people I consider to have a huge favor upon me, and they have a right upon me.

Number one:

Whoever begins me with salam. The one who starts and says السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ first — he has a right and a favor upon me.

Number two:

Whoever made some room for me, made space for me in a gathering. Someone who will make room for me, just so I can sit in a good position in a gathering.

Number three:

Whoever dusted his shoes — meaning he's walking, dust comes on his shoes, because he's trying to run an errand or do something for my sake.

And then number four — you would think number three should be the top of the list. But then number four he says: as for number four, no one can reward him for me except the Lord of all worlds. Number four has such a favor upon me, I have no way of thanking him. And no one can thank him for me and reward him except Allah, the Lord of all servants. He said:

(Siyar A'lam al-Nubala by Imam al-Dhahabi — mentioned in the biography of Abdullah ibn Abbas)

Someone — some calamity, some trial, some difficulty touched him. So he's turning all night in his bed, unable to sleep. So he thought at night, who can help me with this problem? And he found me to be the right person to help him. So he comes to me in the morning, knocking on my door, asking for help with his problem.

He says, no one has more of a favor and a right upon me than this person. And I'm unable to thank him — only Allah can reward him well enough. Look at this level of brotherhood. He's saying: the person who thinks of me at the time of calamity — why? Because that means that person thought so well of me. He thought of all of Allah's creation and then he thought that you would be the one to help him with that problem. What does that mean? That means he probably thinks you're more righteous than anyone else. He probably thinks you're more generous than anyone else. And he has given you an opportunity for reward.

This is the level we're talking about. So in light of something like this, how hard is it to just listen to an announcement? How hard is it?

Even in other small things — one of the wise men taught me this. When you need to write a phone number in the masjid, what do you do? You immediately just find a flyer from the flyers in the masjid. But someone spent money on that flyer. Someone put so much effort and so much hope that someone will take this flyer and come to their event and make it successful. But to you, it's just a temporary napkin to put a phone number on. These are the kinds of things that we would love to see improve in all Muslim communities across the United States. And we know that there is much good in our audience and in our communities.

We ask Allah to make us of those who recognize the truth as clear truth and follow the best of it. And to make us of those who recognize falsehood as clear falsehood and abstain from it. We ask Allah not to make this worldly life our greatest concern, nor the limit of our knowledge, nor our final destination the Fire.

We ask Allah to grant victory to Islam and to the Muslims. We ask Allah to grant victory, ease, and freedom to all the Muslims who are being held and dealt with unjustly around the world. And we ask Allah to bring ease and victory to the Muslims of Palestine and to the Muslims in Afghanistan and to the Muslims in Iraq and in Kashmir and in Yemen and in Burma and in Bangladesh and in all parts of the world.

O Lord of the worlds, establish for this ummah a matter of right guidance — one in which those who obey You are honored, and those who are in disobedience are guided back, and in which good is commanded and evil is forbidden. O You who hears all supplication.

And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the Prophet ﷺ, the mercy to all the worlds, and upon his family and all his companions.