The Connection Between the Outward and the Inward, in Righteousness and Corruption

The Shaykh : Join us here; the circle is small, but I ask for your attention and focus. In many gatherings like this, we remind our brothers of a Prophetic Sunnah that is established and authentic. It has become forgotten among the masses of Muslims, with no distinction between the elite and the common people. This Sunnah is not bringing one’s bodies close together, but sitting in spacious gatherings like this wide hall, which we hope will be filled with spirit, security, faith, safety, and Islam. However, this Islam should not be merely a name that a Muslim claims; rather, it should be a name that corresponds to its reality. Muslims cannot realize their Islam in themselves except through two things: the first is beneficial knowledge, and the second is righteous action. Righteous action flows from beneficial knowledge; one cannot imagine righteous action without beneficial knowledge preceding it. And beneficial knowledge, as everyone knows, if Allah wills, is nothing but what came in the Book of Allah and in the authentic Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and what our righteous predecessors, the Companions, the Successors, and those who followed them, practiced, of whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) testified to their excellence in the mass-transmitted hadith that says: It is not wrong to remind some of the brothers present, among the students of knowledge, that this hadith, despite its authenticity and indeed its mass transmission, has become famous on the tongues of scholars, preachers, and advisors with the wording "the best of the generations." This has no basis. What is narrated in "al-Sahihayn" and elsewhere is with the wording: It is not "the best of the generations," but rather with the wording: I feel that I have strayed a little or a lot from the point I intended to speak about and focus on, on the occasion of this blessed gathering, if Allah wills. Therefore, I return to what I wanted to enter directly into, and I say: Among the greatness of Islam and its complete guidance, which no falsehood can approach from before or behind, is that it came complete and perfect, as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) bestowed upon His servants by saying: So, part of the completeness and perfection of this Islam is that it concerned itself with something that those who claim to belong to this Islam usually do not care about, either out of ignorance or heedlessness, or sometimes both ignorance and heedlessness together. That is that Islam, just as it came to reform the hearts, also came to reform the outward appearances and bodies. For this reason, it was said long ago, and based on the explanation that will follow, that the outward is the title of the inward. Yet you see many people today who do not care about reforming their outward appearance, even those who have committed open sinfulness and transgression by the consensus of the scholars of Islam when they turn away from acting upon some of the pillars of Islam, such as prayer, for example. You might say to one of them, "My brother, why do you not pray?" He rushes to say, "The measure is what is in the heart," meaning that this prayer is an action, and the measure is what is in the heart. This is double ignorance: ignorance that Islam came to reform the bodies as well as the hearts, and secondly, he reverses the matter by denying that something like prayer is a desirable thing, limiting his speech to the idea that the measure is only what is in the heart. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) invalidated this claim and similar ones with his saying, in the famous hadith, though many people, when they narrate this hadith, do not dwell on this specific point, which is the connection between the outward and the inward and the obligation for Muslims to care about their outward appearances, reforming their outward appearances just as they care about reforming their inward selves. These are two connected matters with no separation between them; each supports the other, either in righteousness or in corruption. Listen to that hadith which you have undoubtedly heard many times, which al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated in their authentic collections from the hadith of al-Nu'man ibn Bashir (may Allah be pleased with them both), for he was a Companion, the son of a Companion. He said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: The point of the hadith is the following: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So, this is an explicit text that the outward is the title of the inward. As the poet said, "Every vessel emits what is in it." If the heart is righteous, then the movements and actions performed by the owner of this heart will be like his righteous heart. And if his heart is corrupt and defective, then what will result from the owner of this heart will be what befits this corrupt heart, namely actions that are not righteous. Therefore, it is not permissible for a Muslim, first, to be deluded by the idea that the measure is the righteousness of the heart while he does not care about reforming his actions. Second, whoever is with us regarding the hadith of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that the righteousness of the outward is connected to the righteousness of the inward, it is not permissible for him to be lax in reforming this outward. The difference between the two examples is that the first example is young people who were raised and grew up with a modern, pre-Islamic age of ignorance upbringing, so they do not know anything of Islam except that the measure is what is in the heart. This is clear misguidance. But the second example is some people who care about righteous actions, but they may be lax in many of these righteous actions and make the same claim. My brother, do not blame us if we give an example. If some of them are advised to reform their outward structure, if one of them who is afflicted with shaving the beard, for example, is told, "My brother, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: and the opposite for the mustache: He rushes to say, "My brother, the measure is not the beard. How many people have we seen with beards who are either deceivers, or thieves, or robbers, or so on." This is wrong. And many people say this saying even in their abandonment of a pillar of Islam, such as prayer, as I mentioned to you earlier. They say to you, "It is not about the prayer. Look at so-and-so, he prays, but look, he is a traitor, a usurer, and so on." We say to this person: Combine what you are doing in avoiding deception and dealing in forbidden things and the like, with prayer. Be better than that person who prays but does not fulfill the right of prayer. You do not perform prayer, but you stay away from some of the wrongs and obscenities. Combine the two goods, and you will be on a straighter path and more upright in speech. If we know this reality that the outward is connected to the inward, the righteousness of the heart should be accompanied by the righteousness of the body, because the righteousness of the body helps the heart in righteousness and increases its righteousness.
