Ismail Kamdar – Code of Conduct #5 Good Character
AI: Summary ©
The importance of character and manners in Islamic work is emphasized, along with the need to adapt to culture. The speakers stress the importance of backbiting and slander in media coverage and the importance of fixing character and manners to avoid becoming "backbiting and slander". They also provide resources for understanding character and manners, including a book called " operation of Mann Twenty" and " operation of Mann Twenty". The importance of avoiding slander and backbiting in the context of the Dwa scene is emphasized, and the need to learn about character and improve behavior to reflect the true character of the person is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Nabil greenwall Allah He was he he made them about. So today we move on to principle number four, which is a HELOC wide up the manners and the character of a believer the importance of good character and good manners.
And this is a crucial topic today. In fact, a lot of the problems in the Dawa scene today
go back simply to people lacking manners, lacking character.
You know, this is something that in the past, we wouldn't really need to have a discussion about. Because
the traditional method
of getting involved in Islamic work was to first study manners and character, and then to study the sacred sciences, and then to start teaching.
Today, people have it backwards, they start teaching, then they might start studying when you never get to working on the character and manners.
And I believe that character and manners is so fundamental, that even when teaching children, this should be the first thing we teach them about the deen.
So those of you who have followed my homeschooling and parenting series, you know that I advocate for
starting children's Islamic education with other boys. At age five, from age five to seven, the primary focus of the Islamic education should be on refining their character and their manners. And this topic is something you keep coming back to every year. Because the refinement of our character and manners is something that is
an ongoing process for life. We all slip up every once in a while with something to do our character and our manners.
And this is from the most fundamental parts of Islam,
the perfection of character and manners, you know that the Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, what a steal in multimethod club I was sent to perfect good character. He also said that there is nothing heavier on the scale of the believer on the last day than he is good character. And Allah hates those who are vulgar, and have bad and obnoxious character.
This is also for the young men listening is also an important part of masculinity in Islam. When you look at how the classical Islamic texts cover the topic of masculinity, they look at it as becoming a man means refining one's character, that little boys are rough around the edges, they need to be taught how to be well mannered, and the more well mannered you become, the more your o'clock or other is in line with Islam.
The more manly you are in the Islamic sense of the word.
So, this is a very important topic right and just for those of you who are unaware of the difference between these two terms, a halacha means character, you get good o'clock and bad o'clock good character and bad character, o'clock refers to the internal state of your heart, it is a condition of the heart, a lot of what we cover in this series is o'clock. So, when we talk about sincerity, that is o'clock, when we talk about courage, that is Accra, when we talk about honesty, that is o'clock, when we talk about
other things like compassion, that is also a clock.
So, a clock is
a comprehensive term that refers to all of the internal characteristics that shaped our persona.
And these internal characteristics can be good or evil, it is our job to work on our hearts to read it of bad character and to replace that with good character.
Dub means Manners, manners is the outward reflection of your character, it is your physical behavior. o'clock is who you are, is what you do.
And in general, o'clock is more important than other because you can fake manners but you cannot fake character. And the reality is if you work on your character and you improve your character, then this will reflect in your manners. Because if your heart is humble
then you will behave like a humble person. If your heart is sincere, you will do act with sincerity. So some people can fake sincerity. Some people can fake being humble in terms of the actions, but they can't fake the condition of the heart.
So as people involved in Dawa, we have to work on our character and manners, and this is something that we should study very early on. Before we even get involved in this field, we should be studying character a man is really something our parents should teach us at a very young age. And there are many resources from which we can study character and manners
from the Quran, the most important Surah related to character manners is Surah Al who gerat And we're going to go to two verses of Surah hoogenraad. Today that reflect on some of the actual issues in the Dawa scene today.
So, Surah hoogenraad is also known as chapter of manners, and it does lay down for us and it's 19 versus some of the key manners and characteristics of the believer.
And you will find that many of the prohibitions mentioned in this era of violated by Muslims today who are doing Dawa is violated in the name of that.
