The Role of Adab in Society

I read an article speaking about a study that was carried out by a man by the name of Richard Blancombe and he is a professor in anthropology at Purdue University. They carried out a phenomenal study I wanted to share with you that is very much connected with the series that I'm introducing for you at this moment. They carried out an investigation on 30 pre-modern societies. They discovered that even, and I quote, good governments, societies that had good governments, they were not immune from a catastrophic demise and decline. They found, when they investigated these 30 pre-modern societies, That those societies where their governments were good and just and fair, societies that had governments that prevented power inequality and wealth inequality, that distributed resources and wealth fairly between people, they found that those societies tended to collapse even quicker than societies that were led by despots, tyrants. Why is this? How can it be the case? They found that there was a common feature between all of those societies that were quick to fall and crumble even if they were good governments and fair and that commonality was that they had leaders who failed. in protecting their societies because what those leaders had done was that they had torn apart the social fabric and the morality of that society. This was their conclusion. Our Muslim poet Ahmad Shawqi he said He said nations are by their manners. The future of nations is connected to their manners and their morality. Those nations endure as far as those morality, their morality endures. He said, فَإِنْ هُمُوا ذَهَبَتْ أَخْلَاقُهُمْ ذَهَبُوا But when their morality declines, so will their civilization. Today, alhamdulillah, computer processors are faster than ever before. Computer chips, they are smaller than ever before. The mobile phones that I see in your hands, they are more dynamic. than ever before. Yet all of this technological advancement has not led to an improvement in the human condition. And most certainly the advancement in technology has not led to an advancement in morality and mannerisms. The opposite is true. I was thinking to myself, what is the best possible way of introducing this series of talks? That's going to be a while to be honest with you. You will be here for a few weeks, a few months. to discuss the title of our ways, our mannerisms, our way with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, with the rest of creation and with ourselves. What is the best way I could introduce this topic, this series to my brothers and sisters? Then Allah guided me to a phenomenal article. I encourage you to read it. By a man called Paul Kingsnorth and the title of the article is, The West has lost its virtue. We have abandoned the taboos that held us together. Again, the title of the article. The West has lost its virtue. We have abandoned the taboos that held us together. Kingsnorth in the article, he argues that the West is declining. He says the West is crumbling. And he quotes people like Oswald Spengler in his book, The Decline of the West, who says that not only is it declining, He predicted that it will be in the 21st century that we will see the full manifestations of this crumbling. And he says, i.e. Kingsnorth in the article, that there's only one thing that really brings the West together. There's only been one thing that has held it all together, a commonality. And that thing is the Christian church. He says that the Christian church... is what permeated every aspect of Western society from its eastern and western parts. He said the West is Christendom. Christianity, he said, influenced. The working week, it affected the taxes that we pay, it affects how we see family, sexual morality or the lack thereof, how we see right and how we see wrong, how we view our neighbor. How we see spirituality, how we look into politics, war and peace. He said Christianity affected the way of the human mind here in the modern man in the West. And since time in antiquity as well, it's been about Christianity. He said, however, Christendom today is no more. He said, and I quote, that if you are living in the West today, you are living in the ruins of the West. And he said, don't be deceived by the fact that you can still see the ruins, i.e. just because there are big beautiful cathedrals, huge churches, just because you know of the symphonies and the songs of the people of the past and the concerts of antiquity. He said, don't be deceived. This is still the ruins. He said, Christendom is no more. Then he says in the article that what happens when you have an old culture, that was built upon a sacred order, built upon a religion, and that old culture begins to die, what happens is that there is upheaval, there is a disturbance across every aspect of society. Across politics, money, sexuality, economics, family, society, there is a huge tension, a disturbance, an upheaval that happens when an old culture begins to die that was built upon a religion or a sacred order. He says during that time an empty space is left, a vacuum, and everything is up for grabs. Anybody can claim what they want. He says, welcome to the 21st century. And he quotes in his book a philosopher, and you will see where I'm going with all of this in a moment, bear with me. He quotes a philosopher by the name of Alasdair MacIntyre, who has a book called After Virtue. And he says that if human life is made meaningless, If you as a human being, you now have no meaning connected to God, you are just an earthly being, then there is no accountability. And what is the meaning of virtue? What is the meaning of morality? None of these things mean anything anymore when you remove God from the equation. And he said that when you forget the reason why certain things were forbidden in your culture, You forget the taboos, you forget right and wrong, and morality comes crashing down. And he gives an example of the Polynesian communities and how they had forgotten the reason why they had taboos and morality. And so it all disappeared. English seamen, Alasdair MacIntyre, he said, made their way to Polynesia. Polynesia is of course a sub-region of Oceania that is made up of around a thousand islands. New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, South and Central Pacific Ocean. This is called Polynesia is there. So he said the English seamen, they made their way to Polynesia and they were amazed because they saw that there was such a contradiction in their behavior. On one hand, they were really lax when it comes to sexual misconduct. Promiscuity was everywhere, fornication. And on the other end, they had this taboo, this forbidden custom that men and women cannot eat together. So on one end, there was promiscuity and adultery, and on the other end, strange men and women, they were not allowed to eat together. So when these English seamen, they asked them, how is it that this is the case? You're not allowed to eat together. They couldn't give them a solid answer. They said, it's just taboo. Taboo, it's forbidden. It's our morality. Why? Don't really know. They pushed them for answers, they inquired a little bit more, and they found that they had actually completely forgotten why men and women were not allowed to eat together. They just do it. Kingsnorth says because a vacuum, because a space was left open in Polynesia, and nature hates empty spaces, it has to fill it with something, the English seamen were able to arrive at Polynesia and install Protestant Christianity, no issues. Because there was no resistance, there was no culture, there was no morality, there was no sacred order to bring it all together, so they were able to take anything. Why do I mention this? Because the author, Kingsnorth, he goes on to say that when a culture or a society reaches a point where it begins to forget why certain things were right and wrong, it forgets morality, because the religion is now gone, it becomes like a domino effect. One push, one shove, and everything comes crashing down, one after the other. And he said, this is where we are today in the West. He said, our taboos that used to hold us together, our morality, our virtue has disappeared. It has crumbled. There's an empty space now waiting to be taken by someone. And he said, don't you dare think or assume that this is another religion or a culture from outside that came into the West and changed us and converted us. He said, no, this is our doing. This is our behavior. We chose this way. He said since the 1960s. All of our forbidden things and our customs and our morality has been tumbling down one after the other. And we did this, nobody else. And then he goes on to say that we've been trying to rebuild now this idea of morality. We're trying to resurrect it. Since the Enlightenment, the 1800s, we've been trying to rebuild this idea of morality. But for the first time in Western history, they're trying to build, he says, a morality that is disconnected from God. A morality that is based upon man. So he said, if morality is going to be judged by what you think is right, not God Almighty, who are you accountable? He said, nobody. Who is the final arbiter now? If you are the one who says everything and decides everything. And he goes on to say towards the end of the article, that at the heart of every culture there is a throne. At the heart of every civilization is a throne. And whoever sits