Yasir Qadhi – Amanah- The Concept of A Sacred Trust
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AI: Transcript ©
So, I recited Surat Al Hujurat, and all
of Surat Al Hujurat deals with akhlaq, deals
with mannerisms of the believers. And our Prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam said, I have only
been sent to perfect good manners. Innamaburitu
luutam mima makadimat akhlaq.
In today's lecture, I wanted to bring up
an etiquette issue that I feel many of
us are not cognizant of, we're not aware
of. Sometimes we might even be unconsciously, not
even knowingly disobeying Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And
that is the issue of
maintaining
the privacy of conversations that we have with
other people.
This comes under the issue of protecting one's
amana. Allah says in the Quran, the believers
are those who fulfill, walladeena hoomla amanaatihim
wa'athihim ra'oon. They fulfill their trust and their
promises. And our Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
4 are the characteristics
of the hypocrites.
One of them, when he's given an amana,
he betrays the amana. Now most of us
think of an amana as a physical item.
Most of us think amana means I gave
you something to safeguard. You're gonna return it
back to me. And that is an amana.
But what is also an amana,
along with a physical item,
is information of the tongue.
This is also amana. When you have a
conversation with somebody, when somebody text messages you,
when somebody phone calls you, when somebody meets
you and the masjid pulls you aside and
tells you something specific,
the default, which many of us are not
aware of,
anything said in private
is supposed to remain private.
This is something explicit in our sharia. Our
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,
if a person speaks to another person and
then turns around, what he said shall be
an amana.
Idahhadafrajulbirrajul.
When a man speaks to another man and
then he leaves you, he goes away, whatever
was said to you, literally the prophet said,
that is Amanah. And this hadith is in
Abu Dawood. In another hadith in,
in Musaliba Muhammad and in Tabarani,
our prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam said, al
majalisu
bil amana. That when you're sitting in a
gathering, your some 2 people, 3 people are
together, and they have a conversation. It's called
a majlis. A majlis, when you're sitting down,
jalsa. Al majalis, you and some person are
sitting down, you and 2 people are sitting
down, you have some information, you tell somebody
I got a new job. You tell somebody
your salary. You tell somebody some information about
your life. It's between those two people
for you to go and spread it on
the internet. Go and tell other people you
have betrayed an Amanah that was given unto
you. Now, again, the reality here, many of
us, unfortunately, we don't understand and we say,
Oh, but he didn't tell me to keep
it a secret. Dear Muslims, we're not high
school kids that I have to promise you,
swear your right hand and say this is
a secret. Of course, if somebody says to
you, akhir, this is an amana, this is
secret, then the the the sanctity has increased.
But what I'm trying to to explain,
even if he doesn't say, raise your right
hand and swear you on your hold, let's
let's exchange oaths. This is high school stuff.
Even if a person does not say this
to you,
any
sensitive information
that is shared with you,
the default,
you need to keep your mouth quiet. It
is an amana that he's either because the
brother loves you, he wants to give you
some good news. Right? Or he's trying to
get your advice, or whatever it might be,
he's chosen you for an Amanah.
For you to spread this to other people,
you are betraying his Amanah. And obviously there's
exceptions. We'll get to some of the major
exceptions, but the most obvious exception, if it
is public news. Obviously, if it's a public
news, he's gotten a public posting, everybody's gonna
hear about it, then of course that's not
an Amanah, it's a public news. But if
anything is sensitive,
secret, anything that is private,
personal,
the default,
everything that is said is something that is
a manah.
And there are so many examples in the
life of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
in this regard.
When, the mother of the believers Hafsa radiAllahu
anha, when her first husband died, so she
became a widow. So,
Umar ibn Khadab radiAllahu an, he went to
Uthman ibn Affan radiAllahu an. He said, You
know, Hafsa, she's my daughter. She became a
widow. She's a young lady. You know, can
you would you be interested in her? And
Uthman radhiallahu an was quiet and then he
said, I don't want to get married right
now. Even though at the time he was
single. And so basically he's refusing her. Umrah
said, This really hurt me. Then after a
while he goes to Ubakar Sadiq radiallahu an.