Another good source to learn about manners one of my personal favorites is Imam Al Biharis book of mu fraud, the book of manners. So many people know that Imam Al Bukhari was the author of The Saheeh his masterpiece in Hadith, but many people are unaware that he has a second book of Hadees called a double move road that is all about manners and character. And this book to me is crucial in our times, for helping us to rebuild our character so that we can
become closer to the prophetic character.
Kelton man is a crucial to the Dow if we look at the early Muslims, very often people would convert because of the character and manners of the person doing the Dawa. We see this even with the Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa salam that Khadija regular one ha and Abu Bakr, radiallahu anhu and they even harissa, Radi Allahu anhu, or even Abby, Darlene. All of the first four converts. They didn't need to be convinced about Islam, because they knew the character of Rasulullah sallallahu. I think he was Sunday knew he was honest, he was truthful, he was trustworthy, he would not lie about God, you will not lie about the revelation. And so they immediately believe because of his
character. His character was his Dawa.
And it was the same with his companions. Abu Bakr Raja was known for his character as Omar Rajala, who as read most of the leading Sahaba, their character was Dawa, and people will interact with them, they will be so amazed by the character of the Sahaba that they would
want to be like them.
And we know also the stories of how Islam reached the islands of Indonesia and Malaysia, that he was a character and the honesty of the traders and the Muslims that visited that land that led to Islam organically spreading in that land. So for sure,
character and manners are an important part of the Dawa. They are a necessary part of the Dawa. That seems to be lost in our times. There are people out there, who the who do thou are the most vulgar or character,
some of them behind the scenes, others even in public.
One of my earliest experiences with this when I was in my early 20s, I was working with a renowned international Dawa organization.
And being young and naive and excited, I went to attend one of their meetings. And I was speaking to one of the art at that meeting. And then another day, he joined us and the three of us were talking, when the first one left, the second one turned to me and whispered in my ears. And he said between you and me, that guy is a candidate repeat what he said use the F word and the B word explicitly.
And as a young man who was naive and who
was, you know, in awe of these do art, I was just in shock. I was in shock to hear words like that coming out of the mouth of a renowned die. Someone who even till today he has quite a big following.
But that was the first of many such incidents that made me realize, on one hand, the people doing Dawa are human.
On the other hand, we really need to work on our clock to adapt because filthy words like that. Backbiting about another day with the most vulgar of language should never come out.
of the mouth of someone whose life is dedicated to calling to Allah. This tongue that we use to call to Allah should not be a tongue that has vulgar language on it.
It should not be a tongue that is backbiting other people. Now, back then, at least these incidents of bad character were behind the scenes. And I saw a lot of these incidents behind the scenes where people revealed who they really are. And they revealed themselves to be people of arrogance and jealousy. And, and they really had this, this, there's two sides to them, there's two faces to them. But now we see some do art, who are publicly, people have bad character, whose whole persona that they built their dour reputations on is being a person of bad character.
And this has encouraged the followers to publicly have that character as well. And to do all of this in the name of the Dawa, and in the name of Naseeha and the name of protecting the religion.
And so we have to add today who have built their reputation,
on backbiting, on slander, on name calling, on assuming the worst of others. And I'm doing this publicly that they would make 234 hour videos,
demonizing their fellow do art and Muslims, while ever reaching out to the person and getting a clarification. Did you really mean this? They understand what you said property? You know, can you explain your point of view now they just would go straight to making a video in which they would demonize the person in the worst way possible. Mixing half truths with slander and name calling. And this name calling especially has become so popular in the Dawa scene today that it's almost as if it has lost its there's the sense of it being a sir, we have certain to art, who started namecalling and did our other do art. And this has picked up actually has become normalized amongst the online
young to RT, that they feel empowered to see somebody doing this and they are now famous, so they feel they can also do the same. And in doing so they have violated the commands of Allah. And they think they are doing Dawa. But this Dawa is deficient because it is done in a haram manner. So let's look at two verses in Surah Al Fujairah. And we will see in these two verses how many of the commands of Allah the so called to add a violating and again, I don't mention names, many of you know who I'm talking about. I will mention names. So Allah subhanaw taala says, Yeah, you hola Dena Manu now yes, for all women only a year ago, no, he Robinho. Oh, you who believe no group of people
should mock another group of people, because perhaps they are better than you. And no group of women should mock another group of women because perhaps they are better than you.