on that throne becomes the force which you take your instruction from. He said in the West that used to be God Almighty. And today in modernity we have removed God, astaghfirullah wa atubu ilayh, and we have placed the human being there instead. We have removed religion, cut it out from our lives, and instead we have installed man. We have installed, and he says, democracy, liberalism, freedoms, your rights. He said, now the modern day religion is market worship and capitalism. This is what governs our thoughts. And look at Brexit. What were the conversations that people were having about whether we should remain or whether we should leave? It was nothing to do with religion or God or morality or ethics or family. No. It was all about dunya, it's about worldly matters, about race, it's about money. Those who wanted to leave the EU, what were they saying? They leave us. We want our independence. We want to protect our borders. It's us. It's our race. Those who wanted to remain in the EU, what was their argument? Economy. Mobile phone roaming charges. This is the talk. No one's talking about family. That's no longer part of the Western discussion. No one's talking about God, religion, worship. It's about market worship. And he says, therefore, the modern man, these are his words, the modern man has become a broken worshipper before the idol of progress, he calls it. Cut out, no center, no direction, no vision, no future, and there is a vacuum and the West is waiting, he says, for someone to fill it. And then he quotes McIntyre who said, listen to these words, this is the conclusion. He said that the West today is waiting for a new and a very different Saint Benedict. Saint Benedict, an Italian Catholic monk, who was considered to be a religious reformer with the Catholics, he said, today the West is waiting for a new and a very different Saint Benedict. In the conclusion of the article, Kings North, he says, that the West is not short on ideas, is not short on weaponry. is not short on insults and it's not short on machines. The West is very short on saints. That's the end of the article. So you see today, it's a perfect opportunity for the many cultures, for the many civilizations and religions out there to showcase themselves as an alternative that the West so badly wants and needs to fill the space that has been created. And what better way is there for us as Muslims? Who claim to be the chosen people of Allah and the finest of all nations? What better way is there to showcase our religion to the world than presenting our adab, our mannerisms, whether they are with Allah or with the people or any aspect of life? So, with this short introduction, let us begin. I'm going to give you a very quick and technical entry into the topic of adab because we're going to be using this word adab, singular, and adab, plural, a lot for the next couple of months. Bear with me a few minutes and then we will move on. When we say that we have come here on a Thursday evening to study the topic of adab mannerisms, what do we mean? The word adab that we've translated into mannerisms comes from the root letters alif and dal and ba. When these letters they come together it is in reference to an invitation that is made. When you call someone or you invite them this is called adab and the caller he is adib. That's why Ibn Faris, the linguist, he said, قَالْأَدَبُ هُوَ دُعَاءُ الشَّيْءِ إِذَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ هُوَ دُعَاءُ النَّاسِ إِلَىٰ شَيْءٍ إِذَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ أَدَب is the idea of inviting people to something. Invitation. And he says, this is why a table that is filled with food is called in Arabic what? What is it called? Ya Ma'duba Why is it called a Ma'duba? The same three letters because you invite people to come and eat from the food, the idea of inviting and he said the one who makes the invitation is called a Adib same three letters, Adib Why? Because he is the Da'i, he is the inviter So this is Adab from a linguistic perspective What does adab mean from a technical perspective? Meaning, what is the topic that we are coming to study today? Why is mannerisms connected to the idea of inviting? Inviting to what? Let me explain. The technical definition of the topic we have come to study, here is one. Take note of it. Ibn Hajar says, Al-Adab is to use what is said and done. Al-Adab is praiseworthy behavior with respect to speech and actions. That is the summary of why we are here. Al-Adab is in reference to praiseworthy behavior, whether in respect to speech or actions. One final definition. Al-Jurjani, he said, defining the topic of Adab, he said, Al-Adab is a phrase. Using Al-Adab is a phrase. He said, Al-Adab is the idea of knowing what is wrong and avoiding every mistake. The idea of knowing what is wrong and the avoidance of these wrongs. If you put these two definitions together, very simply put, the topic of adab is simply about the art of doing things right. That's why we are here, to understand what is right and to do it, and to understand what is wrong and to avoid it. The idea of adab is to behave in a praiseworthy way and to not act as an idiot. That's the idea of adapt. That's it. So these are the technical definitions of the topic of adab. This is what we are here to study. And that's why I prefer to use the word mannerisms as opposed to, say, etiquette. When you say adab, we're not here to discuss etiquette. When you say etiquette, what do you think of? You think of courtesy. To be civil, to be polite, to put your fork here and your knife here and your spoon here and you tuck your handkerchief somewhere here. When you say etiquette, these are the things that you think about, grace and charm. But no, we're talking about adab, the art of knowing and doing what is right in every aspect of life, not just eating habits, as we shall find out. Let me ask you by the way before we proceed, what is the difference between two similar words I'm sure you've heard, adab and another word that is used when speaking about mannerisms and character which is? Ah, akhlaaq. What's the difference? Any thoughts? What's the difference between adab and akhlaaq? I don't want to give you the translations because then I'll give it away. Adab and Akhlaaq. Take a guess. Adab is more about... Okay, good. So Mikael said adab is more about actions, akhlaaq may be more about words. Okay, that's one attempt. Anything else? Some of you have attended this talk, by the way, before on the whole series, so you should be aware, at least some of you. One more. Akhlaaq is part of adab. Akhlaaq is part of adab. Excellent. But what's the difference between them? One more. Akhlaaq is who you are. Oh, akhlaaq is who you are and adab is what you do. So how would you translate akhlaaq? Bearing in mind what you just said. Yeah, who said that? Character. Yeah? So bearing in mind what Abu Zakariya just said, adab becomes mannerisms, akhlaaq becomes character. Akhlaaq, which we have translated as character, is who you are as a person. It's your sajiya, your disposition, your personality. It's those things that you just do on a reflex basis. It's a spinal to you. So somebody who is just always full of rage and angry, he says, that's my akhlaaq ya akhi, that's just who I am, and I'm an angry man. Right? Do you suffer with this? Right? Okay. That's why you interacted? I feel you brother. Right. That's my akhlaaq. Someone who is overly jealous. I hope no one chuckles here. Someone who is overly jealous. That's my khuluq. Someone who's passive. Someone who's calm like our cameraman. That's just his akhlaaq. He didn't learn that. That's just how he was born. His parents they say he's like that. Someone who is patient, someone who is impatient, that's your akhlaq, that's in you. Either you are born with it, or it's something that you practice so much that it became your character with training. So you can't give up and say, it's my akhlaq, I'm doomed. No, you can do something about it. That's character. As for adab, which is why we have gathered for the next couple of months, they say it is... أعمال مسنونة أعمال وأقوال مسنونة يتكلفها المسلم ليتزين بها They say, adab is things that you say and you do intentionally, with purpose. You go out of your way to do these things to beautify yourself with them. Do you see the difference? Character is who you are. or it has what you have become. Whereas adab is what you do, though it may not be part of you, but you go out of your way to learn these mannerisms, and you do them to make yourself behave in a praiseworthy way, as Allah Almighty wants you to behave. Do you see the difference? Is there a link between the two? Could it be that if you carry out your adab frequently enough, it eventually becomes a character? Yeah, inshaAllah. Yeah, so it can be acquired, that transference from something that you do, though it's very disturbing in the beginning, but then you get used to it, then it becomes your character, you can't live in any other way. And that's our goal. And also akhlaaq, and you mentioned this our brother, there can be good akhlaaq and bad akhlaaq. You can have good character, there can be you can have bad character. But when you talk about adab, we are specifically talking about what is? What is good. Why have we chosen the topic of adab of all of the topics that we have that we could have spoken about? Why this topic? I'm going to give you