A word from the Shaykh on the etiquette of gatherings.

The Shaykh : Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, no one can mislead, and whoever He misleads, no one can guide. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, I hope that our brothers present will join together and not disperse in the gathering of knowledge, for among the etiquettes of gatherings of knowledge is joining together and not separating. Many hadiths have come from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) encouraging gathering, not only in gatherings of knowledge and joining in them, but even if they stop at a place during one of their journeys. It is narrated in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad from the hadith of Abu Thalhah al-Khushani (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: This is part of the etiquette of gatherings: not to disperse in them. Among the etiquettes of gatherings is gathering and solidarity in them. There is another hadith in Sahih Muslim that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) entered his mosque one day and found the people dispersed in it in circles, here and there. He said to them: That is, they were dispersed, a circle here and a circle there. So, among the etiquettes of scholarly gatherings is gathering in them and not dispersing. Perhaps you know that one of the effects of physical separation is separation in the hearts, and many, many hadiths point to this. The most important of them is what you know from the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that when the prayer was established, he did not begin it until he ordered the straightening of the rows. And he used to say to them, among other things: , That is, the difference in straightening the row, where this one moves forward and that one moves back, this difference in the bodies becomes a cause for difference to occur in the hearts. Therefore, the matter is as it is said: "The outward appearance is the title of the inward reality." If the Muslims care for rectifying their outward appearances in accordance with the Shari'ah of their Lord, that will be a cause for rectitude to settle in their hearts. And he (peace and blessings be upon him) pointed to this psychological and moral reality in his saying (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in the well-known hadith of al-Nu'man ibn Bashir, the end of which says: So, the rectitude of the heart is by the rectitude of the body. So, spiritual medicine, if the expression is correct, and physical medicine as well, it is necessary to rectify the outward appearances. And of that is what we were discussing: in many mosques, when a scholarly circle is held, they form a very large circle, which is contrary to the Sunnah. Do you have something?

The questioner : We have some questions that the young men brought. If you permit, may we pose them to you, our Shaykh?

The Shaykh : Please go ahead.