Social Media and Spirituality
By Omar Suleiman | 2026-01-06T18:05:18.976547+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Social Media and Spirituality: Online Drama and Onsite Realities
By Imam Omar Suleiman
Opening Prayer
I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم is His final messenger.
We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him, his messengers and prophets that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed example until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.
The Contradiction of Courtesy
Dear brothers and sisters, I want to actually share with you all a khutbah that I was sitting in Jordan where my father-in-law was giving the khutbah, and he pointed to something very insightful about the way that we interact with one another.
In-Person Etiquette
He actually set the stage in the following way. He started to talk to the people that were in the masjid and reminded them of the basic courtesies that we show to one another when we are actually in front of each other and when we're entering and exiting a room. And I'm actually just gonna put that image in your head, insha'Allah ta'ala.
When you walk into a room and you exit a room, and in some cultures there's more emphasis on how you enter a room, how you exit a room. Everyone says "tafaddal" - you go first. The younger person takes to one side and tries to let the elder enter in first. A person says you're on the right side and the sunnah is that you should go first. One person holds the door for the others and says go on out. And there is a beautiful emphasis on akhlaq, on character and on traits and qualities. In some of these cultures in particular, where you know it's almost to a point that it's overboard.
The Driving Transformation
So after everyone felt good about themselves, he said: "Now you get into your cars and you start to drive out of the masjid and you are back on your way, and you're driving in the neighborhoods, driving on the highways. And that same person that if they were right in front of you, you would have held the door for, you would have said 'tafaddal ammi' to the elder person - 'go in front of me' - you would have humbled yourself and expressed just such a high level of manners and etiquette. Now that you're driving next to them, you're trying to run them off of the road. You're cutting them off. People are screaming at each other and cursing each other out. You know, people exchange nasty facial expressions and more. And all this happens and it's the same people that were just sitting together in the same room. But now everyone hates each other and is cursing each other out and is showing absolutely no courtesy to one another."
Now this is not specific to a country or a cultural context. It's actually indicative of a human problem, which is that we tend to put on our best display of human manners when it's awkward not to show manners, when it's awkward not to show courtesy. And it's less about the person in front of you as much as it is about you not being perceived in a certain way. It's not necessarily that you're honoring the gray hairs of the person that's next to you or that you're trying to honor the sunnah - because there's a sunnah that we can apply when we drive to and when we interact with each other on the road, too. It's that I don't want to be perceived as a person of no manners, and I'm, you know, following basic cultural etiquette. And so I want to make sure that I don't cut someone off. I want to make sure this person goes ahead of me, and you know, I sit in a gathering and I might uphold these high level of etiquettes about the way that I carry myself.
The Digital Disconnect
But then once you're disconnected from that person in a meaningful way and that person no longer is a human being but just another car on the road, then suddenly all of that goes out the window and something else happens to you, something else takes over you.
Adding Layers of Distance
Now add on to this a layer of social media - a layer of WhatsApp and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram or whatever else they got going on. Add on to that the next level of disconnect that we have where we're still interacting with each other, but we're not interacting with each other as human beings anymore. We're not interacting with each other as people. But just like that person was isolated from you from the windows in the car, from the vehicle, the layer of protection and disconnect that the vehicle places between you and someone else, now that person has become a picture on a screen. First they were a picture behind a glass, now it's a picture on a screen. And now you are literally going to forget all basic human etiquettes, all basic courtesies, all adab, all akhlaq, all character, all morals - all that goes out the window.
Because you can say more hurtful things when you forget that the person that you're talking to is a human being. You can be more aggressive. You can throw certain words.
The Marriage Example
Think about the dynamics of a husband and a wife that would not dare to say certain things to each other, but the husband leaves or the wife leaves and they start texting each other and things get wild over text. Things become escalated, naturally amplified, because you forget that the person that you're talking to is a human being, even though it could have been someone as close as your spouse that you were just with.
Sometimes you read an email, sometimes a WhatsApp message goes out, sometimes something happens online and you have a hard time - you're like, "Did the computer mess up and put somebody else's name on this?" Because you could not imagine that thing being said from someone's mouth in person when two people are standing in front of each other.
