And the next chapter is: "The Muslim is the mirror of his brother." This is the chapter we Muslims, men and women, need most today.

The Shaykh : The next chapter is: "The Muslim is the mirror of his brother." This is the chapter we Muslims, men and women, need most today. And the truth, and I say the truth, is that the Muslims' turning away from this single hadith is what entangles them in many moral problems. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) says in the second hadith of this chapter, because the one before it has a defect in its chain. In the second hadith, he says: From the narration of Abu Hurayrah from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): . This is a great hadith, whether in its beginning, in its first part, which is his saying (peace be upon him): . The meaning of this hadith is: It means that the relationship of a Muslim with his Muslim brother must be such that he seeks his help to ascend to the degrees of perfection because of his Muslim brother. How is that? Because it is the nature of man, and the nature of the soul that commands evil, the heedless and very heedless soul, that it does not see its own faults, but only sees the faults of others. A person does not notice his own fault for two reasons: The first reason is his bad disposition, and the second reason is that even if he is righteous, he is unable to, does not feel, and does not sense his fault. Therefore, he must see his faults in his mirror. What is his mirror? It is his Muslim brother. And how is the Muslim brother a mirror for his Muslim brother? It is through advice. When I see a person in front of me and I see faults in him, and he is heedless of them, I must advise him. If I advise him, he will notice his fault and hasten to correct it. Today, the Muslims, because of their turning away from the manners of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his directives, which include this hadith: the mirror of his believing brother, instead of our reality today, instead of us taking each other as a mirror to discover the faults that there is no way for him to know about them himself, this reality has become inverted. So if I advise someone, he says, "Look after yourself," or "Why are you picking on me? I am not pleasing to you, I am such and such." So advice has been inverted, meaning the mirror that was supposed to be clarifying and illuminating has become a dark mirror. Enjoining good and forbidding evil has become a cause for harboring grudges, hostility, and hatred. This is from the side of the one who advised because of the mirror of his Muslim brother, meaning the Muslim who saw the other's fault and advised him; the one advised turned the blame back on the advisor, so he did not benefit from his mirror, his Muslim brother who advised him. This is from one side. From another side, the matter may be the exact opposite of this. I may see a fault in a person and criticize him, not to advise him, but for the sake of criticism, dissection, and denunciation. This is also not permissible. Is this the treatment of a Muslim for his Muslim brother? Absolutely not. The believer is my Muslim brother, the mirror of the Muslim, through whom he sees his fault. Therefore, instead of one of us evading accepting the advice of the other, he should say the words of the Rightly Guided Caliph who addressed the people and said, meaning: "May Allah have mercy on the one who points out my faults to me." This is the perfect Muslim, because he knows that the faults contained in the human soul are more than this person can be aware of or discover, and it is his brother who faces him who discovers them for him. So he must advise him and protect him. Therefore, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said, in the completion of the hadith, after his saying: meaning his companion and friend he covers up his loss... (peace be upon him) he covers up his loss... The one who slanders him unjustly and falsely, who ate a meal, meaning who resorted to this forbidden cause to reach something trivial from the debris of this world, his reward is that Allah will feed him from it from Hellfire on the Day of Resurrection. Likewise, the one who was clothed with the garment of a Muslim, meaning he obtained a garment because of his slandering the honor of his Muslim brother and picking at him in his absence, then Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will clothe him from Hellfire. And the one who took a Muslim to a position of showing off and seeking reputation, meaning he stands and speaks among the people openly, exposing him contrary to what is in him, pretending that he is a man with control and authority, or that he is a man who does not care about people or fear them, while he is speaking the truth, but in reality he is speaking falsehood. So the one who takes such a position of showing off and seeking reputation, displaying it before people and slandering his Muslim brother, then Allah will take him to a position of showing off and seeking reputation on the Day of Resurrection, meaning He will expose him before the people with what he exposed that Muslim with, and He will reward him for it with evil and torment him with a painful torment. Such a position of showing off and seeking reputation is what the Imam al-Bukhari narrated in his "Sahih" from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) sent for him. Sa'd was a governor. Sa'd was a governor in Kufah appointed by 'Umar. Some people came and complained to 'Umar. What was this complaint? They said, "He does not pray well with us." Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas is one of the ten promised Paradise. An unjust, oppressive, and false complaint came to the Commander of the Faithful, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, that this our governor does not know how to pray with us. So 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) sent for him. He came and said, "The people are saying such and such." Sa'd said, "By Allah, O Commander of the Faithful, I will not spare any effort, meaning I will not shorten, to pray with them the prayer of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), lengthening the first two rak'ahs and shortening the last two rak'ahs." And 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, in his thoroughness, sent men from among his people to the seat of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas's governorship to investigate what the people's opinion is of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas. The majority praised him well, except for one person who said, "If I must express my opinion, I say: He is not just in distribution, meaning he attributes injustice in giving." When Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas heard this, he said, "O Allah, if he is a liar, I invoke three supplications against him: O Allah, lengthen his life, make him poor in his old age, and do not let him die until he is tried in his religion, or as he said." The narrator of the hadith says, "I saw him an old man, his eyebrows had fallen over his eyes, and he was walking in the streets, winking at the young women, at a great age, Allah knows best, eighty or ninety years old, and he was winking at the young women, flirting with them as the wicked young men do. This is what Allah answered in Sa'd's supplication against that person. Why? Because he raised his voice to testify falsely before the people and slander him, so he took a position of reputation and showing off, and Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas supplicated against him, so Allah (Mighty and Majestic) answered his supplication and afflicted him with old age and weakness and tried him, so he would wink at the young women..."