So in this verse, Allah has prohibited mockery. A Muslim should not be mocking in other Muslim. Now, this applies primarily between Muslims. And to some extent to that it also applies to those non Muslims who are not hostile to Islam, as well as the disbelievers who are hostile to Islam and fighting Islam and making a mockery of Islam, then, you know, it's fine to fight back against them with the only language they understand, which is mocking them in return. But be careful about this because Allah subhanaw taala also says, Do not mock the gods in return, they may insult Allah. So you have to be very careful, there's a fine line here, we know that even in the time of Rasulullah,
sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam, when some of the kuffaar would mock the sahaba. He would encourage your husband even savage to construct lines of poetry, mocking them in return. So this will become like a, a battle of words
to put down the enemy of Islam. Well, we're not talking about dealing with the enemies of Islam. Are we talking about dealing with Muslims, people who believe in La ilaha illallah, Muhammad Rasool Allah, even if you don't think they're the best of Muslims, even if you think the Eman is deficient, even if you think they have some misunderstandings of the religion, even if you think they are deviant. They are still people who believe in La Ilaha illa Allah and so the honor is sacred.
Anyone who claims to believe in law in law they honor is sacred. So to mock them and to make a mockery of them you know, we have this culture today are making memes about other Muslims and name calling other Muslims and constructing disgusting labels for other Muslims. And one person will mention it on the on the website and then many others will follow in repeating it.
This is an Islamic this
is haram as per this verse, this is violating the prohibition of mockery.
And perhaps those people are better than you. Because I know personally many of these dua to have been not.
So hung Allah in return, they refuse to do the same.
Right? So today they make dua for the people who mocked them. And they ask Allah to guide them. And they don't say a bad word about those people because they still view those people as they practice in Islam, and they still want to honor that person, even that person doesn't honor them.
And this shows you who is the one who is closer to Allah, the One who has built his reputation on mockery, and slander and character assassination
are the one who is making dua for the person who's mocking them, and asking Allah to guide that person back to having good character. There is no excuse for a da e to have bad o'clock in public. And then this is the whole persona of someone involved in Dawa, then the rest of the Ummah should call this person out, they should avoid this person, they should not promote indigenous share a platform with him, they should not be involved with him in any way. They should not give any legitimacy to his Dawa, that is basically a Dawa of mocking other Muslims. This is not our this is a clear violation of the honor of the believer. Doesn't matter how much you disagree with him. It is
never okay to be mocking a Muslim. It is never okay to treat your Muslim blood brothers in such a way that you destroy the reputation for few clicks and likes.
And Allah subhanaw taala holds us in the same verse, verse 11. Well, that doesn't Meizu on Bucha COVID. Wallet, Babu. Bill our cop well that the numbers will be uncovered is the one I want to bring your attention to, which is do not
call each other by evil nicknames did not invent even nicknames for each other. Now, the worst before that word doesn't mean to unfit to come do not slander each other. I'll come to this one a bit later. We need to spend a lot of time on the topic of slander, but name calling let's talk about name calling first. So there's three prohibitions in this first, don't walk, Don't slander, don't name call, guess what? There are certain do art who built their entire reputations on slander, mockery and name calling.