three reasons. I'm not going to elaborate on the first two, because we've already spoken about them in the introduction. Focus on number three. The first reason why we have chosen this particular study of Al-Adab, number one, because individuals and families, communities and nations, they collapse without them. And individuals and families and communities and nations, they rise and they prosper with them. إِنَّمَا الْأُمَمُ الْأَخْلَاقُ مَا بَقِيَتْ فَإِنْهُمُ ذَهَبَتْ أَخْلَاقُهُمْ ذَهَبُوا Nations are by their morals. How many nations are we aware of that collapsed and fell on their face because of the decline in akhlaaq and morality and adab and mannerisms? That's number one. We alluded to this in the introduction. The second reason why we have chosen the topic of al-adab is because the world now is looking for an alternative. How many people do you know who have embraced the religion of Islam? Why? Because of patience and patience, Quran and Salah, and phenomenal adab in the face of tragedy. So if this is the effect of a few 2.3 million people, that they can have on the entire globe, a small strip of land. can change the global order. And their appetite for a faith has gone through the roof. Imagine then the effects of an ummah that is living by the religion of Islam and practicing the adab, the mannerisms of Islam. The world is looking for an alternative. Since October last year, they have discovered that the ideas of freedom and democracy or equality and justice, that these are concepts that belong to others. who have a particular skin color, not us. So the world is looking for an alternative, an alternative of justice and khair and goodness for all, and they are looking in our direction. That's reason number two why we are choosing the topic of al-adab, to showcase our religion to ourselves first and foremostly. And the third reason why we have chosen the topic of al-adab... Focus on this one, because of the high status that it occupies in the eyes of Allah. There is no religion or culture that has paid more attention to the topic of adab and mannerisms than the religion of Islam. It's one of the miraculous aspects of our religion, the study of adab. Whether you talk about the mannerisms of eating, and drinking, down to even yawning, and belching, burping, marital relations, marriage, divorce. The religion has given us parameters, adab, mannerisms, of economy, of trade, of giving out a loan, of receiving a loan. How you sit in the presence of a teacher, your Muslim teacher. How you turn over the pages when the Shaykh is there. What you do with your feet if you're sat cross-legged and how you cover them in the presence of the Shaykh. Phenomenal adab in every aspect of life, down to politics. Adab towards the animals. Adab towards the environment. Adab towards human resources. Adab towards your parents. Adab, of course, towards Allah Almighty first and foremostly. Adab towards the prophets and messengers. Adab towards the angels that are around you. Adab towards the jinn. How to use the bathroom. How to do ghusl. How to speak. How to be silent. How to manage a dispute between two. How to behave on the online space. How to behave with the opposite gender. How to behave with the same gender. The adab of... debate, the adab of traveling for knowledge and the adab of traveling for tourism, the religion has something to say about it. Our Prophet said, إِنَّمَا بُعِثْتُ لِأُتَمِّمَ مَكَارِمَ الْأَخْلَاقِ I was only sent by Allah to perfect the honorable manners. How he limits his entire mission as a Prophet to the idea of perfecting manners, adab and akhlaaq. I am the one who is perfecting the manners. Allah said, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوْ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِكُمْ نَارًا O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from the fire. How do I protect myself and my family from the fire? Ali ibn Abi Talib said, عَلِّمُوهُمْ وَأَدِّبُوهُمْ By teaching your children about the religion and giving them adab. Our Prophet ﷺ says, telling you and I why we are here today studying this, he said, He said, those Muslims who I love the most and will be nearest to me on the Day of Judgment are those who are best in character. Ya Allah, who are those men and women who have occupied a place in the heart of the Prophet ﷺ? And who are those men and women who will be nearest to his side on the Day of Judgment? He said they are those who are best in character. And he said, إِنَّ الْمُؤْمِنَةَ Listen to this. يُدْرِكُ بِحُسْنِ خُلُقِهِ دَرَجَةَ الصَّائِمِ الْقَائِمِ He said, a believer. by way of his good character, reaches the same level as the Muslim who is constantly praying and fasting. So don't discount it when you see a brother or a sister of fine character, of good manners. Don't say, yeah, he's a friendly fella. Hold on a minute. He's not just a friendly fella and a kind sister. They are engaging in a phenomenal act of worship that is the same level as he or she who is constantly praying, bowing, prostrating and fasting. They are on the same level just by way of how they carry themselves because they have studied the adab and they are acting upon them as well. Allahu Akbar. And he ﷺ, he said, ما من شيء يوضع في الميزان أثقل من حسن الخلق There isn't anything that can weigh heavier on your scale of good deeds on the Day of Judgment than having good akhlaaq, good character. Forty years. Our Prophet ﷺ spent of his life waiting for revelation to come upon him, though he wasn't expecting it. But for four decades, Allah was preparing him and giving him adab. That's what the first 40 years of his life were. Allah was training him and purifying him and emptying that vessel and filling it with character so that when knowledge comes to him, he becomes the perfect human being whom he was. Though, subhanAllah, we may spend 40 years of our life studying the religion, and maybe we will sprinkle some adab here and there. And then we wonder why there are catastrophes in the da'wah scene today. 40 years, Allah is preparing him, no knowledge! purely giving him adab. He would say in some narrations, though there are doubts in the chains of transmission, he said, أدبني ربي فأحسن تأديبي Allah gave me adab and he perfected my adab. More beautiful than this were the words of Allah when he said وإنك لعلى خلق عظيم You are upon mighty conduct, O Prophet. You behave with sublime morality. How can a study like this be overlooked? When you see the books of hadith and how our scholars paid attention to this topic in those books that are stacked behind you, brothers and sisters, whether you take Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim or the Sunan of Ibn Majah or the Jami'ah of Al-Tirmidhi or the Sunan of Abu Dawud or the Mawatta'of Imam Malik, almost all of them have a chapter called the chapter of adab. The chapter of the book of manners, the book of behavior, that's how they saw it. Fundamental to their journey to Allah and the home of the hereafter. Not just a bolt-on course, an extra course that they do here and there. It was part and parcel of their journey to Allah to understand the mannerisms and to act upon them. It wasn't an extra or an optional thing in their life. And I share with you some narrations. How our scholars of the past viewed the topic of adab. Listen to these narrations, take note of them if you can. Ibrahim al-Nakha'i, one of the tabi'een, he said, كانوا إذا أتوا رجلاً ليأخذوا عنه نظر إلى سمته وإلى صلاته وإلى حاله ثم يأخذون عنه. He said the people of the past, when they wanted to learn, They would approach a Shaykh and they would first observe his conduct and observe his Sana'a and observe his behavior, then they would take knowledge from him. Muhammad ibn Sirin, one of the Tabi'een, he said, The people of the past, they used to study manners, they used to study conduct the same way you study knowledge. Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, طلبت الأدب ثلاثين سنة وطلبت العلم عشرين سنة He said, I have spent 30 years of my life studying adab mannerisms and I've spent 20 years of my life learning the religion of Islam. Who does that nowadays? Al-Hasan al-Basri said, إِنْ كَانَ الرَّجُلُ لَيَخْرُجُ فِي أَدَبِ نَفْسِهِ أَسْسَنَتَيْنِ ثُمَّ أَسْسَنَتَيْنِ He said, the people of the past, they used to go out two years at a time to perfect their adab. Two years, then come back, and then another two years just to refine their manners. Sufyan al-Thawri, he also says, كَانَ الرَّجُلُ لَا يَطْلُبُ الْعِلْمَ حَتَّى يَتَأَدَّبْ وَيَتَعَبَّدَ قَبْلَ ذَلِكَ عِشْرِينَ سَنَةً He said in the past a man would not dare to start studying the religion of Islam only after he had acquired adab and worshipped Allah for 20 consecutive years. Ibn Wahab, one of the companions of Imam Malik, he said, مَا نَقَلْنَا عَنْ أَدَبِ مَالِكِ أَكْثَرُ مِمَّا نَقَلْنَا مِنْ عِلْمِهِ He said, what we learnt from the adab, from the manners of Imam Malik, was far greater than what we learnt from his knowledge. That is because the mother of Imam Malik made him into the man he was. She used to put an imam on his head, He said, كانت أمي تعمي مني My mother as a child used to put the imamah, the turban around my head because this is the clothing of the scholars, especially in Medina. A sign that you are a scholar is that you put a turban on your head. That's how they dress. He said, from a young age, my mother would put a turban around my head. head, and she would say to me, go to Rabi'ah, and learn from his manners before you take from his knowledge. Learn from his manners, that's a mother who knows how to raise a giant. Go learn from his manners before you take from his knowledge. And as for Imam Ahmad, la ilaha illallah. Ismail ibn Hussein he said, I heard my father say, كنا نجتمع في مجلس الإمام أحمد زهاء خمسة آلاف أو يزيدون He said we used to gather in the halaqas, the study circles of Imam Ahmad. There are about 5,000 of us or more he said. Huge gathering. He said, أقل من خمس مئة يكتبون He said it was less than 500 who were actually writing. It's always a problem, huh? Not just our days. Even Imam Ahmad struggled. 