Islamic manners and morality (2022-03-22) #

0:00:01 i find the whole subject of islamic
0:00:04 etiquette manners and morality to be
0:00:06 absolutely fascinating and i wanted to
0:00:08 share with you an extract from this
0:00:10 wonderful book
0:00:12 it's called imam al-bukhari's al-adab
0:00:15 al-mufrad with full commentary it's a
0:00:19 perfect code for manners and morality
0:00:22 and this is a really thick book and it's
0:00:24 actually quite cheap to get these days
0:00:26 as well and on the back it says this
0:00:28 imam al-bukhari is best known for being
0:00:32 the author of the rigorously
0:00:34 authenticated collection of hadiths
0:00:37 known as the sahih
0:00:39 this islamic work is deemed by muslims
0:00:41 to be the most authentically transmitted
0:00:44 work after the quran and while it
0:00:47 includes roughly
0:00:49 250 hadiths on adab this word meaning
0:00:53 good manners etiquette moral values
0:00:56 al-bukhari also dedicated a larger
0:00:59 separate work
0:01:00 to these very important areas that are
0:01:03 relevant to the muslims daily lives and
0:01:05 this separate work is known as this
0:01:09 al-adab al-mufrad and the present volume
0:01:13 presents the work in translation with a
0:01:16 complete commentary so this is an
0:01:18 absolute treasure if you want to
0:01:20 focus on
0:01:22 rigorously authenticated hadiths on a
0:01:24 dab
0:01:25 now chapter 19 of this i just really
0:01:28 like it's entitled young and old young
0:01:31 and old i'm going to read um several
0:01:33 hadiths from this selected by bukhari
0:01:36 obviously
0:01:37 and some of the commentary which i think
0:01:39 is really helpful when it comes to
0:01:41 etiquette manners
0:01:43 how we should view young and old
0:01:47 and the chapter begins with some
0:01:49 comments
0:01:50 some hadiths were reported by different
0:01:53 companions of the prophet and in
0:01:54 different chains of transmission
0:01:57 this indicates that the prophet might
0:02:00 have said the hadith on different
0:02:01 occasions to different people or that he
0:02:04 might have said it on an occasion when
0:02:06 he had a large audience
0:02:09 and then uh
0:02:11 several hadith quoted and i'll just
0:02:13 mention a few of them number three five
0:02:15 five
0:02:16 abu herrera reports that the prophet
0:02:19 said
0:02:20 a person who is not compassionate to our
0:02:23 young
0:02:24 and does not respect the rights of our
0:02:27 old people
0:02:28 does not belong to us
0:02:31 okay that's one another one
0:02:34 uh hadith number 357
0:02:37 abdullah ibn amma reports that the
0:02:39 prophet said
0:02:41 he does not belong to us who does not
0:02:44 show due respect to our elderly and is
0:02:47 not compassionate to our young
0:02:51 and the last hadith i'm going to quote
0:02:53 here 359
0:02:56 al-ashari said
0:02:58 it is a mark of glorifying god to honor
0:03:02 muslims who have gone grey to respect a
0:03:05 person who knows a quran by heart
0:03:08 provided that he neither goes to excess
0:03:11 nor is negligent of it
0:03:13 and to honor a ruler who maintains
0:03:16 justice
0:03:18 now there's some commentary on me it's
0:03:20 very interesting and it shows really
0:03:22 also the differences between the muslim
0:03:24 view of the elderly and the young and
0:03:27 the prevalent western view of the same
0:03:30 and the differences i think are striking
0:03:33 and there's much to learn and much food
0:03:35 for thought here
0:03:37 so um our author says in these hadiths
0:03:39 the prophet mentions two groups for
0:03:42 special treatment
0:03:44 the young who need compassion more than
0:03:47 anything else in the way we treat them
0:03:50 and the old who need respect
0:03:53 people may love the young and
0:03:55 instinctively be kind to them
0:03:58 but they may also feel them to be a
0:04:00 burden particularly when a child is
0:04:03 rebellious
0:04:04 ill or unable to express its needs
0:04:09 compassion eases any difficulty that a
0:04:13 child may cause
0:04:15 it motivates the adult to try to
0:04:18 understand the child and identify the
0:04:21 causes of its unhappiness or irritation
0:04:25 enhancing the first and dealing with the
0:04:28 second
0:04:29 therefore
0:04:30 the prophet stresses the need to be
0:04:32 compassionate to children in all these
0:04:36 hadiths
0:04:38 on the other hand these hadiths focus on
0:04:41 the treatment that should be given to
0:04:43 elderly people
0:04:45 it goes without saying that when one
0:04:47 grows old one's strength declines
0:04:52 several faculties weaken including
0:04:55 memory
0:04:56 hearing and eyesight
0:04:59 some elderly people may become unable to
0:05:02 express themselves as well as they used
0:05:05 to
0:05:06 the problem is that there is little hope
0:05:08 of recovery indeed the reverse is true
0:05:11 and the weakness is increased as time
0:05:14 goes by otherwise it just gets worse
0:05:17 progressively and worse
0:05:19 hence some people may treat treat an
0:05:22 elderly person with condemcension
0:05:25 which may hurt their feelings
0:05:29 to be kind to an elderly person showing
0:05:32 respect and understanding and
0:05:34 overlooking that they may be slow in one
0:05:38 thing or another are all easy for anyone
0:05:41 who has a clear sense of social values
0:05:45 and this is what the hadith brings he
0:05:47 brings these social values we can learn
0:05:50 much from the wisdom and experience of
0:05:53 older people
0:05:54 to dismiss any elderly person as someone
0:05:57 who is past usefulness is particularly
0:06:00 cruel and this happens unfortunately a
0:06:03 lot in the west these days
0:06:05 because it is easy to fall into this