There's no way that a person would be able to bring themselves to say something so nasty to someone else in person. But again, once you're online, it's no longer two people talking to each other. The more distance that's created between you and someone else, the more that that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood and basic courtesy and dignity goes out the window.
Allah's Documentation System
But now here's the problem. Abdullah ibn Abbas said, describing the ayah in the Quran where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions:
"Man does not utter any word except that with him is an observer prepared [to record]."
That you don't say a word except that there is someone that writes it for you, that documents it for you, that an angel has been there to document everything. He said the documentation of Allah is every expression, every word, and every signal, whether it is expressed, written, or spoken. That's the way that Allah documents.
And he said if someone rolls their eyes at someone else in the midst of a conversation - مَا يَلْفِظُ مِنْ قَوْلٍ إِلَّا لَدَيْهِ رَقِيبٌ عَتِيدٌ - it is written as someone. That's what "uff" is. People didn't used to say "uff" to their parents like literally "uff" like "huma." It was bristling, looking away, signaling in a certain way.
He said if you write something in a letter - back then they didn't have texts, they didn't have social media - if you write something in a letter, expect it to be just as written with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as a word that you speak in vain or in ignorance or in haste. It is all captured and written by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Digital Accountability
Someone was reflecting on the way that American history is going to be taught 20 years from now. How many tweets of the president will be in American history books that kids will read tweets? Right? Think on Yawm al-Qiyamah, on the Day of Judgment: how many tweets, posts, WhatsApp things that you wrote, whatever it is that you put on there, will confront you? You know exactly what you were doing when you said what you said, but now it confronts you and you have to answer Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with it.
The Basic Rule
Now the very basic rule we can take from this - it should be as simple as can be: if you would not bring yourself to say it to someone, don't write it.
And then you add the different layers of cowardice where it becomes a wahn (weakness), where it becomes an evil suspicion, and then it becomes sukhriya (mocking one another), and then it becomes backbiting because then groups are formed and people start to talk to each other about other people, quoting that which everybody can see. And then that becomes an entire dimension of ghiba which is only meant to lead to namima at some point - to slander as well. All of these diseases that start to come out because layers and layers and layers and layers are put between us and the people. And as a result of that, layers and layers and layers are put between our hearts and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And as a result of that, layers and layers and layers of testimony against us are being gathered for the Day of Judgment.
Digital Communication Reality
Now some of you are saying: "Hamdulillah, I don't use social media." Do you group text? Do you WhatsApp? Do you use other things? Most of us are communicating with each other digitally now, or communicating at each other digitally now. The things that you write - would you say so? The very first thing is this idea of courtesy or this idea of thinking to yourself as a filter: Would I say this to a person in front of them or not? Because the Shaitan is the one who disconnects.
The Difference Voice Makes
And I want you to think about this very in a very real way, because even there are certain things you wouldn't say on a phone that you would write to somebody, right? There are certain courtesies. You know, let's say that you're having a really rough back-and-forth and you pick up the phone. In the beginning you got that awkward silence, that tension, like: "So are we going to talk about this?" And then it starts being spoken about. The chances of you reaching a resolution or a place of reconciliation just over the phone, hearing one another's voice in that person's voice, is so much greater than the chances of you reaching a resolution over writing.
How many times have you seen a Twitter battle or Facebook comments or a WhatsApp group engine - you know what? - "You're right, barakallahu feekum. Please forgive me. I understand your point of view now. It makes so much more sense to me now, and thank you so much for enlightening me."
How many of those end like that?
The Nature of Fitna
So the chances of that happening when you got a group involved - that's the basis of fitna: that two people start fighting and then it becomes a whole bunch of people fighting a whole bunch of people. No one knows why they're fighting.
One of the most insightful things that I read from Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah, and though it's talking about qital (fighting/murder), it's really interesting. He said that the first murder was one person killing another for a personal reason. He said but as fitna grows, it's a bunch of people killing a bunch of people for no reason, and you could usually trace it back to a personal conflict between two people that didn't get worked out.