5,000 people, less than 10% were actually writing. What were the other doing? He said, والباقي ينظرون ويتعلمون من سبته وأدبه And as for the rest, they were just learning from his conduct and his behavior, his manners. And the scholars they used to say, مَنْ قَعَدَ بِهِ نَسَبُهُ نَهَضَ بِهِ أَدَبُهُ Whoever's lineage has pulled him down, his adab, his manners will push him up. If you have an average lineage, there's nothing special about you. Much like most of us, perhaps. Don't worry. He says your adab will push you back up. How many people do you know in your life? Nothing special in terms of looks, appearances, lineage, or money, or causes. Nothing special about them. Just normal people like you and I. But what has made them so special in your eyes and the eyes of others? It's their adab. It's their manners. They say this person is a person of adab. If your lineage has pulled you down, your adab will push you up. And parents would say to their children, Ya Bunei, listen to this advice as a father and as a mother. لَأَن تَتَعَلَّمَ بَابًا مِنْ أَبْوَابِ الْأَدَبِ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِنْ أَن تَتَعَلَّمَ سَبْعِينَ بَابًا مِنْ أَبْوَابِ الْعِلْمِ Oh my son, for you to master just one chapter in adab, in manners, that is far more beloved to me than for you to master 70 chapters in knowledge. And another parent would say to his son, he said, my son, make your knowledge like salt and make your adab, your manners like flour. You don't have to be a baker to understand this, right? You don't have to be a baker to know that the main component of a loaf of bread is flour. You add salt as necessary, right? He's saying, make your personality like this. Your adab, that needs to be the flour, the main component of who you are, your adab. 99.9% is you, that's your adab. He said, your knowledge, make it like salt. Add it as necessary. What happens if you flip this round? What happens if a loaf of bread is mostly salt and flour was added as necessary? Throw it in the bin. It's inedible, it's unpalatable. And that is the personality of so many Muslims. I'm sorry. It should be thrown and will be thrown in the dust cans, in the dustbins of history. Because they have become unpalatable in their behavior. Because most of their essence and their being is just knowledge they have taken in. But where is their adab? Unbearable creatures they become. And Abu Zakariya al-Anbari, he said, عِلْمٌ بِلَا أَدَبٍ كَنَارٍ بِلَا حَطَبٍ Knowledge without adab. It's like fire without wood. What is the use of a fire if there is no wood, firewood to feed it? Knowledge without adab is like fire without wood. And Abdullah ibn al-Barak, he said, أدب المرء في عمله علامة القبول When you do something with adab, it is a sign that Allah has accepted it from you. Those who ask for signs that Allah has accepted your salah, accepted your fasting, accepted your da'wah, accepted your kindness to your mother and father, accepted your charity, accepted your smile to another Muslim, what is the sign that Allah has accepted from me? Ibn al-Mubarak, he said, a sign that Allah has accepted it from you is that you behave with adab whilst you do it. And finally, Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, طلبت العلم فحصلت منه شيئا I started a journey for knowledge and I gained some of it. ثم طلبت الأدب فإذا أهله قد بادوا But then I tried a path to search for adab and I found that the people of adab have perished. So if I was now to put the ball back into your court and I was to ask you, What is the study of ilm, of Quran, of tajweed, for example, memorization, without adab? What is the point of it? What is the point of producing a faqih, a jurid, somebody who studies fiqh? And I know some of you have come back from fiqh classes, may Allah bless you. If there's going to be no adab connected to it, what is the point of learning the idea or the art of debating the non-Muslim and to present Islam if there is no adab with it? What is the point? What is the point of learning how to speak Arabic? And learning the Mutun, the text? If there is with it no adab, what is the point? If I was to ask you another question, how many classes of Tafsir have you attended? I'm sure you will remember time and place. How many books of Hadith have you read? Some of you will have read some from cover to cover. Books of Aqidah? Have you studied Tajweed? Have you memorized any part of the Quran? Almost all of you will be able to give me time and place. Now I ask you, how many of you have read a book on Adab from cover to cover? How many of you have attended a series or made an effort to improve your adab in an intentional way? The answer to that question alone explains so many of the disasters that we may see today. For example, how can it be that there is a so-called practicing brother who may have an online presence, or maybe giving talks in the masjid, or does some sort of khair in the community, yet he is missing from the congregational prayers? And sometimes the masjid is just downstairs, a few steps away from his hotel room. How do you understand that, except that there is a lack of adab in his upbringing? How do you explain it when there is somebody who... Has maybe thousands following him or her online, pushing the cause of Islam. Great. Yet mum and dad at home are complaining about you, saying that you are a vile human being, raising your voice, maybe even raising a bruising hand towards them. How do you explain this contradiction in behavior other than to say lack of adab in the behavior and the upbringing? How do you explain the situation of a young man who just started practicing the religion yesterday? Last week, last month. And now, alhamdulillah, perhaps he or she has started memorizing some of the Islamic texts. And now she considers herself the vanguard, knowing what is right and what is wrong. I am upon the... way of the companions that's my right i'm not too sure about you anymore how did that happen other than to say your upbringing your islamic upbringing was not a normal natural one it was lacking adam and so on and so on and so on this study that we have started my brothers and my sisters and we've come to the end of the session it's not optional It is part of your vessel to Allah Almighty and the home of the Hereafter. Last thing I will ask you or tell you is that there are several levels to adapt. And we will be covering, insha'Allah, most of them in this series. There are four levels. Adab towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Adab towards the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Adab towards the creation. And adab towards yourself. Adab towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This will be our next week's discussion. Adab towards the Prophet Muhammad, that will be the topic of the week after. And then adab towards the creation, including for example your adab, your manners towards the angels. That has a whole discussion. When you are eating garlic, or you're eating onions, and you're coming to the masjid, you are harming the angels before you are harming your fellow brother or sister. If you have smoked, If you've ruined your breath in any way, shape or form, if you come to the masjid with unclean socks, you are harming the angels before you're harming the Muslim. A person who disobeys Allah Almighty when the lights are off, when the curtains are drawn, not only has he disobeyed Allah, but he has shown bad adab towards Allah and then towards the angels who are there witnessing this. How? They're seeing me do this. There has to be some manners towards the honourable scribes. How can they see me in this state? it's added towards the creation and of course your adept towards your parents will not be like the adept towards your teacher and the adept towards your teacher would not like the adept towards your friends and you end up towards your friends would not like me you're adept towards your children adapt towards creation and then finally the adab that you are deserving of for yourself adapt towards yourself yourself has a right upon you to purify it to teach it how to repent, to bring it to the masjid, to force it to come to classes like this and others, to come to the masjid, to prostrate at night, to fast when it can, to give in charity. Your soul has a right upon you to hold it accountable when it does wrong, to make it feel guilty for its mistakes. That's part of your right upon yourself, and that is part of our adab towards ourselves. We will stop here, next week will be the official first lesson of our topic that we've titled Our Ways, and it will be the most important of all of the sessions, Our Ways with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Salaam Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