0:06:07 trap the prophet repeatedly stressed the
0:06:10 importance of showing respect and
0:06:13 kindness to our elderly
0:06:16 they are people we should honor
0:06:20 hadith number
0:06:22 359 already quoted provides a good
0:06:25 example of how the prophet combined the
0:06:28 treatment of three different categories
0:06:30 of people under one heading
0:06:33 the hadith says just to remind us it is
0:06:36 a mark of glorifying god to honor
0:06:39 muslims who have gone gray to respect a
0:06:42 person who knows the quran by heart
0:06:46 provided that he neither goes to excess
0:06:49 nor is negligent of it
0:06:51 and to honor a ruler who maintains
0:06:54 justice
0:06:56 an elderly person who has gone gray may
0:06:59 be only an ordinary person who never
0:07:02 aspired to high position
0:07:04 he may be far removed from the person in
0:07:08 power whom the hadith tells us to honor
0:07:11 if he maintains justice
0:07:14 both may have little in common with a
0:07:16 person who has learned the quran by
0:07:19 heart the latter may only be a youth in
0:07:22 his teens or even younger much younger
0:07:25 people these days remember the quran in
0:07:27 its entirety it's remarkable
0:07:29 nevertheless the prophet tells us that
0:07:31 to honor all these people is a mark of
0:07:35 proper glorification of god
0:07:38 it goes without saying that to glorify
0:07:41 god is an act of worship which is
0:07:43 required by a muslim throughout his life
0:07:48 this is indeed the mark of true faith
0:07:51 therefore when the prophet defines a
0:07:54 certain type of behavior in society
0:07:56 relating it to the glorification of god
0:08:00 he emphasizes its importance as a proper
0:08:04 islamic attitude consequently muslims
0:08:07 acquire this as part of their social
0:08:10 values
0:08:12 this is the reason why the elderly have
0:08:16 always enjoyed a position of respect in
0:08:19 muslim societies now this next paragraph
0:08:22 i find is so
0:08:24 heart rendering and striking as a
0:08:26 westerner living in the west obviously
0:08:29 um the situation is so different from
0:08:31 the way it's described here so i'll just
0:08:34 perhaps make some comments after reading
0:08:36 the paragraph
0:08:37 this is the reason to repeat why the
0:08:40 elderly have always enjoyed a position
0:08:42 of respect
0:08:44 in muslim societies
0:08:46 wherever we may go in the muslim world
0:08:49 we find families taking care of their
0:08:52 elders even when providing such care
0:08:55 involves putting in much effort and
0:08:58 represents a heavy burden
0:09:01 looking after a senile or inva
0:09:05 invalid person
0:09:07 may be very hard and tiring
0:09:11 muslim families undertake these tasks
0:09:13 with patience hoping to receive god's
0:09:16 reward
0:09:18 in fact old people's homes are scarce in
0:09:22 muslim societies to repeat that old
0:09:25 people's homes are scarce in muslim
0:09:28 societies because society makes it
0:09:30 shameful
0:09:32 for a family to relinquish its duty of
0:09:35 providing proper care for its elderly
0:09:40 i this is this is so heart-rending uh in
0:09:43 in britain and i know it's true in many
0:09:44 other places in the west when a person
0:09:47 reaches a very advanced age they are
0:09:49 basically sent to special homes away
0:09:52 from the family where they are looked
0:09:54 after by professional nurses or support
0:09:57 workers
0:09:59 and they all live together and they just
0:10:01 watch television all day and they're
0:10:02 looked after guys by it's very very
0:10:05 different they're taking it taken away
0:10:07 from their families nearly always and
0:10:09 putting special homes away from their
0:10:12 loved ones and there they live out days
0:10:15 often without much love or care from
0:10:18 their family and it's just awful and i'm
0:10:20 not blaming anyone it's just the way
0:10:22 what the west is set up like this
0:10:24 uh and basically the elderly are not
0:10:26 respected they're seen as to be
0:10:28 marginalized and put away somewhere so
0:10:30 that we in our work working lives and
0:10:33 our professional lives don't have to
0:10:34 deal with the responsibilities of caring
0:10:37 for them and looking after them
0:10:39 but islamic social values are very
0:10:41 different and their family values based
0:10:43 on
0:10:44 providing proper care for its elderly
0:10:47 within the home within the family and i
0:10:49 think that is something the west can
0:10:51 learn from and look to to improve the
0:10:54 quality of life of everyone
0:10:56 and of course in the west it's it's
0:10:57 divorced from any sense of the rewards
0:10:59 of god and god's providing fat the
0:11:02 elderly uh support in families is
0:11:05 completely cut off from any theocentric
0:11:07 understanding of
0:11:09 our
0:11:10 our lives on earth which are basically
0:11:13 centered around seeking advancement and
0:11:16 pleasure and money and so on um
0:11:19 completely cut off from a larger
0:11:22 theological understanding theocentric
0:11:24 understanding of our purpose in life
0:11:27 anyway i just wanted to share um those
0:11:29 lovely hadith uh from chapter 19 young
0:11:32 and old and this book uh which i do
0:11:35 recommend is really thick you can see i
0:11:38 mean there's literally thousands of
0:11:40 hadith just on
0:11:42 manners and morality is a perfect code
0:11:45 it says for of manners and morality
0:11:48 compiled by imam al-bukhari so they're
0:11:50 all authentic and it's a marvelous
0:11:52 treasure to to own and god willing i
0:11:56 will
0:11:57 record other perhaps videos talking
0:12:00 about other hadiths as well till next
0:12:02 time