 As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim wa salatu wa salamu ala Sayyidi al-Mursaleen, Sayyidina wa Nabiyina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim. Ya Rabbana lakal hamdu kama yin bagi lijjala li wajihika wa azaim sultanik. Allahumma fattah alayna fi dhufal harithin. Allahumma allimna ma yanfa'una wa anfa'na bima allal panaya atama r-Rahimin. Today's session will focus on the eighth outer action that would draw us closer to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and gets us more prepared for the day when we will leave this dunya to meet Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. So what is this outer action? What's today's outer action? It is good companionship. In fact, there are several categories for having good company with the creation of Allah. So we have several different categories. And in this session, inshallah, we are going to address three of these categories. Of course, there are more, but I think with time limit we have, hopefully we can cover three of these categories. The first category is the companionship of people. We live with people. And the lowest degree of the good companionship to people is not to harm them. So they are safe. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas, may Allah be pleased with him, says, So Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, a Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hands the Muslims are safe. So he doesn't cause any harm to any people. After this comes the point of helping the people of Allah, helping the servants of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, al-khalqu kulluhum ayaalullah, the creation of the people are all the family of Allah. Wa ahabuhum ila Allah anfa'uhum li'ayali. So those who are loved most to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are those who are good to his slaves, to the people he has created. And Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam also gives us a deeper meaning and he says, al-muslimu akhu il-muslimu la yazlimu wa la yashtimah. Man kana fi hajati ahi, kamallahu fi hajatah. Wa man farraja'a muslimin kurbatan min kurabid dunya, farraja'a Allahu anhu biha kurbatan min kurabiyyawmi al-qiyamah. Wa man satara'a muslimin satara'a Allahu yawm al-qiyamah. So Bil'Umar sallallahu alaihi wa sallam reported that Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, a Muslim is the brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to shaitan, nor to curse him. So he should be good to his fellow muslim. So whoever fulfills the need of his brother, man kana fi hajati ahi, then what will happen? Allah will fulfill his needs, kamallahu fi hajati, if he needs anything, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will fulfill his needs. Wa man farraja'an muslimin kurbatan min kurabid dunya, and whoever removes any trouble of his brother in this dunya, what will happen? Farraja'a Allahu anhu biha kurbatan min kurabiyyawmi al-qiyamah. Allah will remove one of his troubles on the Day of Resurrection. Wa man satara'a muslimin satara'a Allahu yawm al-qiyamah. And whoever covers up the fault of the muslim, so he fails him, he does not expose him, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will cover up his fault on the Day of Resurrection. So this is how a person should be to the people, to the slaves, to the people whom Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has created. After that, there is a higher stage. So not only to cause any harm, but also to be good to them, even if they are not good to you. So this is a higher maqam than the first one. Sayyidina Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, was once with Sayyidina Abu Huraira, and he said to him, عليك بحسن الخلق يا أبهوريرا. Oh Abu Huraira, you have to have good manners. And of course Abu Huraira, in order to teach us what حسن الخلق, he asked Sayyidina Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, what is, وما حسن الخلق يا رسول الله? What is the best manners? What is the best behavior يا رسول الله? So Sayyidina Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, said, انت صل من قطعك وتعطي من حرمك وتعفوا عن منظلمك. So you get connected to those who have cut you, who have cut the relation with you, and to give those who deprived you and to forgive, to excuse, to pardon those who oppress you. Is this easy? No. Imagine that someone has hurt you and he used bad words to you and you don't deserve these bad words. So how can you forgive that person if you have anger against him? How? Just with the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He will make you strong enough so that you overcome your nefs, you overcome your shaitan, you overcome your desires so that you would apply whatever he ordered you to do. Whatever he ordered you to do. And the order was, انتعفوا عن منظلمك. You forgive the person who has oppressed you, who was unjust to you. Then you would say, okay, but am I right? I don't want to leave my right. I want to take whatever I have to take from that person. And Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam answers you and he says, ان من أحبكم إليا وأقربكم مني مجليسا يوم القيامة أحاسنكم أخلاقا. So this is what the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is saying, the dearest and the closest of you to me on the day of judgment will be those who are the best in behavior, those who have the best manners. It's a complete system. It's a complete program. Be good. Forgive those who oppress you, then you will be highly rewarded. And the best reward is to be next to Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Now, if we ask, how can we have good manners with others? There are several ways. And I will list a few of them, of course, not all of them because the list is countless. So you can have good manners by loving for your Muslim fellows what you love for yourself. Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, لا يؤمن أحدكم حتى يحب لأخيه ما يحب لنفسه. None of you will become a true believer, will have a complete faith until he likes for his brother what he likes for himself. You like to have a beautiful car. Okay. You can like that also for your brother, for your Muslim fellow. And you won't feel any grudges or you won't feel anything against a person who will have that car if you don't have it. So what would this do? This would cancel envy. This would cancel bad eye. This would cancel hatred for people. So just to love for your Muslim fellow what you love for yourself. Something else. A Muslim must be humble among people. And again, of course Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the best of teachers, he said, ما تواضع أحد لله إلا رفعه الله. No one shows humbleness towards another. And his intention is pure that he is doing that just to get the pleasure of Allah SWT to please Allah SWT, then what's the result? إلا رفعه الله. Allah exalts him in ranks. He elevates him. So be humble. No showing off. Showing off among people is not of the manners of the good manners of Muslims. Also, a Muslim should excuse people for their wrongdoings against him. How can you excuse people? Don't have any ill thoughts. Any bad thoughts. This person said to me this, then he means that. There is no such an argument. Just have a clean heart. These whispers are of the shaitan. Someone made a mistake. Okay. Just forgive that person. Just be like Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam about whom Sayyidah Aisha sallallahu alaihi wa sallam كان رسول الله سallallahu alaihi wa sallam لا يجزيب السيئة السيئة. ولكن يعفو ويصفح. رفت محمد sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as narrated by Aisha sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would not return an evil with an evil. But rather, he was pardoning and forgiving. He would not treat people the way they are treating them. If they are doing a mistake towards them, he will not do a mistake towards them. When he was asked to make a dua against one of the tribes, he said no. Maybe some of them, some of their grandchildren will be a good Muslim. He was pardoning. He was forgiving. Another way also of how to be good to other Muslim fellows is to respect the elders and to take care of the young ones. And that was very clear by the narration when Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, He is not one of us who does not have mercy on our young ones, who does not love our young ones, who does not help our young ones and does not respect our elders. So we have to respect the elders and at the same time we have to take care of the young ones. And how can you apply this? You can smile to others. Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, So when you smile in your brother's face, this is counted to you as a charity. And in another narration, Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, So do not belittle any good deed, no matter how small that deed is. Even meeting your brother Muslim with a cheerful face. So what a cheerful face will do? Nothing. Just it will move a few muscles in the face. But the effect, the result will be headed directly to the heart of the person you are with. It's a charity to smile when you see your Muslim brother, Muslim fellow. Okay, another thing is to rectify between Muslims who have arguments among each others. And you hear this everywhere, every now and then you hear the mother-in-law had an argument with the daughter-in-law. The son-in-law had an argument with the father-in-law. The son had an argument with his mom. The sister has an argument with her brother and so on and so forth. People are having arguments among each other. This neighbor is not happy with this neighbor. So what should you do? What should you do? You should rectify between Muslims. Because when society is good, then everything will be good. Sayyidina Muhammad SAW said something about this, which is very interesting, even for rectifying if you are going to lie to say something that this person did not say it, but it will help the other person forgive him. So even if you do that, it won't be considered as a lie. And Sayyidina Muhammad SAW said that. He said, So the person who lies in order to conciliate, in order to rectify between people is not a liar. When he conveys good or says something good. So the intention is not to lie. The intention is to help people forgive each other. Another thing, remember always to be good to everyone, whether a person deserves it or not. And you would say, how can that be? Again, our master, our teacher has explained it. And he said, So do good deeds to people and those people who deserve it and those people who do not. So if you discover that they deserve it, then what? Then you did the good you should do. But if you discover that they do not deserve it, that they do not deserve the good that you did, then what? Then you are of the ones who do good. So always do the good things. Be good. Even if people around you deserve it or not. What you do in this case, you are dealing with Allah SWT. There are so many cases in this Dunya, so many incidents that happen. And we have to deal with it with wisdom, with love, with care. Even if the other person you are dealing with does not appreciate it. Why would you do it? Because you are doing this for the sake of Allah SWT, only for the sake of Allah SWT, seeking the pleasure of Allah SWT. You're not doing it for people to say, oh, how good this person is. Oh, this one is amazing. No. We don't want our reward to be in this Dunya. We want to save our reward. We don't want to care about what people say. We want to have our reward in the day after. Something else you should talk to people in a way that they can understand. They can understand you. They can comprehend what you are saying. They would not misunderstand you. So you cannot talk to the illiterate people the same way you talk to the illiterate. Adress people by the way they understand. And Abdullah Ibn Masrood said, He said, it's the case that you do not relate to the people a narration which their minds cannot grasp. Why? Because what happens then there will be a fitna for some of them. They will misunderstand you. They will interpret it in a wrong way because they did not understand what you're saying. So there will be a fitna. There will be a problem. And most of our problems in this Dunya are results of misunderstanding each other's is communicating between each other. A person would say something. The other person would not understand it the way that his intention was. So there will be problems. And this is how problems originate. Misunderstanding. Most of the problems between people are just