Think about this, right? If someone's whole persona revolves around inventing the most vulgar of nicknames for other Muslims, and popularizing these nicknames online, so they disagree with someone who is a Muslim and have some wrong opinions, and they call them a rabbi or a priest, in a way meeting Softech fear of them. Or even worse than this, they demonize one of the characteristics of Islam, compassion, and they start to walk people they disagree with, they call them compassionate Imams. Now, taking two of the most beloved words in Islam, compassion and Imam and turning it into a mockery in this way, not just walking these people they're walking the religion, and qualities that
are essential to our religion. We're gonna do a whole video on the importance of compassion.
Of course, someone whose heart lacks compassion, will not understand why it's a big deal to make a mockery of this word.
Allah guiding us to not call each other by evil nicknames, be civilized in your discourse, be civilized in your disagreements, be civilized in your criticism,
find a way to do so politely.
If you can do so, without calling out people by name to do so. If you can do it privately do that.
If you have to call someone out by name, because for whatever reason, that's the only thing that's gonna work. You still have to accept that this is a Muslim, and the the honor of a Muslim is sacred. So you're not allowed to mock him. You're not allowed to slander him, you're not allowed to backbite him, you're not allowed to call him by names.
For some reason, some people just completely ignored these verses of the Quran and build the entire persona around violating this very quantity of Allah subhanho wa taala.
And in the next verse, again, three commands are laid down, three prohibitions are laid down, all of them are violated by these kinds of people. Allah Subhana Allah says, You hola Xena Aman Oh you who believe it Danny because the Ramadan avoid being suspicious of others in others one ism, because very often suspicion is a sir. We now have do art whose entire persona is built around assuming the worst of others. They have absolutely no who's no one in their bodies. They cannot think good thoughts about someone else. They assume the absolute worst of somebody else.
Instead of thinking maybe this person has a misunderstanding of the religion, they assume that this person is a sellout and this person is a disbeliever. And this person is the enemy of Islam. And this person's been sent to infiltrate the religion and corrupted from the inside. And they have all these conspiracy theories that are shaping their thoughts. And because of that, their actions reflect on these theories, these these thoughts that are messing with their mind. While the justices don't spy on each other, it is not permissible in our religion, to seek out the secret faults of others. Yet today, we have people who will spend hours upon hours going through 1000s of videos of
an individual to find a single line or sentence that they can blow out of proportion to make that person look bad. What kind of Dawa is this, where your whole persona is an obsession with making somebody else look bad, we supposed to assume the best of others, we're not supposed to be prying into people's lives to try and find some foil to do. And you may say, oh, but these videos are public. Yes, the videos are public. But if you have to go to 1000 hours or somebody's lectures, to find one sentence that you can use to make them look bad, then they are not a bad person you are, because everyone slips up everyone. Miss words themselves at times, everyone says things that later
on, they think I could have worded that better. I could have said that better. They may have been a better phrasing, when you speaking on the spot. It's not always easy to word yourself properly, especially if you receive a question that you weren't prepared for.
And so yes, we're any day in the world, especially during a q&a segment, you can find things that they said that, you know, were not appropriate that they could have said it better. We all do that.
The Hussin comes in here, you say okay, maybe he he was on the spot. So he didn't word himself well.
Unfortunately, some people's hearts are so full of hatred towards others, and assuming the worst of others, that they rebel in finding these slip of the tongue and blowing them out of proportion
with your dog, but
none of you should backbite each other. So let's talk about backbiting and slander.
These are the two main prohibitions in this section of the Quran.
And the other ones all work around it. Because if you don't, if you have good thoughts of others, if you don't spy on others, if you don't mock people, you don't call them by bad names, you probably not going to be backbiting them or slandering them either.
All of these work together. It is people who lack consciousness done, and who look for faults in others that find faults to discuss. And so they end up falling into backbiting. And if they can't find a fault, they invent a fault, so they end up falling into slander.
And nowadays, the Dawa scene is full of backbiting and slander, where people will sit and talk for hours online, about another dark II calling them the worst of names assuming the worst about them assuming the worst about their intentions.
What is the benefit of this,
your focus should be on calling to Allah, your focus should be on calling to the best understanding of Islam.