I thought that was super insightful, subhanAllah, that the first thing - it was very simple. Cain and Abel didn't send texts to each other. There weren't many other people to involve in this. It was two people. One person overtaken by the disease of hasad (envy) and he goes and kills another person. As time goes on, as more people get added to the equation, as more means of communication get added to the equation, suddenly it's a whole bunch of people getting involved. And how many wars were fought over a conflict that started out with two people not getting along or two people expressing something with each other? And then you got all the foot soldiers and they're killing each other and they don't know why they're killing each other. Neither the person killing nor the person being killed has any idea what this is really all about.
Transfer that from qital, from murder, to everything else.
The Solution: Direct Human Contact
So how many times have you seen threads go, right? Where people start to comment and things actually get solved and get put back together? Then the likelihood of it in a personal communication between two people: if it stays written, it's most likely gonna end nasty. Then it gets reduced when you actually talk to each other because you can at least hear someone's voice and that should soften you up a little bit. And what's the difference between that and when two people actually sit with one another and they come to each other?
(Bukhari hadith 10)
And when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "You shake hands with someone and the sins start to fall from your hands." That from the very first "assalamu alaykum" - peace be upon you:
"The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand the Muslims are safe."
That you have peace from my side: "Laysa min qibali illa salam" - you're only gonna get peace from me. "Wa alaykum salam." You sit down, you shake hands, the sins fall from your hands, and you hash things
out as two people.
When Two People Can't Resolve It
You can't work it out sitting in person? The solution does not become that you go back and get on the phone call again, or let's get back to writing. No, the solution becomes: bring a third person in there who can make things better. If you're not at a point - but this is if it's not going to be solved with two people sitting with one another and with sins falling and with the Shaitan being expelled - then it's not going to be solved. The more you distance yourself from one another because you know what happens when people write to each other and they write things about each other? Guess who the narrator is? The voice when you're reading - you know when you read, you read in a voice. The Shaitan is the one narrating to you.
So you're reading everything in the worst possible way, writing everything in the worst possible way, because the voice is the voice of the Shaitan who knows how to get to the heart of the person that's being attacked, who knows exactly how to make this the worst possible situation whatsoever.
Practical Guidelines
So how do we deal with this?
Number One: The Basic Filter
If you're not going to say it to someone, don't write it to someone. Certainly don't write it at someone, and definitely don't write it about someone, which is the worst type because then you add the element of riba (backbiting), gossip, slander, and all of that with the bad adab that was already employed when it was direct communication.
Number Two: The Sign of Abandonment
The second thing is this. The saying of Imam Hassan al-Basri rahimahullah ta'ala - this is a very scary saying. He said:
"One of the signs of a person being abandoned by God is that God busies them with that which doesn't concern them."
They become busy with that which is of no benefit to them. They become busy with that which doesn't concern them. They start following these things. They start digging into them. They never want to miss out on the drama, never want to miss out on where this is going to go.
The Disease of Always Having an Opinion
The worst thing - the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:
(Tirmidhi hadith 2018)
"The people furthest away from me on the Day of Judgment and the people that will have abad that are the most hated people to me are people that are thartharoon."
They always have an opinion about everything. That's the first thing that you actually express an opinion. You know, "hot takes" is a big thing in social media. You want to capitalize on the news cycle, make sure you get your take in, make sure that you know you can't let this WhatsApp conversation - la qaddarallah - die without you having your input.
"Oh no, the Facebook thread is gonna become old. I need to make sure I get in on that one. Oh no, people are gonna move on the email threads. Let me make sure I get my hot take in." It's a thing now, right? That's exactly the definition of a thartharoon.
Imam An-Nawawi rahimahullah said: "A person who has an opinion about everything, whether it benefits him or not, whether he's qualified to express an opinion on it or not, and whether he's checked his heart and whether he has an interest in it or not."
SubhanAllah, how profound!
Three Questions to Ask Yourself
Do you have any benefit from it? Does it involve you in any way? Is there any benefit to you weighing in? Number one.
