Explaining the Connection Between a Person’s Outward Appearance and Their Inner State

The Shaykh : There is a close connection between the outward and the inward, and this is what the Messenger (peace be upon him) affirmed in the authentic hadith, also recorded in "the two Sahihs," in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . The point is the completion of the hadith: . So let no one be deceived by the claim of some people that these outward appearances—such as the beard, the jilbab, or the dishdasha, or the like—are merely formal, outward matters of no value. No, and no, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded, in this group of hadiths, to rectify the outward appearances because they are evidence of the rectitude of the inward state. Do you not see that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ? It is as if the matter were entirely material. How so? If the heart of an old, elderly Shaykh is sound, his body is sound, and vice versa: if the heart of a strong, robust young man becomes corrupt, his body becomes corrupt.
Likewise, this faith that is firmly established in the heart, if it weakens—and it weakens only by violating the Shari'ah and committing what our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) and His Prophet have forbidden—this heart becomes diseased, and with the disease of this heart, the faith becomes diseased . Thus, it is correct that some scholars said: the outward is the title of the inward. Therefore, we find dozens of hadiths from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbidding imitating the Jews and the Christians and commanding to differ from them, even in matters that a person does not control. The wise Lawgiver commands differing from the Jews and the Christians. For example, you know His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . Gray hair is the Sunnah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His creation; there is no difference in that between a Muslim and a disbeliever. Nevertheless, the Messenger (peace be upon him) commanded the Muslim that when he grows gray, and the disbelievers also grow gray like him, he should differ from them in this gray hair, knowing that it is not of his making, but rather of his Lord’s making. He said: . Therefore, dyeing hair was among the Sunnahs, the Sunnahs of worship, which the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) followed by dyeing their hair. Until Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not resemble Allah with a grayness that would disfigure him, but rather there were about twenty white hairs in the front of his beard." And yet, he died (peace and blessings be upon him) with henna mixed with katam, visible on his beard (peace and blessings be upon him). And his Companions did the same after him, and it became a followed Sunnah among the scholars of hadith later, who care about following the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) exactly, step by step. When they would write a biography of a man, they would say: "And he used to dye his hair," because this is a Sunnah that few Muslims care about, in the past, let alone the Muslims of the last times.