Why is this? How can it be the case? They found that there was a common feature between all of those societies that were quick to fall and crumble even if they were good governments and fair and that commonality was that they had leaders who failed.

in protecting their societies because what those leaders had done was that they had torn apart the social fabric and the morality of that society. This was their conclusion. Our Muslim poet Ahmad Shawqi he said He said nations are by their manners. The future of nations is connected to their manners and their morality. Those nations endure as far as those morality, their morality endures.

He said, فَإِنْ هُمُوا ذَهَبَتْ أَخْلَاقُهُمْ ذَهَبُوا But when their morality declines, so will their civilization. Today, alhamdulillah, computer processors are faster than ever before. Computer chips, they are smaller than ever before. The mobile phones that I see in your hands, they are more dynamic.

than ever before. Yet all of this technological advancement has not led to an improvement in the human condition. And most certainly the advancement in technology has not led to an advancement in morality and mannerisms.

The opposite is true. I was thinking to myself, what is the best possible way of introducing this series of talks? That's going to be a while to be honest with you. You will be here for a few weeks, a few months. to discuss the title of our ways, our mannerisms, our way with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, with the rest of creation and with ourselves.

What is the best way I could introduce this topic, this series to my brothers and sisters? Then Allah guided me to a phenomenal article. I encourage you to read it.

By a man called Paul Kingsnorth and the title of the article is, The West has lost its virtue. We have abandoned the taboos that held us together. Again, the title of the article.

The West has lost its virtue. We have abandoned the taboos that held us together. Kingsnorth in the article, he argues that the West is declining. He says the West is crumbling.

And he quotes people like Oswald Spengler in his book, The Decline of the West, who says that not only is it declining, He predicted that it will be in the 21st century that we will see the full manifestations of this crumbling. And he says, i.e. Kingsnorth in the article, that there's only one thing that really brings the West together. There's only been one thing that has held it all together, a commonality.

And that thing is the Christian church. He says that the Christian church... is what permeated every aspect of Western society from its eastern and western parts. He said the West is Christendom. Christianity, he said, influenced.

The working week, it affected the taxes that we pay, it affects how we see family, sexual morality or the lack thereof, how we see right and how we see wrong, how we view our neighbor. How we see spirituality, how we look into politics, war and peace. He said Christianity affected the way of the human mind here in the modern man in the West. And since time in antiquity as well, it's been about Christianity.

He said, however, Christendom today is no more. He said, and I quote, that if you are living in the West today, you are living in the ruins of the West. And he said, don't be deceived by the fact that you can still see the ruins, i.e. just because there are big beautiful cathedrals, huge churches, just because you know of the symphonies and the songs of the people of the past and the concerts of antiquity. He said, don't be deceived.

This is still the ruins. He said, Christendom is no more. Then he says in the article that what happens when you have an old culture, that was built upon a sacred order, built upon a religion, and that old culture begins to die, what happens is that there is upheaval, there is a disturbance across every aspect of society.

Across politics, money, sexuality, economics, family, society, there is a huge tension, a disturbance, an upheaval that happens when an old culture begins to die that was built upon a religion or a sacred order. He says during that time an empty space is left, a vacuum, and everything is up for grabs. Anybody can claim what they want. He says, welcome to the 21st century.

And he quotes in his book a philosopher, and you will see where I'm going with all of this in a moment, bear with me. He quotes a philosopher by the name of Alasdair MacIntyre, who has a book called After Virtue. And he says that if human life is made meaningless, If you as a human being, you now have no meaning connected to God, you are just an earthly being, then there is no accountability.

And what is the meaning of virtue? What is the meaning of morality? None of these things mean anything anymore when you remove God from the equation.

And he said that when you forget the reason why certain things were forbidden in your culture, You forget the taboos, you forget right and wrong, and morality comes crashing down. And he gives an example of the Polynesian communities and how they had forgotten the reason why they had taboos and morality. And so it all disappeared. English seamen, Alasdair MacIntyre, he said, made their way to Polynesia. Polynesia is of course a sub-region of Oceania that is made up of around a thousand islands.

New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, South and Central Pacific Ocean. This is called Polynesia is there. So he said the English seamen, they made their way to Polynesia and they were amazed because they saw that there was such a contradiction in their behavior.

On one hand, they were really lax when it comes to sexual misconduct. Promiscuity was everywhere, fornication. And on the other end, they had this taboo, this forbidden custom that men and women cannot eat together. So on one end, there was promiscuity and adultery, and on the other end, strange men and women, they were not allowed to eat together.

So when these English seamen, they asked them, how is it that this is the case? You're not allowed to eat together. They couldn't give them a solid answer. They said, it's just taboo.

Taboo, it's forbidden. It's our morality. Why?

Don't really know. They pushed them for answers, they inquired a little bit more, and they found that they had actually completely forgotten why men and women were not allowed to eat together. They just do it.

Kingsnorth says because a vacuum, because a space was left open in Polynesia, and nature hates empty spaces, it has to fill it with something, the English seamen were able to arrive at Polynesia and install Protestant Christianity, no issues. Because there was no resistance, there was no culture, there was no morality, there was no sacred order to bring it all together, so they were able to take anything. Why do I mention this? Because the author, Kingsnorth, he goes on to say that when a culture or a society reaches a point where it begins to forget why certain things were right and wrong, it forgets morality, because the religion is now gone, it becomes like a domino effect. One push, one shove, and everything comes crashing down, one after the other.

And he said, this is where we are today in the West. He said, our taboos that used to hold us together, our morality, our virtue has disappeared. It has crumbled. There's an empty space now waiting to be taken by someone.

And he said, don't you dare think or assume that this is another religion or a culture from outside that came into the West and changed us and converted us. He said, no, this is our doing. This is our behavior. We chose this way. He said since the 1960s.

All of our forbidden things and our customs and our morality has been tumbling down one after the other. And we did this, nobody else. And then he goes on to say that we've been trying to rebuild now this idea of morality. We're trying to resurrect it. Since the Enlightenment, the 1800s, we've been trying to rebuild this idea of morality.

But for the first time in Western history, they're trying to build, he says, a morality that is disconnected from God. A morality that is based upon man. So he said, if morality is going to be judged by what you think is right, not God Almighty, who are you accountable?

He said, nobody. Who is the final arbiter now? If you are the one who says everything and decides everything. And he goes on to say towards the end of the article, that at the heart of every culture there is a throne. At the heart of every civilization is a throne.

And whoever sits on that throne becomes the force which you take your instruction from. He said in the West that used to be God Almighty. And today in modernity we have removed God, astaghfirullah wa atubu ilayh, and we have placed the human being there instead. We have removed religion, cut it out from our lives, and instead we have installed man.

We have installed, and he says, democracy, liberalism, freedoms, your rights. He said, now the modern day religion is market worship and capitalism. This is what governs our thoughts.

And look at Brexit. What were the conversations that people were having about whether we should remain or whether we should leave? It was nothing to do with religion or God or morality or ethics or family.

No. It was all about dunya, it's about worldly matters, about race, it's about money. Those who wanted to leave the EU, what were they saying? They leave us. We want our independence.

We want to protect our borders. It's us. It's our race. Those who wanted to remain in the EU, what was their argument?

Economy. Mobile phone roaming charges. This is the talk. No one's talking about family. That's no longer part of the Western discussion.

No one's talking about God, religion, worship. It's about market worship. And he says, therefore, the modern man, these are his words, the modern man has become a broken worshipper before the idol of progress, he calls it. Cut out, no center, no direction, no vision, no future, and there is a vacuum and the West is waiting, he says, for someone to fill it. And then he quotes McIntyre who said, listen to these words, this is the conclusion.

