Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

Sheikh Saad Tasleem | MASCON 2017

Opening

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - as-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmatu-llāhi wa-barakātuh)

The Story of Abdullah ibn Maslamah al-Qarnabi

I want to start off, inshallah ta'ala, by telling you the story or part of the story of a well-known sinful person.

This is a man who lived in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Islamic calendar and his name was Abdullah ibn Maslamah al-Qarnabi. Some of you may know who he is, some of you may not.

But basically in his younger life, he lived in the town of Basra in Iraq. And in Iraq, in the town of Basra, he was known to be like the town drunkard. Right, so they would often see him stumbling about town, drinking, you know, kind of out of his mind and this and that.

And a lot of people would just, when they would see him and his friends, they're like all the hooligans or whatever, they would just ignore them. And so one time, Abdullah ibn Maslamah al-Qarnabi, he's in the marketplace and he sees a crowd of people gathering around someone. And in his drunken state, he gets very curious.

And he stumbles over to the crowd and he starts pushing people aside and he's like, who are you talking to? Who is this? Why is everybody so concerned with this individual? Who is this? And a few people in the crowd, they shout out, they say, this is Shu'ba. And he says, wa man Shu'ba? And he says, and who is Shu'ba? And they say, this is Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj. And they say, and he says, and who is Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj? Who is that? And they say to him, al-Muhaddith, Shu'ba al-Muhaddith.

This is the famous scholar of Hadith, Shu'ba. Like people are like, how do you not know who this is? And he goes, okay. He goes, anta muhaddith. He says, you're a muhaddith. And now he's stumbling and he's kind of slurring his words. And then he turns to him like he's now, this is basically like, this is Abdullah ibn Maslamah and Shu'ba talking to one another in a crowd of people.

And he goes, if you're a muhaddith, he goes, fahaddithni. He goes, if you're a muhaddith, give me a hadith. Tell me a hadith.

And now, subhanAllah, this great scholar, Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj, he looks at this guy, he's like half out of his mind. He's stumbling all over the place. He's like, what am I going to say to you? He goes, ma anta min ashab al-hadith.

He goes, you're not from the people of hadith. Meaning, in order for me to transmit a hadith to you, in order for me to narrate a hadith to you, you have to be in a better state of mind. You have to have some high level of character. You have to be someone who has a certain level of morality. And it is very evident from your behavior right now, that you're not from the people of hadith. And then, Abdullah ibn Maslamah, he says to him, he goes, hadithni illa. He goes, give me a hadith, or. And he says, or I will strike you. I'm going to beat you up.

And so finally, Shu'ab ibn al-Hajjaj, he gets quiet for a while. And then he begins to say to him, he goes, hadithna Mansoor, an Rib'i, an Abi Masood. He goes, it has come to us, it has been narrated, from Mansoor, who narrated from Rib'i, who narrated from Ibn Masood. Qala Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. He said that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said:

Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3484

He says to him that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, if you have no shame, then do as you like, or do as you wish.

And Abdullah says that, when I heard these words, it struck me like an arrow in my chest. He said, I was left speechless. He says, it felt like I was knocked to the ground. And so when hearing these words, the words of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, being told to him that if you have no shame, if you don't feel shyness, if you feel no shame, then do whatever you like. You're gonna make a scene in the marketplace, you're gonna walk around drunk, you're gonna abuse people, cuss people out, whatever. You have no respect for scholar, hadith or whatever. You lack shame, then do as you like.

And so he says, this really got to me. He says, I ran home, I took all my bottles of wine and I poured them out. I locked the doors. I told my mother, if anyone comes to see me, any of my friends come to see me, tell them that I don't wanna see them.

And he sat in that state for a while. And then he pondered and thought about his situation. And he said, what am I doing with my life? I want to be like Shu'ba. I want to be like him. I want to be a carrier and a narrator of hadith.

And so he asked the people of his town, he said, he asked them, he said, who is the most knowledgeable person in the world today? And they say to him, today the most knowledgeable person is probably Imam Malik. Where is Imam Malik? He is in Medina.

So now Abdullah, he travels all the way to Medina and he studies with Imam Malik. And he becomes one of the students of Imam Malik. And he studies and he studies and he studies until he feels like he's gotten everything he needs to from Imam Malik. And then he asked the people of Medina, who is the second most knowledgeable person on the face of this earth? And they say to him, Shu'ba. He says, Shu'ba? From Basra? From Iraq? They say yes.

So he rushes back. You know, it wasn't a short flight back then. It took a long time. But he rushed back. He came all the way back to Iraq, to Basra, to study with Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj. And as he arrives in Basra, he starts looking for Shu'ba. And he finds out that Shu'ba has passed away.

However, we find that Abdullah ibn Maslamah al-Qarnabi continued on to study. And today he's considered one of the great scholars of Islam. And he narrated from many different scholars. Obviously he narrated hadith from Imam Malik. I believe he has about 130 or so narrations mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari.

But when it comes to his teachers, amongst them they have listed Imam Malik and others. But also amongst his teachers, they have listed Shu'ba. Did he study with Shu'ba? Yes or no? No, he didn't sit with Shu'ba. He didn't study with him. But he did learn one hadith from Shu'ba. And so, under his teachers, it says Shu'ba.

