Saad Tasleem – Do This Before You Advise Someone!

			Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah, who Allah Allah, He will be he will know
Allah Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. So I know some of you attended my previous live
lecture in which I spoke about
		

			how to enjoy and what is good, and to condemn or forbid that which is evil. We talked about,
basically, you know, what you do before you criticize, and that's the lecture is called, if you
haven't, haven't seen it yet, you can go check that out, as well in childhood. So you can think of
this a little bit as a part two of the previous live talk that I gave. So if you remember, in the
previous live lecture, we spoke about how, you know, we're living in a time where it's become very
common to call people out online. So what we call the call out culture, canceling people and
criticizing people condemning people online. And we said, normally, people justify behavior like
		

			that, at least from an Islamic perspective,
		

			with a two main things, number one, it is people say, Oh, I'm doing an emoticon. COVID-19. Luca, I'm
enjoying the good and I'm forbidding the evil. And so that previous lecture dealt with that issue of
what are what are the conditions that we have before before we enjoin the good and forbid the evil?
What do we what conditions need to be filled before we do that? The second justification that is
often used when it comes to calling people out online or you know, criticizing people online, is
people say I'm giving advice, and today I want to talk about that very issue. So the lecture is
called before you advise what to do before you give someone advice and once again, you can think of
		

			it as a checklist. Make sure you check everything off before you give someone advice. Now,
definitely giving advice has a place in our Deen in Islam, famous Hadith hadith of tamiment. Daddy
mentioned in second Muslim, it's also a mountain mountain always. Bahrain is a collection of 40
Hadith which is very popular well known. Believe it is heading number seven out of that Heidi, and
in this Hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said a dino naseeha. He said, the
religion is a Nazi hat. Now, what is a Nazi hat? I know how normally people translate it as advice,
but mostly hat itself like linguistically carries two main meanings number one sincerity and that's
		

			why you'll hear people translate this head deep and they'll saying the dean the religion is sincere
advice. Number two actually is purity purity. So number one, sincerity number two purity. So both
that tells us that when we are giving advice that sincerity and purity have to be part of that
advice. Now, what do we mean Well, first of all, in the Quran, we have in a different places to put
on where we find this, the linguistic usage of this word, for example, in sort of the dead aim,
Allah subhanaw taala says yeah, you have Latina Amano, tubal Illallah he tau by 10 or so have Old
Believers or oh you who believe repent to Allah with sincere repentance and the repentance that is
		

			mentioned here is tow button Nestle hat. So once again, the same root Nestle hat, right? No, so ha,
what is this talking about? Number one sincere, sincerely repent to Allah to Allah. Number two, we
purify our deeds, by this type of repentance by this type of repentance. So once again, pure
sincerity, about what we say and they'll see how we have. I have some statements from some scholars
here that talk about what nussey actually is, even a Salah. He said that the essence of Nestle hub
is where when one where the one doing the see how truly seeks the best for the one whom they are
making. They'll see how to in both their intention and their actions, they desire what is best for
		

			the other person, this is what he said, this is Nestle ha a shift in everything mean to Allah, he
said and you'll see how it implies that a person loves for their brother they love for their
brother, that which is good. So number one, he said no see how it implies that a person loves for
their brother that which is good, and they are calling them to that good. And they make make it
clear to them and they encourage them. This is what this is what they'll see.
		

			What is so once again, then we'll see how the the the aspect of Nestle how Yes, we can say it means
advice. But it's not just advice there is there is an aspect of sincerity and also purity and
goodness that goes along with the advice. And that is why, when we talk about before you give
advice, the first thing that we do, or we can title this even how to give advice. Well, how do you
give advice, the first thing you do is you check your sincerity. Just like we talked about when it
comes to commanding the good and forbidding the evil
		

			mooncup. First thing, intention, check your intention. And that means why asking yourself the
question, why am I giving this advice? What is the purpose of this advice? We mentioned previously
in the previous talk, some wrong intentions, I'm gonna go over them real quick.
		