He said that the West today is waiting for a new and a very different Saint Benedict. Saint Benedict, an Italian Catholic monk, who was considered to be a religious reformer with the Catholics, he said, today the West is waiting for a new and a very different Saint Benedict. In the conclusion of the article, Kings North, he says, that the West is not short on ideas, is not short on weaponry.

is not short on insults and it's not short on machines. The West is very short on saints. That's the end of the article.

So you see today, it's a perfect opportunity for the many cultures, for the many civilizations and religions out there to showcase themselves as an alternative that the West so badly wants and needs to fill the space that has been created. And what better way is there for us as Muslims? Who claim to be the chosen people of Allah and the finest of all nations?

What better way is there to showcase our religion to the world than presenting our adab, our mannerisms, whether they are with Allah or with the people or any aspect of life? So, with this short introduction, let us begin. I'm going to give you a very quick and technical entry into the topic of adab because we're going to be using this word adab, singular, and adab, plural, a lot for the next couple of months. Bear with me a few minutes and then we will move on.

When we say that we have come here on a Thursday evening to study the topic of adab mannerisms, what do we mean? The word adab that we've translated into mannerisms comes from the root letters alif and dal and ba. When these letters they come together it is in reference to an invitation that is made.

When you call someone or you invite them this is called adab and the caller he is adib. That's why Ibn Faris, the linguist, he said, قَالْأَدَبُ هُوَ دُعَاءُ الشَّيْءِ إِذَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ هُوَ دُعَاءُ النَّاسِ إِلَىٰ شَيْءٍ إِذَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ أَدَب is the idea of inviting people to something. Invitation. And he says, this is why a table that is filled with food is called in Arabic what? What is it called?

Ya Ma'duba Why is it called a Ma'duba? The same three letters because you invite people to come and eat from the food, the idea of inviting and he said the one who makes the invitation is called a Adib same three letters, Adib Why? Because he is the Da'i, he is the inviter So this is Adab from a linguistic perspective What does adab mean from a technical perspective?

Meaning, what is the topic that we are coming to study today? Why is mannerisms connected to the idea of inviting? Inviting to what?

Let me explain. The technical definition of the topic we have come to study, here is one. Take note of it. Ibn Hajar says, Al-Adab is to use what is said and done. Al-Adab is praiseworthy behavior with respect to speech and actions.

That is the summary of why we are here. Al-Adab is in reference to praiseworthy behavior, whether in respect to speech or actions. One final definition. Al-Jurjani, he said, defining the topic of Adab, he said, Al-Adab is a phrase.

Using Al-Adab is a phrase. He said, Al-Adab is the idea of knowing what is wrong and avoiding every mistake. The idea of knowing what is wrong and the avoidance of these wrongs. If you put these two definitions together, very simply put, the topic of adab is simply about the art of doing things right.

That's why we are here, to understand what is right and to do it, and to understand what is wrong and to avoid it. The idea of adab is to behave in a praiseworthy way and to not act as an idiot. That's the idea of adapt. That's it.

So these are the technical definitions of the topic of adab. This is what we are here to study. And that's why I prefer to use the word mannerisms as opposed to, say, etiquette. When you say adab, we're not here to discuss etiquette.

When you say etiquette, what do you think of? You think of courtesy. To be civil, to be polite, to put your fork here and your knife here and your spoon here and you tuck your handkerchief somewhere here.

When you say etiquette, these are the things that you think about, grace and charm. But no, we're talking about adab, the art of knowing and doing what is right in every aspect of life, not just eating habits, as we shall find out. Let me ask you by the way before we proceed, what is the difference between two similar words I'm sure you've heard, adab and another word that is used when speaking about mannerisms and character which is? Ah, akhlaaq.

What's the difference? Any thoughts? What's the difference between adab and akhlaaq? I don't want to give you the translations because then I'll give it away.

Adab and Akhlaaq. Take a guess. Adab is more about... Okay, good.

So Mikael said adab is more about actions, akhlaaq may be more about words. Okay, that's one attempt. Anything else? Some of you have attended this talk, by the way, before on the whole series, so you should be aware, at least some of you.

One more. Akhlaaq is part of adab. Akhlaaq is part of adab.

Excellent. But what's the difference between them? One more. Akhlaaq is who you are.

Oh, akhlaaq is who you are and adab is what you do. So how would you translate akhlaaq? Bearing in mind what you just said. Yeah, who said that? Character.

Yeah? So bearing in mind what Abu Zakariya just said, adab becomes mannerisms, akhlaaq becomes character. Akhlaaq, which we have translated as character, is who you are as a person.

It's your sajiya, your disposition, your personality. It's those things that you just do on a reflex basis. It's a spinal to you. So somebody who is just always full of rage and angry, he says, that's my akhlaaq ya akhi, that's just who I am, and I'm an angry man.

Right? Do you suffer with this? Right?

Okay. That's why you interacted? I feel you brother.

Right. That's my akhlaaq. Someone who is overly jealous. I hope no one chuckles here. Someone who is overly jealous.

That's my khuluq. Someone who's passive. Someone who's calm like our cameraman. That's just his akhlaaq.

He didn't learn that. That's just how he was born. His parents they say he's like that. Someone who is patient, someone who is impatient, that's your akhlaq, that's in you.

Either you are born with it, or it's something that you practice so much that it became your character with training. So you can't give up and say, it's my akhlaq, I'm doomed. No, you can do something about it. That's character. As for adab, which is why we have gathered for the next couple of months, they say it is...

أعمال مسنونة أعمال وأقوال مسنونة يتكلفها المسلم ليتزين بها They say, adab is things that you say and you do intentionally, with purpose. You go out of your way to do these things to beautify yourself with them. Do you see the difference? Character is who you are.

or it has what you have become. Whereas adab is what you do, though it may not be part of you, but you go out of your way to learn these mannerisms, and you do them to make yourself behave in a praiseworthy way, as Allah Almighty wants you to behave. Do you see the difference?

Is there a link between the two? Could it be that if you carry out your adab frequently enough, it eventually becomes a character? Yeah, inshaAllah. Yeah, so it can be acquired, that transference from something that you do, though it's very disturbing in the beginning, but then you get used to it, then it becomes your character, you can't live in any other way.

And that's our goal. And also akhlaaq, and you mentioned this our brother, there can be good akhlaaq and bad akhlaaq. You can have good character, there can be you can have bad character. But when you talk about adab, we are specifically talking about what is? What is good.

Why have we chosen the topic of adab of all of the topics that we have that we could have spoken about? Why this topic? I'm going to give you three reasons.

I'm not going to elaborate on the first two, because we've already spoken about them in the introduction. Focus on number three. The first reason why we have chosen this particular study of Al-Adab, number one, because individuals and families, communities and nations, they collapse without them.

And individuals and families and communities and nations, they rise and they prosper with them. إِنَّمَا الْأُمَمُ الْأَخْلَاقُ مَا بَقِيَتْ فَإِنْهُمُ ذَهَبَتْ أَخْلَاقُهُمْ ذَهَبُوا Nations are by their morals. How many nations are we aware of that collapsed and fell on their face because of the decline in akhlaaq and morality and adab and mannerisms?

That's number one. We alluded to this in the introduction. The second reason why we have chosen the topic of al-adab is because the world now is looking for an alternative.

How many people do you know who have embraced the religion of Islam? Why? Because of patience and patience, Quran and Salah, and phenomenal adab in the face of tragedy. So if this is the effect of a few 2.3 million people, that they can have on the entire globe, a small strip of land.

can change the global order. And their appetite for a faith has gone through the roof. Imagine then the effects of an ummah that is living by the religion of Islam and practicing the adab, the mannerisms of Islam.