And the hadith that he narrated, it's been mentioned:

Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3484

If you have no shame, if you don't feel shy, then do as you like.

The Danger of Publicizing Sins

Now, my brothers and sisters, I share this story with you. Because a lot of times, one of the ways that we are tricked by the Shaitan is that we feel that if we're going to sin, we don't want to be hypocrites.

And I know a lot of times, we're told that the dangers of living a hypocritical life and having a double life, and indeed that is something which is extremely dangerous. And indeed that is another spiritual problem and I believe a lot of it was talked about. But there's another side to the story as well or the other side of the coin.

And that is living a life where a person says, look, I don't care. If I'm gonna sin, I'm gonna sin. I'm not gonna hide my sins. I ain't no hypocrite.

And similarly sometimes, subhanAllah, you see someone who's backbiting someone else and they use the same argument. They're like, you know, why are you backbiting this person? They're like, I don't care. I'll say to their face. And you're like, that doesn't make a difference. That doesn't change the sin from being backbiting to not being backbiting.

Now, actually, if you say it to their face, it might be considered abuse. So now you have a sin upon another sin. May Allah protect us.

Backbiting is simply to say, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us, to say about someone something that they wouldn't like. Whether you say it to their face or behind their back or you say it, you know, you mention it on Facebook or Twitter or whatever it may be, doesn't make a difference. If you say something about them that they don't like, that becomes backbiting.

Whether you're proud to say it or not, whether you feel good about saying it or not, doesn't make a difference in this sin. As a matter of fact, when we publicize our sins, when we boast of our sins, when we talk of our sins, when we tell others of our sins, this is an indication of a larger spiritual problem. And that is a lack of haya.

That is a lack of shame and modesty with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala first and foremost.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said:

Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6069; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2990

All of my ummah can be forgiven or all of the sins of my ummah can be forgiven except those who publicize their sins.

And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, the example of that person who publicizes their sin is the person who goes in the night and they commit a sin. And Allah covers them. Meaning Allah doesn't expose their sin. Their sin was done privately. Then in the morning time, this person wakes up and he begins to tell the people, last night I committed such and such sin. Last night I did this and I did that. When it is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who had covered up the sin. And in the morning this person exposes their own sin.

The Difference Between Positive and Negative Regret

Why do I say that? Why do I say that hiding our sins is a good thing? Hiding our sins can be a good thing. It's a good thing if we hide our sins out of regret. It's a good thing if we hide our sins because we feel the weight of our sins.

And that is why I always differentiate between positive regret and negative regret. That's not an official term, that's just something I came up with. So don't go Google that or whatever.

But positive regret for me is regret or shame that leads a person to repentance. That leads a person to repent to Allah, to repentance and to seek Allah's forgiveness. Meaning a person feels bad about their sin, they feel regretful and then they turn to Allah and seek Allah's forgiveness and Allah's help in getting over that sin.

Negative regret is not good as it says. Negative, right? Negative regret. Negative regret is very often times from the shaitan. Negative regret is when a person feels so bad about their sin that they either lose hope or they stop caring. Right? A person feels so bad and then the shaitan comes to them and says, you're just a bad person. You're just a bad Muslim. Why do you even bother? Allah is never going to forgive you. You're never gonna get past this sin. You're never gonna be able to get rid of this bad habit or this bad behavior or whatever it is you do.

And a person feels so bad that they give up. They lose hope in their own ability and even more severe than that or more dangerous than that is losing hope in the ability of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help them.

That's why I often tell people that if you've lost hope in yourself then at least have hope in Allah. If you don't believe in yourself, if you don't believe in your own abilities, if you don't believe in your own capabilities, then

have belief and believe in Allah's ability to help you. Have firm faith that Allah has the capability to help you because Allah is capable of anything.

And that is what we're talking about when we talk about positive regret. That a person feels bad, a person feels some type of shame.

The Problem of Publicizing Sins in the Digital Age

And you know subhanallah, this is a problem that our scholars have talked about for a very very long time. But in this day and age, this problem is almost compounded because of our friendly internet. Because we have so many avenues and so many ways of publicizing our sins, publicizing our faults.

And subhanallah how many times have we met someone and I can at least tell you personally, this happened to me quite a few times where I meet someone who you know finds Islam at some point in their life or they start practicing Islam or they become more spiritual and then they wanna change their life or something and they're like wait, but I have a whole history of public sinfulness.

And it used to be like back in my day, this may come to you as a surprise, I'm probably a lot older than a lot of you. But back in my day, you know like I'll tell you, look when I did stupid things, I'm just had the like eternally grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that like we didn't have YouTube and we didn't have MySpace and things like that.

Some of you know this, but I used to be in a band before I accepted Islam, a punk rock band, music that most people wouldn't like anyway, right? Besides the fact that it's music. And one of the things that till this day, I make shukr to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is that this is pre-YouTube. Because I know for a fact the first thing that would have happened is somebody sees me here on stage, Oh Sa'ad al-Saleem, let's see what's going on about, you know, let's see what's going on YouTube. And at some point they'd come across like a track that we recorded or something or whatever.