Number two: Are you even qualified to offer an opinion on this? Do you know enough to offer an opinion on this? Either about the area being discussed or the particular situation. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Number three: Have you checked your heart to see if there is an interest, a deviant interest, in this? Because social media is echo chambers, tribes. So your guy is always right and their guy is always wrong. And so you will always spin everything to make sure that everyone knows your guy is right and their guy is wrong. Have you checked your heart with it first?
So a thartharoon - and the one who actually weighs in on it is in a very hard situation. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions:
"And those who turn away from ill speech."
Those who negate idle speech - speech that has no benefit whatsoever. Speech that has no benefit whatsoever, not speech that's haram necessarily - idle speech. Laghw is just stuff that has no benefit to talk about, but you keep weighing in and you keep weighing in.
The Consequence of One Word
And Abu Hurayrah (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) said about the man from Banu Isra'il:
(Bukhari hadith 6477)
His brother says: "Well, I hate a calamity." Kalima - oh, but "qad bi he dunya." Oh well, I thought he said one word that ruined his life and ruined his hereafter. One word ruined his life, ruined his dunya, and ruined his akhira.
So the first thing is: should I weigh in on? Most likely the answer is no, because the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:
(Bukhari hadith 6018)
"Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him say something good or be quiet."
You don't need to say anything at all.
Self-Focus vs External Drama
The second thing is: why am I reading about this so much? Why am I so interested and curious in how this is going to end up? And that's the second sign of khudhlan (abandonment) that we need to take into our consideration. We don't want to be abandoned by Allah.
The Wisdom of Abu Hanifa
Why? Because your interest in seeing how this is going to end is directly correlated to your ignorance of your own interest and how things are going to end for you. I'm gonna say that again: your obsession with this dunya worthless material filth is directly tied to your ignorance of yourself and your ultimate place with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
How do we know that? You know, a man came up to Imam Abu Hanifa rahimahullah ta'ala and he said to Imam Abu Hanifa rahimahullah, he started asking him all these questions about Ali (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) and Muawiyah (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) about the fitna. He said, "You know, this and this and that. Tell me about this. Tell me about that. Tell me about this."
Abu Hanifa responds and he said: "You know, I doubt that on the Day of Judgment Allah's gonna ask me about Ali or Muawiyah. He's gonna ask me about me. So I'm gonna focus on myself and my own standing with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I don't need to start getting involved in takes. I don't need to
have an opinion. I don't need to have a comment. I'm not even interested because I'm too concerned with my own state."
The Wisdom of Sufyan al-Thawri
Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahullah said:
"May Allah have mercy on a person who's so busy with their faults that they don't even see the faults of other people anymore."
They're too busy and consumed with their own faults to even pay attention to other people's faults.
The WhatsApp conversation might end in a certain way. The Facebook debate might end in a certain way. The Twitter debate might end in a certain way. The comments are gonna go all over the place. People would have each accumulated their share of sins. But what's my ending with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Where do I go from here? How am I gonna stand in front of Allah?
The Proper Connection with People
Now someone might take that in a way that says: "You know what? There is no room for anything now. We should not have anything to do with people because we should only be connected to Allah." It's also a very wrong way of thinking of things.
If you're connected to Allah, you won't connect with the people in a way that would compromise your connection with Allah. Prayed Fajr in the masjid? You're not gonna go ruin all of that online. You just read Quran? You're not gonna mess that up. You just found some time for du'a? You're not gonna ruin that. You're not gonna waste your time, your energy, your thoughts, your concerns on things that are gonna compromise your connection with Allah.
So that's the first one: if you're connected with Allah, then you're not gonna be disconnected, or you're not gonna be connected with the people in a way that compromises your connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The Prophet's Teaching on Mixing with People
However, Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught us to connect with people. He taught us to be deeply involved with people, but not to be involved with their sins or with their faults or with their opinions, but to be involved with their pain, to be involved with their struggles, to be involved with their concerns in a way that we can help alleviate them.
What's the difference between the two? The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:
(Tirmidhi hadith 2507)
"The one who mixes with the people and tolerates their abuse is better than the one who does not mix with the people and does not tolerate their abuse."