			So wrong intentions. Because we're angry, right? That's a wrong intention and need to express our
anger, we're angry at a person out of anger, we're giving the wrong intention. That's the wrong
purpose of giving mostly high giving advice. Out of as we mentioned, this last time out of jealousy,
or what is known as has said, It's known, because we are jealous or envious of a person we actually
envious is the better word than than jealousy. We're envious of a person in order to put them down,
we give them advice, right? Also, we bad intention is to expose someone's fault or to expose
someone's flaws. And we'll talk about this in a little bit. If that's the intention, that's the
		

			wrong intention. That's the wrong purpose of giving someone advice, maybe to show off right to to
show people
		

			that we know what we're talking about, to to put on the show to get attention to ourselves. We're
giving people advice. And look, these are all internal. These are intentions, no one can judge
someone else's intentions. But this is for ourselves like so we're asking ourselves these questions.
And we're checking all of this before we give someone advice, are we doing it just for the
attention? We want people to see that? We are the ones who are advising this person, we're calling
them out? Or you know, whatever. However, we've given that advice. Is it for the attention? Do we
want recognition for that? We talked about low self esteem as well, right? Sometimes a one of the
		

			ways person may deal with their low self esteem, basically, the person doesn't feel good about
themselves. So they want to put other people down. And so the intention is to put the person down to
make them look bad. That's the wrong intention. Why do we give advice? So those are all wrong
intentions? Why do we give advice, as I mentioned earlier, is that we want goodness for our brother
or for our sister. We are sincere with a love we're doing it for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala.
And we want goodness, we want to clarify for them that which is right, or that which is wrong. And
we want goodness for them. That's that's one of the main aspects there. Do we want goodness for this
		

			person? Do we actually want a change in a person's behavior? And that's going to dictate a lot of
how we give advice is, what is our true intention? So number one, how do we give advice, the first
thing that we do is we make sure our intentions are correct, we check our intentions.
		

			So that also involves knowing the person that we are giving advice to understanding the person.
Because
		

			part of giving advice is that advice is given with wisdom. And it's given with understanding, and
how can you give advice with proper understanding if you don't understand the person that you are
giving advice to and once again, the intention, right, so part of the intention is, if your
intention is that you want good for this person, then you want to do what is most conducive to good
positive change. And part of that is knowing and understanding the person that we are giving advice
to that we can put under sincerity, part of our sincerity is if we're sincere, we're not doing it,
doing it for any other reason. But for a law and to bring positive change in this person. We will
		

			first part of our pure intention is making sure we have an understanding of the person that we are
giving advice to. So number one intentions, good intentions, pure intention, checking our
intentions, understanding the person that we're giving advice to, we can say number two, so second
thing that we do second condition that needs to be met, you know a second rule of how to give
advice, however you want to phrase this it's fine and challenge Allah is that one should not give
advice on the condition that the advice is accepted. Right. So that's what we have to come to terms
with. We have to come to
		

			piece with that, before we give the advice, meaning, sometimes we get offended when a person doesn't
take our advice. And we, for us the success or failure of whether we give advice properly is whether
the person listened to us whether they agreed with us our responsibility, once again, if we're doing
it for the sake of a law, it doesn't matter if the person listens to us or not, it doesn't matter if
they follow our advice or not. If we're doing it for the sake of a law, then we know that our
advice, the reward for it is secure, right? That we know that success or failure or the person
listen to us, or they follow our advice or not. We know that, that that our reward and once again,
		

			points back to our sincerity, right? It's an indication of our sincerity, that we know that we're
doing it for doing it for the sake of lost friends, yada, then we we do the best we can do it, we
give them advice. And then obviously it is in the hands of Allah who is planning to Allah, if Allah
gives them the tofik, to follow or to take our advice, if we don't make if we say, you know, we say
the person has to listen to me, the problem with that is oftentimes we can, it can lead to anger, it
can lead to us becoming harsh in our advice, it can lead to us becoming vengeful, or we get angry,
and we get upset when the person doesn't listen to our advice. And now everything that follows that
		

