It’s good to be with all of you again in this reminder, and this one we are going to be talking about insha’Allah some of the manners regarding visiting one another.
And these are very important, because when we fulfill these manners, when we deal with these manners, we feel so close to one another and we have this love between one another, and I think some of us probably have experienced this. Like you go to someone’s house or someone comes to your house and just because the way they deal with you, you feel this closeness to them. So these things are very important.
Other Articles by Jamaal Diwan - The Complete Muslim Personality - Patience in Prayer and Invocation - Pharoah's Traits in the Qur'an |
And sometimes we may think all these are minor details, but actually the book I have been referring to is the book of late Sheikh Abu Ghudda entitled “Islamic Manners”, he knew what he was doing when he wrote this book. He was one of the great scholars of hadith of this last century and he was also one of the leaders of the Islamic movement in Syria. So he wrote this book with a very specific purpose which is to spread high quality manners between the members of the Islamic society so that they can feel closer to one another.
1. Keep Appointments
One of the manners in terms of visiting each other is the manner of keeping appointments. Allah Almighty says “O, who you believe, fulfill your obligations”. We should understand from this that when we agree to meet somebody at a specific time, that time is important. Time is precious and especially in this modern age when we have phones we have emails and we have text messaging and we have all these things; if we are going to be late we should tell the person, and if we are not going to make it we should tell the person so they can benefit from their time.
One time the Prophet (peace be upon him) had an agreement to meet with one of the companions and that companion didn’t show up. And he saw him again three days later, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said “You have caused me some trouble. I have been waiting for you for three days.” Of course he wasn’t in the same spot but he was telling him “Look we had this agreement and we should fulfill our agreements when we make them”.
| If they tell us that they can’t accept us, we should go back |
The Prophet (peace be upon him) also mentions in a hadith when he talks about the characteristics of a person who is a hypocrite, one of them is that when he makes a promise he breaks it. So if we make an appointment, if we make an agreement to meet someone, we should be very careful to fulfill that agreement or apologize and cancel that appointment ahead of time so that they can benefit from their time.
2. Go Back if Asked to
Another manner, is that if we go to visit someone even if they have invited us maybe something came up and they can’t accept us coming. If they tell us that they can’t accept us, we should go back. The Quran says “If you are asked to go back, go back. It’s purer for you”, and it is referring to this manner of visiting. Imam Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) when he was talking about this situation, as the scholars said we shouldn’t ask about the person’s situation if he says don’t come, I can’t have you right now, leave him alone and don’t ask questions. Go about your business and let them go about their business.
Imam Malik said not everyone can tell their excuses, not everyone can share their excuses. Maybe something they can’t tell you about, so we should accept that excuse and not ask questions, because if we push and we are not gentle and kind in dealing with them when they say that they can’t have us over, then that is going to push them to lie, and we don’t want to fall into this kind of situation and we don’t want our brothers and sisters to fall into this kind of situation either.
There is one emigrant of the companions (may Allah be pleased with all of them) who said, as mentioned in Tafsir Al-Tabari, that he always wanted to implement this verse. He always wished he would to go to someone’s house and he says to him I can’t serve you right now. So he would be able to implement the verse “If you are asked to go back then go back, it’s better and purer for you”, but he never got to. But subhanallah look at the urge and the love of the companions for the commands of Allah Almighty and the Prophet (peace be upon him). He always wanted to implement that verse of the Quran and live it in his life.
3. Don’t Look Around
Another one of the manners that we should be aware of when we are visiting others is that we should control our eyes, we shouldn’t look around the house. If they tell us to sit in a certain place we should sit in that place. For example, if you come in the home and the host tells you sit here, then we obviously sit there.
| ... don’t force people to eat large quantities of food. Let them eat what is comfortable for them ... |
If we come in the home and the host doesn’t tell us necessarily where to sit, he gives us a choice, we should try to sit in a position in the living room or wherever we may be that doesn’t look upon the rest of the house, but rather it looks to a wall or looks to the exit or something like that, so that if there are other people in other parts of the house and they need to do things, they can do it so comfortably. These are some of the slight manners that we should be aware of when dealing with one another.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) also when there was a time that someone was peeking into his home and he was scratching his back with a stick or a pitchfork or something of the likes, and he said when he saw the man “If I knew that you were peeking in, I would have poked you in the eye.” The command to ask permission is there in order to not exceed one’s privacy and not to overcome them in terms of your looking into their homes and so on. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) is teaching these things to us.
4. Remove or Clean our Shoes
Another thing that we should be aware of is when we come to someone’s home we should remove our shoes. And if we are coming up to the home we should look and see if our shoes are dirty and clean them before we get to the house, so even if we take them off inside the door it doesn’t bring dirt to the person’s house. All these little sort of things. Sometimes even when we get into someone’s car, our shoes are all dirty, maybe we played sports, or maybe we were running in the mud or something and we get into the car and all of a sudden that brother’s car is just messed up because we brought all our dirt in. Rather, we should clean our shoes ahead of time and then come into the house or then come into the car.
5- Hospitality
Another thing in terms of the host, is the host should do some small things especially if the person is going to spend the night. They should let them know where the rest room is. They should let them have some clean towels. They should let them know where the Qiblah is so if they need to pray Witr or Fajr they can do this so easily.
And when they feed and drink them they should not overdo it. They should be moderate. And don’t force people to eat large quantities of food. Let them eat what is comfortable for them eating, and let us follow the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that a few morsels are enough, and if you need to eat more than that then one third for food and one third for drink and one third for air.
Jazakum Allah Khairan, and I ask Allah Almighty to help us to implement all these manners in our lives, and to live with them always, and to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him).
Watch Brother Jamaal Diwan’s Talk
Related Links:
The Etiquette of Visiting/Hosting PeopleBeing An Ideal Guest: How?
Conditions of Accepting an Invitation
Visiting the Sick: A Sign of Mercy
Consideration for Neighbors