The world is looking for an alternative. Since October last year, they have discovered that the ideas of freedom and democracy or equality and justice, that these are concepts that belong to others. who have a particular skin color, not us. So the world is looking for an alternative, an alternative of justice and khair and goodness for all, and they are looking in our direction.

That's reason number two why we are choosing the topic of al-adab, to showcase our religion to ourselves first and foremostly. And the third reason why we have chosen the topic of al-adab... Focus on this one, because of the high status that it occupies in the eyes of Allah. There is no religion or culture that has paid more attention to the topic of adab and mannerisms than the religion of Islam.

It's one of the miraculous aspects of our religion, the study of adab. Whether you talk about the mannerisms of eating, and drinking, down to even yawning, and belching, burping, marital relations, marriage, divorce. The religion has given us parameters, adab, mannerisms, of economy, of trade, of giving out a loan, of receiving a loan.

How you sit in the presence of a teacher, your Muslim teacher. How you turn over the pages when the Shaykh is there. What you do with your feet if you're sat cross-legged and how you cover them in the presence of the Shaykh. Phenomenal adab in every aspect of life, down to politics.

Adab towards the animals. Adab towards the environment. Adab towards human resources.

Adab towards your parents. Adab, of course, towards Allah Almighty first and foremostly. Adab towards the prophets and messengers.

Adab towards the angels that are around you. Adab towards the jinn. How to use the bathroom. How to do ghusl.

How to speak. How to be silent. How to manage a dispute between two. How to behave on the online space. How to behave with the opposite gender.

How to behave with the same gender. The adab of... debate, the adab of traveling for knowledge and the adab of traveling for tourism, the religion has something to say about it.

Our Prophet said, إِنَّمَا بُعِثْتُ لِأُتَمِّمَ مَكَارِمَ الْأَخْلَاقِ I was only sent by Allah to perfect the honorable manners. How he limits his entire mission as a Prophet to the idea of perfecting manners, adab and akhlaaq. I am the one who is perfecting the manners.

Allah said, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوْ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِكُمْ نَارًا O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from the fire. How do I protect myself and my family from the fire? Ali ibn Abi Talib said, عَلِّمُوهُمْ وَأَدِّبُوهُمْ By teaching your children about the religion and giving them adab. Our Prophet ﷺ says, telling you and I why we are here today studying this, he said, He said, those Muslims who I love the most and will be nearest to me on the Day of Judgment are those who are best in character.

Ya Allah, who are those men and women who have occupied a place in the heart of the Prophet ﷺ? And who are those men and women who will be nearest to his side on the Day of Judgment? He said they are those who are best in character. And he said, إِنَّ الْمُؤْمِنَةَ Listen to this.

يُدْرِكُ بِحُسْنِ خُلُقِهِ دَرَجَةَ الصَّائِمِ الْقَائِمِ He said, a believer. by way of his good character, reaches the same level as the Muslim who is constantly praying and fasting. So don't discount it when you see a brother or a sister of fine character, of good manners.

Don't say, yeah, he's a friendly fella. Hold on a minute. He's not just a friendly fella and a kind sister. They are engaging in a phenomenal act of worship that is the same level as he or she who is constantly praying, bowing, prostrating and fasting.

They are on the same level just by way of how they carry themselves because they have studied the adab and they are acting upon them as well. Allahu Akbar. And he ﷺ, he said, ما من شيء يوضع في الميزان أثقل من حسن الخلق There isn't anything that can weigh heavier on your scale of good deeds on the Day of Judgment than having good akhlaaq, good character. Forty years. Our Prophet ﷺ spent of his life waiting for revelation to come upon him, though he wasn't expecting it.

But for four decades, Allah was preparing him and giving him adab. That's what the first 40 years of his life were. Allah was training him and purifying him and emptying that vessel and filling it with character so that when knowledge comes to him, he becomes the perfect human being whom he was.

Though, subhanAllah, we may spend 40 years of our life studying the religion, and maybe we will sprinkle some adab here and there. And then we wonder why there are catastrophes in the da'wah scene today. 40 years, Allah is preparing him, no knowledge! purely giving him adab.

He would say in some narrations, though there are doubts in the chains of transmission, he said, أدبني ربي فأحسن تأديبي Allah gave me adab and he perfected my adab. More beautiful than this were the words of Allah when he said وإنك لعلى خلق عظيم You are upon mighty conduct, O Prophet. You behave with sublime morality. How can a study like this be overlooked?

When you see the books of hadith and how our scholars paid attention to this topic in those books that are stacked behind you, brothers and sisters, whether you take Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim or the Sunan of Ibn Majah or the Jami'ah of Al-Tirmidhi or the Sunan of Abu Dawud or the Mawatta'of Imam Malik, almost all of them have a chapter called the chapter of adab. The chapter of the book of manners, the book of behavior, that's how they saw it. Fundamental to their journey to Allah and the home of the hereafter.

Not just a bolt-on course, an extra course that they do here and there. It was part and parcel of their journey to Allah to understand the mannerisms and to act upon them. It wasn't an extra or an optional thing in their life.

And I share with you some narrations. How our scholars of the past viewed the topic of adab. Listen to these narrations, take note of them if you can.

Ibrahim al-Nakha'i, one of the tabi'een, he said, كانوا إذا أتوا رجلاً ليأخذوا عنه نظر إلى سمته وإلى صلاته وإلى حاله ثم يأخذون عنه. He said the people of the past, when they wanted to learn, They would approach a Shaykh and they would first observe his conduct and observe his Sana'a and observe his behavior, then they would take knowledge from him. Muhammad ibn Sirin, one of the Tabi'een, he said, The people of the past, they used to study manners, they used to study conduct the same way you study knowledge.

Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, طلبت الأدب ثلاثين سنة وطلبت العلم عشرين سنة He said, I have spent 30 years of my life studying adab mannerisms and I've spent 20 years of my life learning the religion of Islam. Who does that nowadays? Al-Hasan al-Basri said, إِنْ كَانَ الرَّجُلُ لَيَخْرُجُ فِي أَدَبِ نَفْسِهِ أَسْسَنَتَيْنِ ثُمَّ أَسْسَنَتَيْنِ He said, the people of the past, they used to go out two years at a time to perfect their adab.

Two years, then come back, and then another two years just to refine their manners. Sufyan al-Thawri, he also says, كَانَ الرَّجُلُ لَا يَطْلُبُ الْعِلْمَ حَتَّى يَتَأَدَّبْ وَيَتَعَبَّدَ قَبْلَ ذَلِكَ عِشْرِينَ سَنَةً He said in the past a man would not dare to start studying the religion of Islam only after he had acquired adab and worshipped Allah for 20 consecutive years. Ibn Wahab, one of the companions of Imam Malik, he said, مَا نَقَلْنَا عَنْ أَدَبِ مَالِكِ أَكْثَرُ مِمَّا نَقَلْنَا مِنْ عِلْمِهِ He said, what we learnt from the adab, from the manners of Imam Malik, was far greater than what we learnt from his knowledge.

That is because the mother of Imam Malik made him into the man he was. She used to put an imam on his head, He said, كانت أمي تعمي مني My mother as a child used to put the imamah, the turban around my head because this is the clothing of the scholars, especially in Medina. A sign that you are a scholar is that you put a turban on your head. That's how they dress.

He said, from a young age, my mother would put a turban around my head. head, and she would say to me, go to Rabi'ah, and learn from his manners before you take from his knowledge. Learn from his manners, that's a mother who knows how to raise a giant.