If you need to warn against a certain opinion, do so. If you feel a certain individual is corrupt in the understanding of Islam, one or two civilized warnings about it is fine. But to make your whole persona about just going after people and calling them names and attacking them, and assuming the worst about them and and just taking every sentence they say out of context will make them sound evil.
They really, you are the problem.
So be wary of these two art, whose entire persona revolves around bad character and bad manners. Stay away from such people. And beware of becoming one of them. Because really, this is now low hanging fruit.
It is very easy. It is very easy today, to become famous. By making videos of attacking other people. All you need to do is make videos calling this person this name and exposing that person and saying that you've got some secret footage of a certain person to show that they are corrupt and evil. And boom, your popularity skyrockets. Because other people out there, their hearts are corrupt. And they rebel in this kind of content, because they want to feel like they are better than other people. And the best way to feel like you're better than somebody else is to pick on their faults and talk about their faults. So in the past backbiting and slander was something that will
take place behind closed doors, it will be a private sale. Today it's on the internet for the whole world to see.
Imagine that
Imagine
if you made a four hour video backbiting someone. And indeed, maybe half of what you said is true. But one or two points where slander was lies,
and that slander reaches 100,000 people, you will be sinful on the day of judgment for spreading slander to 100,000 people.
We already know spreading slander to one person is a major sin.
What about to 100,000 people?
Beware, if you feel that you are the diary and that you are someone who is doing a lot of good, but you spent so much of your time with this online backbiting and slander, you may end up on the day of judgment for amongst the ruthless from amongst the bankrupt.
Because you thought you did a lot of good. But you were backbiting someone, you are slandering someone, you will name calling someone. And every time you did that some of your good deeds were taken and given to that person.
Ask yourself, is this the character of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam? Is this the character of the sahaba? Is this how they dealt to their fellow Muslims when they differed with them?
It is crucial that every student of knowledge and every day and everyone involved in the Dawa in any manner
works on refining their character. And specifically on these two verses of Surah WHOdrug verse 1211 and 12 Surah Al hoogenraad. These two verses everyone involved in Dawa needs to study it, reflect on it, think about it, internalize it and live by it. If we do this, many of the problems in the Dawa scene will be solved.
And for those of you who watch this type of content of people backbiting and slander, and you enjoy it, and you continue a form of entertainment, and you feel good taking down a da e and you feel good character assassinating someone, fear Allah rarely fear Allah, this is such a dangerous path to go down.
You think you are doing good. But instead you are involved in some of the worst of since? I'm not saying the people we're talking about right? Now they could be wrong.
But what's the benefit of backbiting someone?
If they want, what's the benefit of just sitting around talking about them all the time, calling them names obsessing about them, you know, yeah, make one video or make one article explaining why that person is wrong, and you don't agree with them. And that's it. And you can do it in a civilized way without having to come up with all kinds of slander and lies and, and name calling has civilized ways to disagree with someone or even to disassociate from someone. When this becomes your persona, when this becomes an obsession, when this becomes entertainment, then you have truly lost your way.
So we want to fix the Dawa scene, we have to fix our character and manners. We have to be careful how we talk to people how we talk about people, please internalize verses 11 and 12 of surah hoogenraad and the fighter
some of the statements of the Salaf regarding character matters.
Imam Malik.
For him Allah said, It is the duty of the student of knowledge to behave with dignity and respect.
And to follow the way of those who came before him.
You must have a dignified presence. Ask yourself, the way you carry yourself the way you talk to others the way you talk about others, the way you talk about the religion.
Are you dignified? Are you someone who is honorable?
That is supposed to be the character of the people of knowledge, not vulgar words, not name calling, not slander? This is not how a DA is supposed to behave in public. Even obeying Rahim Allah said the reality of manners is that it comes from character. Manners is the externalization of the integrity and strength of one's inward disposition into action. So yeah, even Okay, well Julia is mentioning the relationship between man as a character exactly what I said earlier, which is, character is the internal man is is the reflection of that on the external, if your heart is clean, this reflects in what you say and what you do. So we have to work on the heart. We have to work on the character and
even game although sia has a lot to say on the topic of working on one's character, I highly recommend his book medalled yourself again, which is an excellent book on purification of the soul and refining family of character and is an excellent translation. It has been published offered recently by Dr. Amy Rancho.