misunderstanding. So what should we do? We should ask Allah SWT for wisdom. We should ask Allah SWT to make us of those who listen and understand. So you have to listen to people. You cannot just hear the first sentence and then start fighting. You cannot. You have to be a good listener. And when you listen, you have to understand the intention of the person who is talking to you. Do not misunderstand people. Do not interpret things. Ask them, did you mean this? Did you mean that? Can you clarify this? So you have to treat Muslims righteously. You fear Allah SWT? Then treat Muslims righteously. Once Sayyidina Muhammad SAW ascended the pulpit, the member. And he called people. He said, oh people who accepted Islam. So oh you who accepted Islam with your tongue. While faith has not reached the heart. Do not harm Muslims. Nor reveal them. Nor spy on them to expose their secrets. Why? For indeed whoever tries to expose his Muslim fellows, the secrets of his Muslim fellows, then Allah will expose his secrets wide open. And even if that person is in his house. So even if that person is in his house. In his house. That Allah will expose him. Allah will unveil him. So just treat people righteously. And remember, the way you treat people, Allah will send someone to treat you the same way. If you are a good person, then treating people, then Allah will send good people to be with you around you. Treat Muslims righteously. And also when you treat them righteously, when you are good to them. Then you should help them. And you should be of service to them. Al-Muslimu Akhu Al-Muslim. La Yadlim Wa La Yashdim. We just mentioned this hadith. You have to be good. You have to help. When you help your brother, your brother, your Muslim fellow, then Allah will help you when you need help. When you help people in this dunya, Allah will help you on the day after. So these are all just a few points. Just a few of so many good manners that a Muslim must practice towards the other Muslim fellows. With this, we talked a little bit about the first category, which is to have good relation to the creation of Allah to other Muslims or to other people around us. We move on to the second category. And the second category for having good company and good relation with the creations of Allah is to be good with your kinship, your neighbors, your servants, and with everyone. So this category is a subcategory to the first one. The first one is just in general, but now we are specifying. So kinship relationships are highly honored in Islam, especially close family members. To be good to your parents. Be good to your parents. Be a good, obedient child. Be a good, obedient person. To be good to Isra, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, emphasizes on the good relation to the parents. So Ayat 23-24 وَقَضَ رَبُّكَ اللَّا تَعَبُدُوا إِلَّا إِيَّاهُوا بِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانَ And your Lord has decreed that you do not worship except Him. And to parents, good treatment. إِمَّا يَبْلُغَنَّ عِندَكَ الْكِبَارُ أَحَادُهُمَ أُوْكِلَهُمَ فَلَا تَقُلَّهُمَ أُفِّمْ وَلا تَنْهَرْهُمَ وَقُلَّهُمَ قَوْلًا كَرِيمًا So when one of them or when both of them reach old age while with you, while you are living with them, say not to them the word of and do not repel them. But speak to them noble words. Say nice words to them. وَخْفِضْ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ الظُلِّمِنَ الرَّحْمَ وَقُرْ رَبِّرْحَمْ هُمَا كَمَا رَبْ بَيَانِ صَغِيرًا And be humble in front of them and be merciful and make this dua. رَبِّرْحَمْ هُمَا كَمَا رَبْ بَيَانِ صَغِيرًا Oh my Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up when I was young. If you look deeply into these ayas and into other ayas that talk about the parents and how you should treat your parents, you see that Allah SWT did not order the parents to be good to their children. I'm sure you noticed that. But he asked the children to be good to their parents. Do you know why? Because by default it is natural for the parents to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their children. They work hard to ensure that their children have good life, that their children will have good education, their children will have good future. But on the contrary, Allah SWT ordered the children to be good to their parents. Again, why? Because it's hard on the kids to take care of their parents when they get old and sick. And that's why you find the nursing homes full. Children cannot take care of their parents. They put them in nursing homes, let someone else take care of them. With really good Muslims, the parents and the grandparents are highly honored. They are not thrown in nursing homes. The children take care of their parents. It's not like they want to get rid of them and they rarely visit them there. No. It's their duty to take care of their parents when they get older. It's their duty to look for them. It's their duty to provide for them. It's their duty to take care of their health. It's their duty to be good to them. When a child is young still, he cannot do anything by himself. Who's taking care of him? The parents. So it's just the wheel revolves. They took care of you when you were young. You have to take care of them when they are old. So this is, again, the first point of the second category, which is to be good to the parents. And of course, we can have sessions and talks about being good to the parents. We move on to the point of being good to the neighbor, which is a very important point. And there are several relations by Sayyid al-Muhammad ﷺ, focusing on the rights of the neighbors. And Ibn Omar and Aisha, they said, He said, Jibreel kept recommending treating neighbors with kindness. He kept asking me to take care of the neighbors. He kept talking good about the neighbors until I thought he would assign a share of inheritance for the parents. For the neighbors. Subhanallah. And there are so many rights for your neighbor over you. You have to treat them well. And if you are cooking something and the smell is all over, you have to put some food to your neighbor. So just it's a way of telling them I'm not causing any harm for you for smelling the good food and you are not eating it. You have to help your neighbors whenever they need help. And a good way of having good