Go learn from his manners before you take from his knowledge. And as for Imam Ahmad, la ilaha illallah. Ismail ibn Hussein he said, I heard my father say, كنا نجتمع في مجلس الإمام أحمد زهاء خمسة آلاف أو يزيدون He said we used to gather in the halaqas, the study circles of Imam Ahmad. There are about 5,000 of us or more he said.

Huge gathering. He said, أقل من خمس مئة يكتبون He said it was less than 500 who were actually writing. It's always a problem, huh? Not just our days. Even Imam Ahmad struggled.

5,000 people, less than 10% were actually writing. What were the other doing? He said, والباقي ينظرون ويتعلمون من سبته وأدبه And as for the rest, they were just learning from his conduct and his behavior, his manners.

And the scholars they used to say, مَنْ قَعَدَ بِهِ نَسَبُهُ نَهَضَ بِهِ أَدَبُهُ Whoever's lineage has pulled him down, his adab, his manners will push him up. If you have an average lineage, there's nothing special about you. Much like most of us, perhaps. Don't worry. He says your adab will push you back up.

How many people do you know in your life? Nothing special in terms of looks, appearances, lineage, or money, or causes. Nothing special about them.

Just normal people like you and I. But what has made them so special in your eyes and the eyes of others? It's their adab.

It's their manners. They say this person is a person of adab. If your lineage has pulled you down, your adab will push you up.

And parents would say to their children, Ya Bunei, listen to this advice as a father and as a mother. لَأَن تَتَعَلَّمَ بَابًا مِنْ أَبْوَابِ الْأَدَبِ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِنْ أَن تَتَعَلَّمَ سَبْعِينَ بَابًا مِنْ أَبْوَابِ الْعِلْمِ Oh my son, for you to master just one chapter in adab, in manners, that is far more beloved to me than for you to master 70 chapters in knowledge. And another parent would say to his son, he said, my son, make your knowledge like salt and make your adab, your manners like flour.

You don't have to be a baker to understand this, right? You don't have to be a baker to know that the main component of a loaf of bread is flour. You add salt as necessary, right?

He's saying, make your personality like this. Your adab, that needs to be the flour, the main component of who you are, your adab. 99.9% is you, that's your adab. He said, your knowledge, make it like salt. Add it as necessary.

What happens if you flip this round? What happens if a loaf of bread is mostly salt and flour was added as necessary? Throw it in the bin.

It's inedible, it's unpalatable. And that is the personality of so many Muslims. I'm sorry.

It should be thrown and will be thrown in the dust cans, in the dustbins of history. Because they have become unpalatable in their behavior. Because most of their essence and their being is just knowledge they have taken in.

But where is their adab? Unbearable creatures they become. And Abu Zakariya al-Anbari, he said, عِلْمٌ بِلَا أَدَبٍ كَنَارٍ بِلَا حَطَبٍ Knowledge without adab. It's like fire without wood. What is the use of a fire if there is no wood, firewood to feed it?

Knowledge without adab is like fire without wood. And Abdullah ibn al-Barak, he said, أدب المرء في عمله علامة القبول When you do something with adab, it is a sign that Allah has accepted it from you. Those who ask for signs that Allah has accepted your salah, accepted your fasting, accepted your da'wah, accepted your kindness to your mother and father, accepted your charity, accepted your smile to another Muslim, what is the sign that Allah has accepted from me? Ibn al-Mubarak, he said, a sign that Allah has accepted it from you is that you behave with adab whilst you do it. And finally, Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said, طلبت العلم فحصلت منه شيئا I started a journey for knowledge and I gained some of it.

ثم طلبت الأدب فإذا أهله قد بادوا But then I tried a path to search for adab and I found that the people of adab have perished. So if I was now to put the ball back into your court and I was to ask you, What is the study of ilm, of Quran, of tajweed, for example, memorization, without adab? What is the point of it?

What is the point of producing a faqih, a jurid, somebody who studies fiqh? And I know some of you have come back from fiqh classes, may Allah bless you. If there's going to be no adab connected to it, what is the point of learning the idea or the art of debating the non-Muslim and to present Islam if there is no adab with it?

What is the point? What is the point of learning how to speak Arabic? And learning the Mutun, the text? If there is with it no adab, what is the point? If I was to ask you another question, how many classes of Tafsir have you attended?

I'm sure you will remember time and place. How many books of Hadith have you read? Some of you will have read some from cover to cover.

Books of Aqidah? Have you studied Tajweed? Have you memorized any part of the Quran?

Almost all of you will be able to give me time and place. Now I ask you, how many of you have read a book on Adab from cover to cover? How many of you have attended a series or made an effort to improve your adab in an intentional way? The answer to that question alone explains so many of the disasters that we may see today. For example, how can it be that there is a so-called practicing brother who may have an online presence, or maybe giving talks in the masjid, or does some sort of khair in the community, yet he is missing from the congregational prayers?

And sometimes the masjid is just downstairs, a few steps away from his hotel room. How do you understand that, except that there is a lack of adab in his upbringing? How do you explain it when there is somebody who...

Has maybe thousands following him or her online, pushing the cause of Islam. Great. Yet mum and dad at home are complaining about you, saying that you are a vile human being, raising your voice, maybe even raising a bruising hand towards them. How do you explain this contradiction in behavior other than to say lack of adab in the behavior and the upbringing? How do you explain the situation of a young man who just started practicing the religion yesterday?

Last week, last month. And now, alhamdulillah, perhaps he or she has started memorizing some of the Islamic texts. And now she considers herself the vanguard, knowing what is right and what is wrong. I am upon the... way of the companions that's my right i'm not too sure about you anymore how did that happen other than to say your upbringing your islamic upbringing was not a normal natural one it was lacking adam and so on and so on and so on this study that we have started my brothers and my sisters and we've come to the end of the session it's not optional It is part of your vessel to Allah Almighty and the home of the Hereafter.

Last thing I will ask you or tell you is that there are several levels to adapt. And we will be covering, insha'Allah, most of them in this series. There are four levels.

Adab towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Adab towards the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Adab towards the creation.

And adab towards yourself. Adab towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This will be our next week's discussion. Adab towards the Prophet Muhammad, that will be the topic of the week after.

And then adab towards the creation, including for example your adab, your manners towards the angels. That has a whole discussion. When you are eating garlic, or you're eating onions, and you're coming to the masjid, you are harming the angels before you are harming your fellow brother or sister. If you have smoked, If you've ruined your breath in any way, shape or form, if you come to the masjid with unclean socks, you are harming the angels before you're harming the Muslim. A person who disobeys Allah Almighty when the lights are off, when the curtains are drawn, not only has he disobeyed Allah, but he has shown bad adab towards Allah and then towards the angels who are there witnessing this.

How? They're seeing me do this. There has to be some manners towards the honourable scribes. How can they see me in this state? it's added towards the creation and of course your adept towards your parents will not be like the adept towards your teacher and the adept towards your teacher would not like the adept towards your friends and you end up towards your friends would not like me you're adept towards your children adapt towards creation and then finally the adab that you are deserving of for yourself adapt towards yourself yourself has a right upon you to purify it to teach it how to repent, to bring it to the masjid, to force it to come to classes like this and others, to come to the masjid, to prostrate at night, to fast when it can, to give in charity.

Your soul has a right upon you to hold it accountable when it does wrong, to make it feel guilty for its mistakes. That's part of your right upon yourself, and that is part of our adab towards ourselves. We will stop here, next week will be the official first lesson of our topic that we've titled Our Ways, and it will be the most important of all of the sessions, Our Ways with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Salaam Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

Transcript for:The Role of Adab in Society

Transcript for:
The Role of Adab in Society