			advice is going to be it's going to be going downhill after that. Because our language is going to
change our behavior is going to change. And that's based off the assumption that we used wisdom and
understanding to begin this advice. Hopefully we did. But if we're doing it with the condition, the
person has to listen to me that if they don't listen to me, as I said, it goes downhill after that,
because after that, as I said, our language will change our our our behavior will change our whole
attitude changes. You're like, why isn't this person listening to me? Don't you know, like, this is
what a law said, this is what this idea is that I've said this, and this is what you're supposed to
		

			do, and this and that, whatever. And I know, I know what I'm talking about, I know better, or
whatever it may be, right? We want the person like they have to listen to us, that will mess up the
advice that we are giving. So number two, that we don't give advice off of the condition or based
off of the condition that the person has to listen to my advice.
		

			So that's number two. Number three, that the advice is given without judgment. And I know, you know,
even saying the word judgment or like, you know, judging somebody or don't judge me, or people say
only God can judge me or whatever. I know, that triggers some people, right? It shouldn't because
islamically we have a very clear approach towards judgment. Obviously, judgment lies with Allah
who's penalty Allah, you know, so we don't judge an individual. We don't judge the status, the
status of their heart. Yes, we can look at their actions, we can look at behaviors, we can look at
deeds and say, Is this a good deed or a bad deed, but making a healthcare making a ruling about that
		

			person, that you know what, you're a bad person, you're just a sinful person. We try to take
ourselves out of that as much as possible. Because when we make that charge, we have to answer to
Allah who's paired with data for the judgments that we have made. And I want to share with you a
story. And this is a narration by Irma Well, the Aloha
		

			bottle, the Aloha, I mentioned, Bahati, he tells us that there was a man by the name of Abdullah,
		

			who had a drinking problem. And he would be, he would come to the presses, send them and press them
would punish him for drinking. And he would go back and he would begin drinking again. So obviously,
he had a drinking problem. On one occasion, this person was being punished for that drinking. And a
man who was standing there watching this, he said, Oh Allah, curse him, or may he be cursed? How
many times has this person been brought here? How many times is he going to be punished? Right? Like
basically mocking him putting him down, saying, oh, like, like, how many times this keeps happening
like look at you, and the prophets that I send them in the allotted time. He says that the prophets
		

			that I send them he said, Latin I know for seven said do not curse him. For one lucky person. I'm
said I swear by Allah, Merlin to know your head below Rasulullah. He said, I swear by this person,
I'm saying, I swear by a lot. I have only known what I know is that this man loves a lot and is a
messenger. Can you imagine Subhana Allah right? This person sin? Is he sinful? Yeah. Is he drinking?
Yeah, it's a major sin. But the prophets I send them now is testifying to the fate of this person to
to the love this person has for a lot and His Messenger. What is the president saying here? Press
I'm saying don't judge him. Right. Okay. What he's doing
		

			is wrong and yeah, to say, drinking is wrong, absolutely drinking is wrong is considered a sin, so
on and so forth. But don't make a hokum about this person. Don't say, you know, this is about or
curse this person, right? The person that I've said, I know that he loves a lot, His Messenger and
to Pamela how many of us would like the price that I'm testifies about us that we love a lot, and we
love Allah's Messenger, right? What an amazing status. What amazing thing this is, in another
narration, by the way, a person the same in this situation, one of the people he said, What is wrong
with this person? May Allah disgrace him right? Once again, judging that person, belittling him
		

			putting him aside, and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, not kuno ownership on the
icon, he said, do not help the ship on against your brother, meaning what this is the job of the
Shia been to to to mock people, to judge them to put them down. This is what the chiffon does, don't
be don't don't help the ship run against your brother. And that is why as believers, as Muslims, we
want to uplift people, we want to encourage them with good rather than, you know, mocking them,
putting them aside, belittling them making their situation worse, making them lose hope, that is the
job of the chiffon. And we certainly seek refuge in Allah, Allah from helping the Shabbat in that
		

