Relationship With Allah, Ourselves and People

Relationship With Allah, Ourselves and People

By Imam Zaid Shakir

Introduction: The Comprehensive Hadith

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ in one of his most seminal hadiths, qualified by what's referred to as Jawami' al-Kalim, the ability to speak volumes with few words, said as related by Abu Dharr and Mu'adh ibn Jabal:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1987)

"Be mindful of Allah wherever you are, and follow up any misdeed you might do with a good deed which will wipe it out, and treat the people on the basis of good character."

The Three Spheres of Our Religion

This hadith summarizes our religion because our religion involves three spheres of activity: our relationship with Allah, our relationship with ourself, and our relationship with the people - with other than ourselves.

First Sphere: Our Relationship with Allah

Be Mindful of Allah Wherever You Are

Concerning the relationship with Allah, He says (اتَّقِ اللَّهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ - "Be mindful of Allah wherever you are") or in whatever situation you find yourself in.

The Problem of Situational Piety

Some people interact with Allah as if Allah isn't present in the night club, or as if Allah isn't present in the privacy of their homes, or as if Allah is present when they're with this person who's a very pious person and encourages them to good and good speech, but not present when they're with that person who's a very intemperate, debauched person who encourages them to lewdness and indecency. Because when they're with the pious people, they're pious, and when they're with the lewd and indecent people, they're lewd and indecent. When they're in the privacy of their home and no one's around, they're indecent. When they're out among the people and putting up a front, then they're very pious.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ is reminding us (اتَّقِ اللهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ - "Be mindful of Allah wherever you are.")

The Test of Travel and Reputation

When people are around, some people are very pious when they're around people who are familiar with them and they have a reputation with those people. "Oh, that's the Shaykh!" But when they're away from those people and the people don't know them, as they say, they go buck wild.

This is one of the reasons that one of our ancient wise people said (السَّفَرُ يَكْشِفُ عَنْ أَخْلَاقِ الرِّجَالِ - "Travel reveals the character of men,") reveals the character of men. Because when people go into a strange place, no one knows them and they're not going to be there long, they'll be there and then they're leaving. And so, some people in that situation, they say, "Oh, well, I'll never see these people again, I'm gonna just have a party. They'll never see me again and the people back there who think I'm all this and that, they don't know what I'm doing over here."

Allah knows. Allah knows. And the Messenger of Allah tells us (اتَّقِ اللَّهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ - "Be mindful of Allah,") يعني mindful of His commandments and prohibitions wherever you are, if you're in travel or you're at your home, if you're inside of the house or you're out in public, if you're with the pious people or you're with the indecent people.

Our Responsibility Among the Indecent

If you're with the indecent people, your job is to remind them of the right. "اتَّقِ الله - Why are you talking like that? You don't need to use that language to make your point, you know. You shouldn't be talking about other people's business. Why are you slandering that brother or sister? Why are you revealing their secrets? Why are you drinking this? Why are you smoking that? You know it's haram," as opposed to "pass me some."

(اتَّقِ اللَّهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ - Be mindful of Allah wherever you are.

Second Sphere: Our Relationship with Ourselves

Follow Evil with Good

(وَأَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَمْحُهَا - "And any misdeed you do, follow it up with a good deed being weightier, it will wipe it out.")

Those are the responsibilities we have in terms of fulfilling the rights of Allah. The misdeed is one against us. The good deed is ten in our favor, seventy in our favor, seven hundred in our favor, many times over and beyond that. So it's weightier - seven hundred is weightier than one.

Return to the Scene of Your Sin

When we slip into a misdeed, we should follow it up immediately with a good deed. And some of our scholars say you should try to go back to the spot you did the misdeed. So if you knocked someone upside their head on this particular block, go back to that block after you grow up and get some sense and make some dhikr. Go back there and say:

سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَلَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ

Why? Because يوم القيامة when that spot delivers up its news, it's going to say "Someone knocked someone upside their head and they took their wallet," but it's also going to say "On such and such day they came back here and they said سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ..."

When the earth delivers her news, every spot that we visited on this earth is going to testify for us or against us. So we should make sure that when it testifies against us, it's also going to testify for us with something

weightier than what we've done.

The Call to Repentance

We should be people of repentance. Allah Ta'ala invites all of us:

"And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed."

All of us should be constantly in repentance. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 6307)

"By Allah, I seek the forgiveness of Allah and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day."

And seventy here is not specifying sixty-nine, seventy, but indicating a lot - that you turn to Allah in repentance a lot and seek His forgiveness a lot. That's not because he had a lot of sins to repent for. He had mistakes in judgment; they weren't even sins. But it's to teach us that if he, the best of all creation خَيْرُ خَلْقِ اللَّهِ كُلِّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ could return to Allah in repentance constantly and seek forgiveness of Allah constantly, what should we be doing? Our tongue should be moist with seeking the repentance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The Meaning of Good Erasing Evil

And again, as he says (وَأَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَمْحُهَا - : - Follow up any misdeed with a good deed being weightier; it will wipe it out, will wipe it out. And this is one of the meanings of the saying of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in His book:

"And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend."