He goes, Yeah, Abba Bakr, you know my
daughter, she's a widow. We're looking for a
husband. I trust you. You're a good man.
Would you be interested?
And Abu Bakr as Siddiq says, I don't
wanna get married right now. And Umar al
Khattab said, That hurt me even more than
Uthman radiAllahu an. Like, what's wrong with my
daughter? Why doesn't these are the best people
I know. Then after a few days, the
prophet al salallahu alayhi wa sallam's proposal came
for Hafsa.
Then Umar al Khattab obviously agreed. Then individually,
both Uthman and Abu Bakr, they visited Umar
privately. And they said, Oh, Umar radiAllahu anhu,
Oh, Umar, you know when you came, perhaps
you felt
something in your heart? He said, Yes, I
did. So then both Uthman and Abu Bakr
separately, they're not even knowing each other. Separately,
they said, the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
had come asking me what
we thought what I thought about him marrying
Hafsa,
and I could not share the amana and
the sir of the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam,
so I just had to say no.
Each one of them did not even know
about the other because they're not sharing it
with each other. But each one of them
goes back to Umar radiAllahu an and explains
that the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam came
to me asking my advice, and I knew
he was interested in hafsa. When he's interested,
how can I possibly propose or be interested?
Notice they are The prophet didn't say raise
your hand and swear at salam alayhi wasalam.
That's understood. It's a very sensitive information. You
don't go and tell other people this. Also,
the other incident which is mentioned on his
death, basallahu alaihi wasalam, that he was sick,
he had a fever, the water was being
poured on him. He said, call Fatima for
me. He's about to pass away, but nobody
knew at the time. Fatima radiAllahu anha came,
and he motioned her. He was so weak,
he couldn't he just motioned her. So Fatima
radiAllahu anha came. He brought her close to
his ear. He whispered something. She began to
cry, cry, cry. So the prophet salasam calmed
her down, come again, whispered something, then she
laughed. And after a while, she's walking out.
Aisha radiAllahu anha calls her, says, Oh Fatima,
what did the prophet say? You laughed, you
cried, I need to know Fatima. And her
father is passing away. Fatima said, wallahi, I
will never spill the amana of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. I can't tell you. Many
months later, after the prophet passed away, they
made again. And once again Aisha said, Oh
Fatima, can you now tell me? She said,
Now I can tell you. Now I can
tell you because now the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasalam is gone. It's no longer a Sir
or amana. When he first whispered to me,
he told me, this is his end, his
death. He's gonna leave. Because nobody was expecting
him to die at that time, but he
told Fatim, this is it. I began to
cry. When I began to cry, he then
called
me again, and he goes, I will be
the first person of his family to pass
away, and I'll be the 1st to meet
him in Jannah, so I became happy that
I'm not gonna live too long without him.
And you know, she's only 6 months after
the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. So she kept
this amana
until you can now when the process is
gone, now you can tell because now it's
no longer the what needed to be kept
secret. And this also shows you look at
the context in this regard. And
therefore, we have to understand
that any conversation,
any information,
any text message, any phone call, anything that
is said to us, the default is that
we keep it and do not say to
other people. Now, there is other types of
amana, which not doesn't necessarily come under amana,
but it comes under concealing the sins and
covering up from other people. And of them
is that if you come across
accidentally
a sin that your brother or sister is
doing, if you happen to come across that,
oh, you saw the person drinking or smoking
or something they should not do, and you
are now privy to this, This too comes
under the default that this is, even though
we wouldn't call it an amana, but we
will call it that siddr. We call it
covering. And our Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, said
that, mansatara
akhahu Whoever covers the false of his sin,
Allah will cover his false on the day
of judgment. This hadith is explicit about sins.