			job. So that's number three. Number three advice should be given without judgment of that particular
individual, who we are giving advice to number four, the advice should be given privately. In other
words, we should not be giving that advice publicly. And once again, we ask ourselves, what is most
conducive to a positive result to change? If we publicly advise someone call them out in front of
other people? Is, are they are they going to listen to it? Are they more likely to listen to us? Or
if we take them aside, privately, gently, without the eyes of other people, we advise them on advise
them privately. Obviously, when you private, you take the ego out of the situation, right? Because,
		

			you know, oftentimes, when publicly even like somebody says something about us or whatever, because
the eyes are honest, we our ego may come into play, and we may, we're more likely to say, No, you're
wrong, like who are you to tell me what to do? And so on and so forth. And so what's more conducive
to change? Obviously, giving advice privately, is is is more conducive to change.
		

			That's why we want to advise people, we don't want to condemn them. We want to advise them, we don't
want to condemn them.
		

			What what is what are we talking about here? Are scholars of the past they would say advice is
linked to secrecy. privacy, while condemning is linked to publicising, right. So if you find
yourself publicly, advising someone, then this is more condemnation of that person, then it is
advice because if we were truly advising them, we would say to ourselves, this should be done
privately, it should not be done in public, Mr. Musharraf, or him Allah to Allah. He said, to
admonish your brother in private is to advise them, but to admonish your brother publicly is to
disgrace them is to shame them. Right? Once again, we don't want to disgrace the person, we don't
		

			want to condemn them. We don't want to shame them. Right. We that you know, that this is not how we
give advice by shaming someone. And once again, when was the last time shaming someone really,
really brought about a positive result? It's very difficult that when you shame someone publicly,
that they that it brings about a positive result and not and also panela. If a person you know, we
work with what we want to increase in them is they're tough.
		

			They're tough while the last puntata that by shaming them, we might be making them afraid of the
people, right? When there's something that comes way before that, and that is being shy in front of
Allah who's penalty Allah and not as why we say privately and not publicly. Our early scholars they
would say among Amara who Allah Rosen mela, Takada Yara, they will say the one who commands their
brother at the head of a gathering, right? They tell them something, they say something to them at
the head of a gathering have caught the era and they have condemned this person right now once you
make it public, right? Once you make this public then now you're condemning this person, you've
		

			you've almost set yourself if you're if you're trying to give advice you've tried to get proper
advice. you're setting yourself up to fail. When you I mean, look, let's let's talk about social
media. Right? When you call someone people are called out on social media online, how often right
and I'm not even talking about like big public figures. I'm talking about you or your friends or, or
acquaintances that you know, online. When was the last time you spoke out, you know, someone posted
something online and you're like, Yo, man, you're wrong and this and that, blah, blah, whatever.
		

			was the last time that actually solved anything? Right was the last time person said oh, I
appreciate you giving me this counsel and where it's hard man maybe you know some people like that
but that is not the vast majority of people the vast majority of people will it will be very very
hard for them to accept advice when you're doing it in front of people. So nonpublic, we don't want
to make this advice public. Part of not making it public is that our intention when giving this
advice is to not publicize their problem not to publicize their sin not to publicize their issue
rather a Muslim we want to conceal people's flaws we want to conceal their their their problems, we
		

			want to conceal want to hide their sins unfolded we would love to Allah He said a min yesterday
while he said a believer conceals and advises one factor. Yeah. deki will factor Yeah. Yeah, thick.
Why your idea? He said as for a sinful person as an evil door. What do they do they disgrace and
they condemn, right. This is how the two different parties deal with someone's flaws or problems and
min Yes, throwaway why inside a believer hides a believer hides conceals a person's fault. And they
advise them as for an evil door, they disgrace and they condemn once again, they make it public,
they try to expose their sins. We don't want once again, but doing it publicly, a lot of times that
		

			means we're just shaming this person. There's a hadith that I wanted to share with you. It's
actually a very scary hydrates of how to love and you know anyone who hears this hadith
		

			you have to be scared so how to love How do you think rather than Java know the Aloha I'm I
mentioned incident tivity many of our scholars considered this Hadeeth to be acceptable. Some of our
scholars said there's some weakness in this Hadith, but some many of our scholars did consider this
headache to be acceptable.
		