And remember this, Allah forgives, Allah forgives very easily. It means nothing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive, but people are not the same. It is very difficult for people to forgive. People may even forgive you, but things will remain in their hearts.

And that is why sometimes a person may commit a sin and they hide their sin and they feel bad about it and they make tawbah and no one finds out about that sin. And this sin is between them and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Allah forgives them and they're done.

But on the other hand, a person commits a sin publicly and they publicize that sin and they repent to Allah. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgives them but the people don't forgive them.

And that is why one of the way, this ruling that I found in some of our books of qadha, in some of our older books of qadha which I found to be very strange because in this modern time it seems very strange when someone would commit a sin that would become widespread and wide known.

Let's say, you know, in like a Muslim society or whatever someone commits zina, right? And their zina is publicized and everyone finds out that they commit zina or whatever and then they make tawbah or they've done a sin that people have been affected by. Sometimes the qadi would say part of your tawbah is to move somewhere else.

And you know, as a student reading this I'd be like, why? Right, like why would you have to do that? And the reason is because this is pre-internet, right? Pre-social media. Where now a person can move to a place where, you know, they don't have to deal with a people who will constantly shame them for the sin that they've committed. Right, and that sin goes back to being between them and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they have hope that Allah will forgive them.

And inshallah ta'ala the last point that I wanna mention is this. Our hiding of our sins as long as it is done for the right reason inshallah ta'ala is a good thing. It means that we care. It means that we care about the sin and we regret what we have done and we want to turn back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The Trust of Gatherings

Also it is the responsibility of all of us for one another to help one another when we are struggling. The default unfortunately now has become that when something happens we wanna talk about it. Right, I know subhanallah sitting in gatherings and just simply the difference in sitting in gatherings when I was studying in Medina versus sitting in gatherings now.

I remember sitting among scholars and students a lot of times what was understood in our gatherings was that a default state of a gathering is that what is shared within the gathering stays within the gathering. This is what is known as amanatul majlis. Right, the security or the responsibility or the trust of the gathering that we are sitting in.

So the default by the way and some of you may not know this as a Muslim the default of a gathering is that if something is mentioned in a gathering that it is not to be shared outside.

Unfortunately the default now for us has become that the default is we share things with other people. Unless someone says Hey, hey, listen I know I told you this but don't tell anybody. Right? And even in that case you'll have someone say well did he really really mean that? Right? Did she really really mean that?

And so subhanAllah as a Muslim we are supposed to feel safe with one another. Not only the masjid and I know most masjids get a lot of slack. Right? The masjids that you know have become environments that are you know very judgemental of people and you know people can't go there and when somebody wants to repent and they want to get close to God or whatever they they're judged and they're shamed at the masjid and so on and so forth. And yeah that happens but forget about the masjid like our regular everyday life.

Our family and friends. SubhanAllah what is the state that we're living in? Where our family and friends we can't feel safe around our family and friends. That our friends are the one who will expose our fault and expose

our sins.

The Hadith About Seeking Others' Faults

You know there's a hadith that I remember studying or reading for the very first time which like shook me to my core. And I want to share this hadith with you. And this is the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in which he said:

Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2032; Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 4880

One who follows a person's faults or basically what this means is seeks out a person's shortcomings seeks out a person's faults. That Allah will seek out this person's faults. And the one who Allah has their faults sought out the person will be ruined.

Why? Because Allah knows all of our faults. Allah knows all of our shortcomings. If every one of us were fully exposed our sins were put out there none of us would be able to stand one another. We'd be ashamed to talk to one another because the reality is we're all human beings and we all commit sins.

And it is the mercy and blessing of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that Allah keeps our sins hidden. That Allah protects our sins for us. And Allah asks from us. All that is required from us is that we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us. And we are grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for covering up our sins.

And the least that we can do is be that support for one another. To be that person for our brothers and our sisters and our families and our friends and our communities. That when someone is going through a problem that they can feel comfortable coming and talking to you. Even if you have nothing to add. Even if you have no advice to give to them. All you have to offer is just be a person that can listen to them. All you have to say is, look, I can't imagine what you're going through but I'm glad you felt comfortable talking to me.

That's all you have to offer that is a great service.

Closing Du'a

So I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to raise the status of our communities. To raise the status of the love and honor and respect that we have amongst one another. So that we feel comfortable with one another. So not only that we cover each other's weaknesses and faults. But that we can inspire each other to become better.

(اللَّهُمَّ آمِينَ - Allāhumma Āmīn)

(وَاللَّهُ تَعَالَى أَعْلَمُ - wa-llāhu taʿālā aʿlam)

(سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ أَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ - Subḥānaka Allāhumma wa biḥamdika ashhadu an lā ilāha illā anta astaghfiruka wa atūbu ilayk)

(وَجَزَاكُمُ اللَّهُ خَيْرًا - wa-jazākumu-llāhu khayran)

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - as-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmatu-llāhi wa-barakātuh)

End of Khutbah