What he meant by that (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is that the believer takes deep concern in people and is connected to the people, but connected to them in the capacity of khidmah and the capacity of service.
Service vs Ego
How can I serve people? How can I make that person's life better? How can I do better to bring the deen of Allah to that person? How can I get that person over the hump? It's the exact opposite of the Shaitani way of involving with people, which is: how can I boost my own ego, bury that person further in their sin and fault, and keep this chaos that is in my heart also outside of my heart?
So mix with the people, take interest in the people. But when you see someone sinning, don't bury them in that sin - find a way to get them over that sin. When you see someone struggling, how can I help that person overcome their struggle?
What do you offer when you mix with the people? What is the capacity of your involvement with the people? The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) always sat with the people, but he didn't sit with the people gossiping and talking about other people. He sat with the people about how they could make things better for the people.
So there is a healthy connection with Allah and a healthy connection with people. And the very first thing you should do with everything that exists outside of the domain of your connection with Allah is: consider whether it's going to benefit your connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or not. That's the very first thing.
The Example of Anas ibn Malik
SubhanAllah, there is an incident that took place with Imam - with Anas ibn Malik (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ). Anas ibn Malik (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) was pursued by the tyrant Al-Hajjaj. It's a great companion pursued by the tyrant Al- Hajjaj. And Al-Hajjaj put on festivals of mockery of his opponents, his political opponents. He actually put on festivals. So everyone come and talk about Anas ibn Malik. That was their era of social media - literally a social place for distributing how to lampoon the opponents of the tyrants. And most many of them were sahaba and tabi'een.
So they used to get together and they'd curse and make fun of and mock Anas ibn Malik. They'd mock Sa'eed ibn al-Jubayr. They'd mock Ibn Sirin. They'd mock all of these people - righteous people.
Anas ibn Malik (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) was walking by one day. He literally went to the marketplace. He bought himself some apples. I mean, think of the image: this man who served the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم)
for all these years, did khidmah to the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) for his entire childhood, lived long enough to teach people the sunnah of the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ)a man who lived well into his old age just going about his business. He goes and he purchases some apples and he's walking back to his house. And he walks right past the festival and he's got a smile on his face. He's got his head down and he's doing dhikr. He's remembering Allah as if nothing is happening around him, as if like right a few feet away from him people are not cursing him and taunting him and mocking him and saying all these things.
And a man ran out to him and said to him: "Aren't you gonna do something? Aren't you gonna get in there and say something?"
And Anas ibn Malik (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) said:
"Wallahi, if I wanted to, I would have said one word and it would have caused all of them to disperse."
He said: "But that would have been the loss of saying a word that is pleasing to Allah instead."
That's special. That man had his core. He had his place with Allah. "I'm not gonna worry about that. I've got to worry about this."
Umar's Wisdom
And Umar (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ) said: "Speaking with Allah is a cure. Speaking with the people is a disease." Sometimes you just need to, you know what, reduce it.
The Sanctity of Juma
Nothing should get in between this. Nothing should get in between this. You are prohibited on the day of Juma from even tapping someone on the shoulder. This is a good time to remind people: can't use your phones in Juma, no texting in Juma, no talking in Juma, no even saying salam to the people in Juma, no saying this to the people in Juma, don't wave to anybody in Juma. Juma - you're supposed to be focused entirely on remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and considering how what is being said applies to you.
Why? Because you work enough and you do enough where everything that we do in life is pretty much distracted. There is no other time outside of salah in a congregational gathering where it is prohibited - it is haram to the point it would nullify your Juma - to talk to somebody. Even exchanging salam according to many of the scholars would nullify your Juma because you need to focus on yourself.
It is possible to sit in a crowd with a thousand people and be entirely concerned on your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to the point that you're not even allowed to say salam to the people next to you. You can do that after, insha'Allah.
Closing Prayer
Connect yourself to Allah in a way that you only connect with the people in ways that are beneficial to your connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that's it.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us for our shortcomings, to connect our hearts with Him in ways that would connect our hearts with the people in ways that would benefit our standing with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We seek refuge in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala from losing ourselves in that which is not pleasing to Him.