			What is this heady in this hadith the prophets I send them he said Monday I Yahoo be the min he said
the one who shames their brother for a sin Lemmy mo tecta Yamato. So how to lie, the one who shames
their brother for a sin will not die until they themselves fall into that very sin. So how scary is
that? That instead of advising the person privately concealing their sin, what do we do we publicize
their sin? Right? What does that what does that do? We're shaming the person we're mocking the
person we're disgracing that person. But the President has said that a person who does this, they
will find that they themselves, they will not die until they themselves fall into that very sin
		

			mellows out to protect us from something like that. So once again, this condition that we do it
privately. And also this speaks to our sincerity. Again, if we're sincere, we're not looking for the
attention, we only want the person we want positive change, we want to do what's best to change this
person for the good, then we will be more willing to advise them privately, rather than advising
them publicly. One quick side note I wanted to make here. There are exceptions to this rule. There
are times when we don't conceal the flaw. We don't conceal the sin. For example, if someone's rights
are being infringed, upon, or someone is being harmed or something like that, we don't say no, I'm
		

			going to hide this in, you know, for example, if there's a case of, for example, this case of
domestic violence, and you know, a sister comes to us, or in you know, they come the sister comes to
someone and says, you know, my husband is beating me and he's harming me, and so on and so forth. We
don't say no, no, just be patient. You know, we can't talk about this. We can't tell anyone.
Obviously, we're I'm not saying go post about it online and make a big scene out of it. But you have
to tell you have to inform on this person to get rid of that harm. And that that may mean that some
people need to find out right certain people, obviously, we tried to restrict it as much as
		

			possible. But there are certain cases, yes, certain cases that a person's sins have to be exposed.
Right. Now also, when it comes to a marriage inquiry, if somebody asks us for marriage, they say,
you know, I'm thinking this person proposed to me or I'm considering marrying this person, do you
know of anything bad about them? It is our responsibility to let this person know, in this case is
not considered exposing this person since this is considered an exception because it serves a
particular purpose. And so there are exceptions. But the default is that we don't publicize we don't
we don't. We don't.
		

			We don't publicize, we don't put out to open whether it be the internet or just speaking to other
people about about other's sins. Okay, so that's number four. Number five, and this is the last last
thing we're going to do the last thing we do before we give advice or less conditions we can say of
giving advice is that
		

			The advice shouldn't be given personally, the advice should be given personally. Now, what do I mean
by that? Well, first of all, if you're posting about this person, if you're advising them online,
then that's not personal. That's not in person that is, once again in public and through other
channels, right? It's like so Pamela, I want to invite somebody, and I go out, and I buy a
billboard, right? And I on the Billboard, I put this person, this person, hey, so and so first name,
middle name, last name, address.
		

			I saw you doing this sin, don't do this sin, right. Is that advice? In a way? It's advice? But is
that personal? No, that is you're, you're putting up a sign to to advise this person. Likewise,
that's what happens. That's what the online world is, right?
		

			It's not it's not it's not restricted. How many people will now have access to that it's impersonal.
It's not in person. And sometimes, we will advise someone by talking to other people about them.
Right? Oh, you know, so and so he does this or whatever, whatever. And when you ask the person like,
Hey, why are you talking to other people about this, about this person? They'll say, Oh, I'm just
advising that person. I'm letting people know, someone can go advise them, right? Oh, I'm letting
this group of people know. So these group of people can now go and give this advice that is not
personal, that is not in person. Advice should be given in person. Number one, two main reasons we
		

			can we can summarize this point and two main reasons. Number one, because obviously, personal advice
is going to once again, what's most conducive to positive change, public publicly, impersonal
advice, or privately as we said, in the previous condition, and personal, you go to the person, and
you talk to them, even Subhanallah, even the difference between speaking to that person in person
versus sending them a text message or sending them an email, you will see Subhana Allah, that
they're even, you know, you would say like a text message, an email is considered very personal,
it's not as personal as actually going to that person needing them, and advising them, and you will
		