It's not about just a manah. It's literally
about a mistake and a fault. If you
come across a personal sin or fault of
another Muslim or even 2 people doing something
they should not do, and you saw this,
it is not your business if it's something
that's not gonna harm other people. We're gonna
come to exceptions in a while. It's not
your business to go tell other people this
reality.
And then worse than an accidental
is if you intentionally
want to find a mistake and you intentionally
are monitoring
any type of issue. Our Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam said, hadith is Abu Dawood. He
said
to the hypocrites who had embraced Islam. He
said, oh, those who claim to be Muslims,
I just recited in Surat Al Hujurat that
iman has not entered your heart. The prophet
literally said, oh, those whose tongue say they're
Muslim, but iman has not entered your heart.
I warn you from following
the mistakes of the believers, tatabbu auratal muslimeen.
I warn you, do not be eager to
follow the mistakes of the believers. Pause here.
Wallahi, this is a disease in our times.
The drama we love to create, the gossip
we love to create, and our prophet salallahu
alayhi wasalam is telling us, I warn you,
don't make it your business to follow the
mistakes of other believers. Awarat of the Muslimeen.
Auraat means the private sins. This is literally
something should be covered up. But then he
said, whoever does this, whoever follows the mistakes
of the believers,
Allah
will humiliate him. Even if he tries to
take cover in his own house, Allah will
lift that cover and humiliate him in front
of all of mankind. So this is a
warning that this is also a type of
covering. And then of course the worst type.
So we talked about personal amana, we talked
about sitar, we talked about following the mistakes.
And now the worst type, Surat al Hujurat,
walatajassasu.
Do not spy on other people. Do not
intentionally
conceal yourself. And in our times, spying also
means surveillance. Right? Spying can also mean, you
know, you put some bug in the phone.
I don't know how, you know, some people
can do that. Or you put something on
the car, or you do this and that.
Audubillah, you put some secret camera on somebody
else's property or house. Audubillah, audubillah. Obviously, we're
not talking about your house and protection. We're
talking about tajasus. You all know the difference.
Right? And tajasus
is a major sin. Wala tajasasu. Allah says
Surah Ujural. And tajasus
doesn't even have to be something that is
surreptitious.
In a famous incident that Ibn Kathir and
others report that Umar ibn Khattar radiAllahu an,
he was walking in in the streets of
Madinah patrolling, because it's his job to patrol.
He's the amir, he's the khalifa, and he
had with him the chief of the security.
Right? And in the middle of the night,
in a faraway house, they saw the light
open. So they walked towards that house, and
they
hear the sound of wine glasses and people
laughing and joking as you would expect when
that type of ruckus party is taking place,
drunk people, you hear their sound. Now, by
the way, as I've explained so many times,
you know, our religion is divine, our history
is human. This is happening in Medina in
the reign of Umar Malkhattar radiAllahu. And people
are always gonna be people, we have to
be realistic about our history and our past.
In Umar Malkhattar radiAllahu's time, he comes across
this house, you know, 2 AM at night,
a bunch of men getting drunk, drinking, whatnot,
and the chief of police, the person with
him, he became angry. He wanted to barge
and open the door. Umar Mahkadab held his
hand. He goes, No. Allah says in the
Quran, walla tajasasu,
and this is tajasus.
They're doing it in their house. I'm with
this is to break in and to see
what they're doing. This is tajasus. Can you
believe? And you know, I don't even need
to explain to you the overzealous
mentality that our current, you know, mindset is
of those who believe they're the icons of
guarding Islam. Aoodhubillah, they don't understand the goals
of their shari'ah. Private sins are remaining private.
Even if you can hear it in the
house, you don't barge in and check. It's
not your business. You give a khutba the
next day and you give a generic warning
about drinking, no problem. But you do not
barge into people's houses and see what they
are doing. This is tajasus
by the exact definition of Ramun al Khattab
radiAllahu ta'ala An. Now to conclude, though, there
are exceptions, and I have to mention these
exceptions. The default, you don't say anything to
another person. There are exceptions. I'll mention 5
of them. Number 1, the most obvious one,
a court of law. You are called by
the judge, you are called by the shayri
court or even a regular court that is
wanting to investigate a crime and you are
a witness. In this case, there is no
concealment, you know. Allah says, walataktumushahada.