Now we will present to you some examples that are authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) of his application of this great principle, namely his concern with rectifying outward appearances, because they help in rectifying inward states. I think many of you must have heard at some point from some of the imams of the mosques who are keen to apply the Sunnah in all areas of Islam. For example, some of the imams who are keen on the Sunnah, when the prayer is established, do not rush to the takbir of ihram, but they concern themselves with straightening the rows and remind them of some of the sayings of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he used to say while in the process of straightening the rows. He used to say many things, and what concerns us is what relates to our topic: his saying (peace be upon him) meaning, "Your hearts are not straight, so straighten your rows." This is concern with the outward appearance: one thing is sticking out, another is missing, there is a gap here and a gap there. So he (peace be upon him) would not begin the prayer until he first ordered the straightening of the rows with his tongue, and then he would ensure it practically, saying to this one, "Move back," and to that one, "Move forward," and so on. So his saying is his application (peace be upon him) of the hadith where he linked the rectification of the faces and hearts of the Muslims to their straightening of their rows. This is an example that he (peace be upon him) cared about to make clear to people this principle that he established in his saying . If we assume that a row stood for prayer and he reminded someone who was ahead or someone who was behind, and they did not respond and did not straighten in the row, this action of his indicates that there is a type of corruption in his heart. Why? Because the outward appearance is the indicator of the inward state. This is one example. There are many examples and illustrations, and I do not want to prolong this on you, as perhaps some of you have at least questions relating to your private and public life. So I remind you with one example, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) when he was descending with his Companions on a journey in the desert. His Companions dispersed, each of them taking a side to take shelter under some trees. He said to them (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and this is a very important aspect if people knew it or if they were rational. He said to them (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), not in the mosque, but in the wilderness, in the desert: " Your dispersal in the valleys and ravines is from the work of Satan." The narrator of the hadith, Abu Thalhah al-Khushani (may Allah be pleased with him), said, "So afterwards, when we traveled with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and we stopped at a place, we would gather together until if we sat on a carpet, it would have been enough for us." This is how the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) responded to his practical guidance, because they had established the previous legal principle that the rectification of the bodies indicates the rectification of the hearts, and the opposite is exactly the opposite. I told you this is in the wilderness, so how would the matter be in the mosque? Now I am reminding you of what contradicts this Sunnah. You find some circles in some mosques, a very large circle, andThe Shaykh : in the front of the place, and the person at the end of the circle can barely hear the one opposite him from there, due to the size of this circle. This is contrary to the Sunnah, especially in one of the houses of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Therefore, it came in "Sahih Muslim" from the hadith of Jabir ibn Samurah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) entered the mosque one day and saw them in circles here, a circle there, and a circle there. So he said to them , meaning, "Do not sit in scattered groups." They must gather in one circle. Why? Because the dispersal of the bodies indicates the dispersal of the souls, of the hearts. For this reason, it is necessary for the particular Muslims, and indeed for the general Muslims, to care about rectifying their outward appearances. Among this, if there is a gathering of knowledge, some of them should not be far from others, but rather they should be close, because the closeness of the bodies affects the closeness of the hearts, and the opposite is the opposite. This is what I wanted to remind you of, and I hope that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will benefit us and you with what we say and what you have heard.