connections with the neighbors is to send them gifts in Ramadan, gifts in Eid, just to expose them to Islam. Someone might say, but my neighbor is not a Muslim. And I would say you could manners with your non-Muslim neighbor can actually be the reason for this neighbor to become a Muslim. I think you all know the story when this happened to Sayyidina Muhammad, one of his Jewish neighbors hated him. And every day he would put the garbage in front of the Prophet's door every single day. And Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would take this garbage, put it aside. He would remove it. I would never say anything to them, to that neighbor. And this happened on and on and on. Until later for a few days, Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not see the garbage of his neighbor in front of his door. And he was worried about his neighbor. He said there's something wrong with him. Is he sick? Well, what's going on? So he went to his neighbor to check on him and to see if there is anything wrong with him. And to see if he needs any help, to see, to check on him. And that really had a deep impact on the heart of that Jewish neighbor. And he said to him, I hurt you. I caused harm to you. I am not good to you. And you are good to me. So what good is, how great is your religion? And he became a Muslim. So why did he change his religion to the religion of Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? Because of the good manners of Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because of the way he treated him. After all that bad things that he did for him, he was still checking on him. We move on to another, to the good relation of a Muslim to his servant. Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us the way. He gave us the system of how we should deal with our slaves. He said, I feed them what you eat. And I dress them with your clothes. And don't talk to them about what they do. I feed them from what you eat. And close them with what you wear. So do not burden them beyond their capacities. And if you need something that they cannot do it by themselves, then help them. So be good even to your slave. He's a person like you. Things came against him and he became a slave. He became a servant. But imagine that you are in his shoes. He is the master and you are the slave. How would you want him to treat you? You treat him. Okay. The last category that we are going to talk about today is the category in which we have a good company with the angels. Okay, so we all know, of course, on the right shoulder. There are angels who are responsible for recording all our good deeds. And on the left shoulder, there are the angels who are responsible for recording our bad deeds. So let's befriend them. Let's befriend them and give them a special treat. Let's give hard work to the angels of the right shoulder and give no work to those on the left shoulders. So let's increase our good deeds. So the responsible angels are kept busy. And when we always remember that anything we do, anything we say, anything we look at, anywhere we go, I think our hands do is recorded. Then we want our record to be filled with good deeds. So we do our best to do only good things. So we do our best to make those angels responsible for the good deeds just to keep them busy. We know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is over watching us and we want him to be pleased. So we want our records to be filled with good deeds. We want the angels of the good deeds to be hard workers, to work hard. We want to meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala on the day of judgment and he is pleased with us. And this is the main course. This is the idea of these sessions that we're not doing. We want to meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala while he is pleased with us. So we want to be ready to meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. We want to be ready for death which might call us any second. Nobody knows when the ending will be. But we always ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to have the best of endings. So this is having good relations with the angels. And also we want to have a good company with our nefs, desires, anger and our mind. And these are all our companions. We want to have good relations with our companions. So you are ordered to be able to control them, to control your nefs, your desires, your anger and your mind. And not to let them be the reason for your destruction in the Akhira. This should be your means to get you into Jannah, not into Hellfire. You should tame your nefs and your desires so they do not lead you to any disobedience. You should train your anger to rage against your nefs when it orders you to do any sin. And by doing this you change your anger from being against the creation of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to be against your nefs. That is calling you to commit sins. So you have also to subjugate the nefs, the desires and the anger to the mind. So the mind will guide them all to the right path. However, to be able for the mind to do this, it should be sound. And in fact, the soundness of the heart is the result of having a sound mind. So the whole issue revolves around the heart, goes around the heart. So we should always get our heart to be connected to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and to his messenger. In order to have a good, in order to have a sound heart, this is the focus. This is our focus in this dunya. And Allah mentioned that in Surah Al-Shu'araa, verse 88 and 89 when he said, يوم لا ينفع مال ولا بنون إلا بنأت الله بالقلب سليم. On the day of judgment, the day when there is not benefit, there will not be any benefit from wealth or children. No one will benefit anyone. Nothing will benefit a person except. إلا مالأت الله بالقلب سليم. But only one who comes to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala with a sound heart. With a good heart. A heart of the person who has good manners. SubhanAllah, the topic is broad and we can talk way a lot more about it. But we have to stop here and until we meet next week, insha'Allah. Why send my salam and your salam to Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam. Wa salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.