Do not conceal testimony. And Allah says in
the Quran,
yaaywuladeenaminu
koonukawameenabilakastushuhadaalillahi
walawalaanfussikum
awwilwalidainiwal
akarabeen. Be firm in your testimony to Allah.
Be firm in your shahada,
even if it is against yourselves and it
is against your own father and mother. Al
walidayn,
if you are called in the court and
the court asks you, did your father commit
this Did your mother commit this crime? The
Sharia, the Quran is explicit. Now you
have to bear witness and testimony because law
is law. And even if
it's against your own family or against yourself,
we don't have the 5th amendment in Islam.
Understand this point?
We cannot plead the 5th, right, in an
Islamic court. You have to bear witness even
against yourself according to the Quran. So this
is the first exception. There is no hiding
and concealing. The second exception
is a specific nasiha for an obvious reason.
Somebody comes and asks you a question about
another person for an obvious reason, marriage or
business partnership or wanting to do something with
that person. And he says, Akhi, you know,
this person has proposed, you know, for my
daughter, for my this the family has proposed
this daughter in this family. What do you
know of this family? Can do you think
it's a good proposal? Now, this is not.
Now you have to be open. And now
you must, you know, be very frank and
say what you know about this family because
now this is a maslaha or a prerogative
that that is necessary for the person to
know. So this is the second
reality. And of course, this is proven in
the hadith, multiple hadith of them. Fatiha bintiqais,
She came to the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
She said, you Rasulullah, you know, she she
had lost her husband. She's a widow. Now
she their idah has finished. You Rasulullah,
I've gotten 2 proposals. 1 from Muawiya ibn
Abu Sufyan, and the other from Abu Jaham.
Which one should I accept? So the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, amma muawiyah fasa'lukullamalala.
As for Muawiyah,
he is somebody who is bankrupt. He has
no money. And as for Abu Jahham, he
is somebody who is known to beat his
wives. Pause here. Notice multiple things by the
way. Number 1, and this is a very
deep hadith or maybe another khatr I'll give.
There's nothing wrong with except with rejecting somebody
who cannot take care of you financially. Fatima
was used to a standard of living, and
the Prophet was saying, Muawiyah is not your
standard. Muawiyah has no money. And by the
way, Muawiyah had no money at this time.
40 years later, he will be one of
the wealthiest people in all of Islamic history
because he becomes the khalifa. But you judge
people at that time. So Muawiyah as saluk,
he is bankrupt, he has no money, It's
not gonna be a good match for you.
And ask for Abu Jahan. Abu Jahan is
somebody who beats his women. Again, he said
something that otherwise you should cover up. Meaning,
somebody's bankrupt, you don't expose it. Somebody doesn't
have any money, and somebody's beating up the
women. You don't publicly, you know, say something
embarrassing unless there's a reason to prevent. Now
you wanna prevent. Now you wanna make sure
this doesn't happen again. And so he will
tell Fatima,
do not marry. And again, this is common
sense here. You know a person's badaqlah. He's
not a good person to his women. He
should not be marrying another woman. So now
when the time comes, you then tell that
person. So this is the second specific nasiha
for a reason. The third is if you
have to get a fatwa from a shaykh
ul 'alim, and you have to say something
specific about another person. Right? If you must
say, even though our scholars say, if you
can hide the identity, it is better. But
sometimes you cannot, and sometimes you must be
explicit in this regard. And there are a
number of examples. There's, a bit of an
awkward one, but it is from the hadith
and we should learn this, that,
a lady got married to a man,
and that man had a medical,
incapability
to consummate the marriage. You forget my drift
here. Right? And she had no option or
alternative because the man concealed a fault. And
if you have a medical fault, oh Muslim,
you cannot conceal a medical fault from a
future spouse. This is khiyana. This is a
betrayal of trust. So this was a man
who could not, you know, be a man
in the relationship. You know, he had a
medical issue. So she literally
went to the prophet al salam and she
said in front of everybody, even though it
is what it is, that this is a
man, you know, and he she picked up
her thawb and she goes, then she made
the ishaa, I was like, this is like
the end of my thawb. Like he cannot
be a man to me. What do I
do now? So the Prophet had to give
the khula and whatnot. This is a fatwa.
