Encouraging the Spreading of the Greeting of Peace

The Shaykh : And among the benefits of spreading the greeting, indeed, among the benefits of spreading it that a person cannot conceive of except a person who believes in Allah and His Messenger, are benefits that cannot be studied by any of the sciences studied today, such as psychology or education, ever, except for the education that came to us from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); for he is the one who said: . Look at this result that spreading the greeting leads to: spreading the greeting necessitates love among the Muslims, and this love among the Muslims necessitates faith and strengthens the bonds of faith among the Muslims, and that necessitates, by the ruling of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and His grace for these people who spread the greeting, Paradise, ; therefore, completing this, this spreading, involves matters that we have now neglected and turned away from for one reason or more, as is said today. The most important of these reasons is the ignorance of the Muslims of their religion and the Sunnah of their Prophet.
It has been reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and his Companions that when they were traveling or when they were passing through a path in a group walking, and a tree or a stone separated them, and then they met behind it, they would hasten to greet one another. They were not together... walking, a stone or a tree separated them, they met after that: "Peace be upon you." If we did this today, we would be attributed to madness or to affectation in religion, at least; whereas this is the old, ancient religion that the great Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) urged the community to adhere to, as Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Follow and do not innovate, for you have been sufficed with the ancient matter." Adhere to the ancient matter. This greeting is part of the ancient matter that has become forgotten today. What they did was by the command of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). This meaning is authentic from the Messenger (peace be upon him) that they: . This is an authentic hadith in "Amal al-Yawm wa al-Laylah" by Ibn al-Sunni and others, and its meaning is found in "Al-Adab al-Mufrad" by Imam al-Bukhari. This is part of spreading the greeting.
And among that is that Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with them both) used to say to his slave, his servant "Nafi'": "Come, let us go to the market." Sometimes he would say that to others, and they would say to him: "What is the matter with you and the market? You are not a man who buys or sells," because he was ascetic, and they knew from him that he was not one of the people of the markets in buying and selling and the like; "What is the matter with you and the market?" He said: "Come, let us greet those we meet, and they will greet us." So he would go down to the market not to buy goods, but to gather good deeds that follow one another due to his casting the greeting upon everyone he met, and consequently they also might cast the greeting upon him, and he would return the greeting to them. And as you heard, "Peace be upon you" is ten [good deeds], and "Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah" is twenty, "Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings" is thirty, for the one walking, and blessings, for the one walking, good deeds are recorded for this person. So why not hope to go down to the market not for the purpose that the masses of people go down for, but for this great Islamic purpose.
Likewise, among spreading the greeting is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked about the best deeds in Islam? He said: , . And this, too, today, with great regret, is abolished among the Muslims. So one of us does not greet another unless he knows him by his person, and this may have a face for some people, but this face is a black face; because we have become unable to distinguish the Muslim from the disbeliever. And this is, in reality, part of the corruption that has spread in the Islamic community today. "Islamic" means by their names they are Muslims, but practically this community is farthest from Islam; because when Islam established this divine system, it is a system interconnected, some of it with some, every issue, whether small or great, is connected to one another, relationships taking one another by the necks, with no severance. But the Muslims today, due to the reasons we mentioned, including ignorance, have returned to separating, with their ignorance, between issues and issues of Islam; until some say without any hesitation: "This is one of the trivial matters!! Do not occupy yourselves with it, do not waste your time on it or around it!!" And some may say another phrase that this is one of the husks; so we must take the kernel. This is all part of the deviation that the Muslims have been afflicted with.