Good and Evil Are Not Equal

Good and evil are not equal. One way they're not equal: good is weightier in the scale than evil. الْحَسَنَةُ as we mentioned - الْحَسَنَةُ good - مَن جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ عَشْرُ أَمْثَالِهَا (Quran 6:160) - multiplied ten times over, many times over and beyond that. وَالسَّيِّئَةُ - and the السَّيِّئَةُ the misdeed is one

What's weightier? Seven hundred, seven thousand, seven million - إِلَى أَضْعَافٍ كَثِيرَةٍ بِرَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ وَفَضْلِهِ - based on the mercy and the grace of Allah. He can give us seven million حسنات for that one good deed if He so chooses, but the misdeed is only one. And that's one way they're not equal.

They're not equal in terms of their effect on people. We do an evil deed to people and it affects their hearts one way - they might hate us when formerly they loved us, and that one misdeed just hit their heart so hard that they couldn't get over it. Whereas the good deed opens up people's hearts, it opens up the channels of love, it opens up the channels, the avenues of respect.

The Power of Good Deeds to Win Hearts

Ibn Mas'ud's Wisdom

Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) mentioned something you've probably heard before:

جُبِلَتِ الْقُلُوبُ عَلَى حُبِّ مَنْ أَحْسَنَ إِلَيْهَا

"Hearts are naturally disposed to love those who do good to them."

The Story of Islamic Relief

So again, we should be people of goodness, we should be people of goodness. People are worried about, "Oh, Islamophobia, Islamophobia." What are we doing by way of good to the people?

We have all these hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina - the first of these recent "once in every five hundred year hurricanes" that come twice a year now. When Katrina came through Louisiana, Mississippi area, Islamic Relief was there helping the people in Cajun country, the backwoods people who, all they listen to is Fox News. So you know what their attitude towards Islam was. But when they came there after the hurricane, they're bringing food to the people, bringing water to the people, and FEMA wasn't even there. The only people in some of these areas was Islamic Relief.

One of the men got the Islamic Relief logo - the masjid with the two tall minarets (personally I think they should shorten the minarets a little) - but he put the logo on the side of his pickup truck. He probably had a gun rack in the back with a shotgun, might have had a confederate flag on the front license plate, but he had an Islamic Relief logo on the side of his truck.

And some of his neighbors said, "Take that off, that's from the Muslims." That's what he probably said. The man said, "No." And then the man came back. He said, "I'll give you three hundred dollars to take it off." This was related to me. And you know, people are poor, they were just devastated by the hurricane. Three hundred dollars is a lot of money in those parts. But the man said, "I'll never take it off." He said, "These people were here when no one else was here and they were doing good."

And that's the power of good.

The Quranic Promise

ادْفَعْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ - Respond to evil with that which is best.

And you will unexpectedly - إِذَا this is called إِذَا الفُجَائِيَّة the إِذَا that introduces an unexpected consequence - and unexpectedly you will see the one between you and him that was enmity become as it were an intimate friend. As it were, because they're a new friend. وَلِيٌّ حَمِيمٌ is there from the beginning; this friend came on later after you did the good to him or to her.

Our Business Should Be Doing Good

And that should be our business. We're about the business of arguing and disputing. We're about the business of condemning. We're about the business of pointing out everything that's wrong with everything. But we should

be about the business of doing good to people. That's what's going to affect their hearts. That's what's going to change their minds about Islam. That's what's going to give them hope. That's what's going to let them know that they're valued as a human being, and so they don't have to project all of this negativity that their life is qualified by out onto others, be they Muslim, African American or poor people or whoever.

And not because I'm making this up - this is what our Lord is telling us, and this is tried and tested throughout history.

How Good Character Attracts People to Islam

How many of us converted? I converted to Islam. How much of that was based on doctrine and how much was that based on a Muslim coming into our life and treating us like a respectable, decent human being, and taking care and explaining things to us, and letting us know they got our back? I guarantee it's more that than doctrine.

Someone came and explained, "Oh, I've seen the light." Many people already believed in God. That belief was adulterated in many instances by Trinity or something, but the belief in God was there. The belief in good was there.

You give me the hardest thug - I guarantee you he went to Sunday school when he was little. He knows the Ten Commandments. He knows "thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." He knows the Ten Commandments. So the ethical foundation is already there. Islam wasn't introducing anything new to most of us, but it was introducing a new way to interact with people, a new way to interact with ourselves, and a new way to interact with the Lord we already acknowledged.

Third Sphere: Treating People with Good Character

The Example of Sister Alice

So we have to be about the work of treating people good. How many - we know our sister, Sister Alice, twenty-five years over there in Rainbow Rec in East Oakland feeding people. Anyone familiar with her, you know how much the people love her. She might have never explained to them a single verse in Quran, but they love her as a Muslim and they love Islam and they love Muslims because she's been feeding them for twenty-five years, and probably some families for now two or three generations - fed the grandmother, the mother, and the little daughter. And some of us have seen that, we've seen that love.

The Foundation of Good Character

Which leads us to the final one: وَخَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقٍ حَسَنٍ - Treat people on the basis of good character.

Be honest with people. Be fair with people. Be just with people. Share with people. Show compassion for people. Be courageous in defending people.

.This is the key - وَخَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقٍ حَسَنٍ

Summary: The Three Realms

And so these three realms: observing the rights owed to Allah, observing the rights owed to ourselves so we