A word by the Shaykh on the exhortation to spread the greeting of peace.

The Shaykh : And among the spreading of the greeting, indeed among the benefits of spreading it which a human being cannot conceive except the one who believes in Allah and His Messenger, are benefits that cannot be grasped by any of the sciences studied today, such as psychology or education, absolutely not, except the science of education that came to us from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). It is he who said: Look at this result that spreading the greeting of peace leads to. Spreading the greeting of peace 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 who spread the greeting of peace, Paradise. Therefore, completing this, this spreading of the greeting, involves matters that we have now neglected and turned away from for one reason or more than one reason, 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 come from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his Companions that when they were on a journey or when they were passing by, in a road, a group walking, and a tree or a stone separated them, and then they met behind it, they would hasten to greet one another... 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 the least, even though 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. It is incumbent upon you to adhere to the ancient matter." It is incumbent upon you to adhere to the ancient matter. This greeting is part of the ancient matter that has become today forgotten and neglected. What they did was by the command of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). It is authentic from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) this meaning that if a group were walking and a stone or a tree separated them, let some of them greet the others. 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 the Imam al-Bukhari. This is part of spreading the greeting. And of that, Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with them both) used to say to his slave, his servant Nafi', "Let us go to the market," and 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 their buying and selling and the like. "What is the matter with you and the market?" He said, "Let us go so that we may greet those we meet, and they are greeting 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 of peace upon everyone he met, and consequently they would also cast the greeting of peace upon him, and he would return the greeting to them. And as you heard, "Peace be upon you" is ten, "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 walker. Good deeds are being recorded for this person. So why should he 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 of peace is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked about the best of deeds in Islam, and he said: , And this also, with great regret... among the Muslims, so one of us does not greet another unless he knows him by his person. And this may have a justification for some people, but this justification is a dark one, 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 where some of it is connected to some of it. Every issue, whether small or great, is connected to one another, relationships where some take hold of the necks of others, 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, that these are trivial matters, and do not occupy yourselves with them, do not waste your time on them or around them. And some may say another phrase that these are just the husks, and we must take the kernel. So all of this is part of the deviation that the Muslims have been afflicted with.