Definitely worth reading. If you want to learn more about this
even came out Josie Rahim Allah also says to religion itself is all about good character. So whoever has better character than you is more pious than you.
Think about this, right? You have the someone who spends all their time backbiting and slandering others, and then you have the person they backbiting and that person has refined character. And you may even be asking Allah to forgive the person who's backbiting them, and they may even be making to offer that person and they don't ever lower themselves to the level of the person backbiting Then who do you think's more pious, the one whose entire personality revolves around these sinful manners, or the one who controls himself for the sake of Allah.
Abdullah even Mobarak said, I sought manners for 30 years and I thought knowledge for 20 years, the righteous predecessors would seek manners before knowledge. My Malik also said learn good manners before seeking knowledge. He also said that his mother advised him to seek good manners before seeking knowledge, again, goes back to what I said, the way of the early Muslims, you must learn good character first, this is fundamental, this is your foundation. If your character is messed up, it reflects in everything you say, and everything you do.
In my misery, Ramadasa says, when you will visit a scholar,
we will learn more from his manners. And this will be more beloved to us and what we would learn from his knowledge. So one of the methods of the early Muslims and this is this is still the method of these are many students of knowledge today around the world is that when they would visit a teacher and spend time with him, yes, they were learning fake or hadith of zero Aqeedah from the teacher, but also also,
they would actually put more effort into observing the teacher, observing his piety, observing his manners, observing his character, observing how he talks to people, how he interacts with people, how he deals with people, and they will mimic that. And this is we'll come to this later, when you do the the topic of sofa of righteous companionship, that one of the benefits of spending time in the company of the righteous is that you absorbed their manners and character.
And this is something that we need to revive if you don't spend time around righteous people, then it becomes difficult to see a model of righteous character
so we end with a reminder
I'm delighted when Mobarak said you are in greater need of a little manners than a lot of knowledge. Let's end on this point. Abdullah even Mobarak Ramallah said, you are in greater need of a little manners, and a lot of knowledge. What is the point of knowing so much about so many subjects? If you can't even treat your fellow Muslims with proper dignity and honor? What is the point of all acknowledge if you're going to end up bankrupt on the day of judgment from backbiting and name calling and slander?
So let's start with manners. Let us make time to go and learn the Manage of Islam. Start with Surah Al Jihad and Surah neul. Read these two stories and read it Tafseer and internalize it from Surah Noor and Yahoo gerat You get some of the fundamentals of Islamic manners.
And then read something like Imam Al Bukhari, these other vermouth rod, or any other book on Islamic manners.
Spend time in the company of the righteous, observe the manners, look how they talk to people. Look how they talk about people. Learn from the horse's nose not learn from the avoidance of name calling. Look from how they tried to make excuses for someone if they if there's a slip of the tongue. Look at how they tried to keep their heart clean from any ill thoughts towards any Muslim.
This you can only learn from spending time with the righteous and learning and absorbing your character.
So this is fundamental. If we truly want to do Dawa that is pleasing to Allah Subhana Allah and it has Baraka in it. We have to refine our character analysis. And there is no excuse. There is no excuse for Adobe to build a platform and their persona and their entire brand
around being the one who back bytes and slanders a name called others. There's no excuse for this.
Let our actions and our choice of words and the way we talk about others and the way we talk to others, let it be dignified. Because no matter how much you disagree with that person, they still are believers in La Ilaha illa Allah and the honor is still sacred.
We ask Allah to refine our character and manage to forgive us for any lapses in this area, and to make us from those who lifestyles are a reflection of prophetic character. Walk through the Awana and hamdulillahi rabbil aalameen