			handle it. And I've seen it happen, the difference, it can make simply a person personally going to
them, and that shows them that you care about them. Right. It shows them that you want good for
them, that you're not trying to expose their sins, you're not trying to it's not them, you know, it
shows that you you you actually feel something right, you want goodness for them. This is sincere
advances that Nestle had the president of Edina mostly had this is the naseeha that the President is
talking about. So number one, we give personally give advice personally, right? Because it is once
again the it will be more conducive to a good result to positive change. Number two, we protect
		

			ourselves from falling into sins, like backbiting, rumor mongering, if right spreading rumors
spreading,
		

			you know, spreading rumors about this person, which are these are major, major, major sins into
sounds you've had a lot backbiting. How can it become backbiting? Well, the more parties that are
involved, the more chances are becomes backed by it. Even if I say oh, I don't want to go give this
advice. Personally. I'll tell someone so hey, can you convey my message to them? Now that person is
a third party that I have exposed this person's sins to I've spoken bad about them. What are the
parts that I'm saying backbiting is the cuca Hawk be Maria Cora, to say something about your brother
that they wouldn't like for you to say, right? And let alone we know this to be the case. You tell
		

			one person they tell one person to tell one person it's like the Coronavirus mailhot protect this
we've had a lot. One person infects five people, five people each infect five people. And this is
how rumors spread. This is this is what turns into if it turns into rumor mongering which once again
is a major sent we want to protect ourselves from not that we don't want to be and this is one of
the tricks of the she have been that he will come to us and say give advice. But through giving
advice we fall into so many other sins and that is how the she upon may get a person who normally is
any maybe they're a religious person, they they try to practice the deen of Allah to Allah they're
		

			considered a pious person, they're considered good Muslim. So the shape will come to them and say,
hey, go commit this sin or that sin or go drink alcohol or do this or that whatever, right? Go
commit Zina what the Bible said, Oh, no, no, how would you advise your brother and because the
person didn't have the knowledge and understanding of how to give advice, they may fall into sins,
right. And some of these, as I said, are major sins. And that is why this topic is so important.
That is why this topic is so important. This is the very least by the way, our scholars have put
other conditions as well. When it comes to giving advice. This is the very least we need to do. When
		

			we give it by when we give advice to someone we ask ourselves are these five conditions met or not
if these five conditions are not met
		

			then
		

			We have a problem, right? And so this is what we need to keep in mind. I think this is a topic that,
you know, I hope y'all can share this with your friends and family members and gentlemen, tada,
because this is honestly like this should be Islam 101 this is part of Islamic behavior, this is
part of having good etiquette having good other this part of good character, this shouldn't be the
default. So honestly, we should be defined by this type of character like not Muslims should,
should, when they come across a Muslim, they should say, Man, they're so careful when it comes to
speaking about other people, even when they advise someone, you know, they, they're, they take into
		

			account their feelings. They, they, you know, they, they're so careful about talking about other
people, right, they don't publicize their issues and so on and so forth. They know how careful
Muslims are and how much Muslims cared, because that should be our default. Right? That is a lot of
times to paddle up. And that's our data that we make, right? Our character. And I know you've heard
this before, but our character is is a is one of the main ways that we make deco when people see
that this is how a Muslim is right more so a lot of times and saying you know, preaching right you
know, you should do this and you should do that you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that. People
		

			see who you are as a as an individual, what is your What are your morals? Like? What is your
character like that and what stands out so much and that is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam he said in them a birth doula who told me my Makarem and he said I've been sent to perfect
good character in the match. He said, I've only been sent to perfect good character meaning this is
so as it's an important part of my message, that it is a saying as if this is the only reason I was
sent to perfect good character, because character can have such a big impact
		

			on the life that we're living in the people around us and their perception and their view of Islam.
So ask the last time tiada to give us the ability to implement these matters. before and during
giving advice to other people. And as I said, This is part two of the previous lecture these two
lectures together, inshallah can be helpful when it comes to us dealing with other people, whether
in person, or whether online, and Allah Subhana. Allah knows best subhanak Aloma behenic a shadow
Illa Illa Allah and Estelle Furukawa to Buddha