In a fatwa, she has to be explicit.
So once again, clearly when you have to
get the fatwa, you're allowed to mention something
that might be embarrassing or something that is,
specific. This is point number 3. Point number
4, if the secret or the amana or
whatever information you know is going to cause
harm to somebody else,
if it's something that will cause harm, Allah
says in the Quran, wajaamin aqasalmadidi
rajun rasa'a wajaaraju min aqasalmadini
rasaqaalayamusa
inal malayatamalunabikah.
1 of the viziers of Firaun, he came
running to Musa and he goes, O Musa,
the ministers of Firaun are wanting to kill
you. They're having a secret meaning, they wanted
to kill you.
Get out, I am a sincere
nasi to you. This was an amana.
In that secret gathering, Firaun decided to kill
Musa.
But this is not an amana that you
have to obey. On the contrary,
Allah praises the man. Because when you're privy
to information that is astaghfirullah,
assassination attempt, astaghfirullah,
crime, you cannot keep it, and you have
to go and prevent or help people. This
is the 4th category. And then the 5th
one,
really it's the same as the 4th, but
more specific I wanna say, a sin
that is not personal,
but will affect other people.
Because a personal sin, drinking, drugs, alcohol,
even zina, a personal sin. It's none of
your business to go tell other people about
a personal sin. You go directly to that
person. There's an explicit Athar. One of the
tabirun,
his name he's
one of the sununas of the sahaba that
a man came to and he goes that,
I know my neighbor is drinking. I know
I have seen it my neighbor is drinking.
Should I go and tell, you know,
the imara to the police, whatever, the Islamic
Imara, you know, the whatnot. And the neighbor
said to him, no, it's not your business
to go and say, if he's doing it
in his house and you happen to see
it from your house, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has demanded that you cover up the false
of your believer. This is explicit.
So if it is a personal private sin
that's not affecting anybody, and the Tabi'i said
to him, you should go to him directly,
and address him directly, and tell him to
fear Allah directly, but do not go to
the police. Do not go to the sultan.
And this is an Islamic emirate. This is
the khulafa ar Rashidun. He goes, No, don't
do this. And we already told you the
incident of Amrul Khattab. However,
if somebody
is predatory,
if somebody is embezzling,
stealing, if somebody is a fraud, if somebody
is a threat to public order, that is
different. And Allah says in the Quran, la
yurhibbullahu
jahara bisunqoori laman dhulim Allah does not love
you publicize
any type of evil unless zulum has occurred.
So if somebody is going to be doing
zulm to other people, then yes, you must
prevent in a reasonable manner and use whatever
means necessary to And again, there's a wisdom
here because again, if somebody is local, you
don't go and put it online for 10,000,000,000
people to read. You go to that person
or the authorities in that area and you
use your wisdom in order to stop it.
Bottom line, and InshaAllah, with this we conclude.
Isn't it amazing
that our shari'ah
has taken care of even such minute aspects
of our akhlaq?
Isn't it absolutely mind boggling that something as
trivial as, hey, if you have a conversation,
then keep it secret. Our Prophet is advising
us, and he's instructing us what a beautiful
faith we have, what an amazing
tradition that we have, that we are told
to have these beautiful akhlaah. And this goes
back to exactly what our Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said, innamaburithu
liutam mima maqarimal akhlaah. I have been sent
to perfect good manners.