Principles for Dealing with Mistakes

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered on October 30, 2016, in Arabic with simultaneous interpretation into EnglishSource: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings upon the servant of Allah, His Prophet and His Messenger, our master Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace. May Allah greet you and bless this gathering of yours, and I ask Allah, Exalted, to gather us in this world upon obedience to Him, and to gather us in the Hereafter in Paradise and in the places of His good pleasure, Glorified be He. This is an area familiar and beloved to me for five years and more, and its people have a great effect on our souls, and a dear homeland in our hearts; truly we cannot deny that as long as we live, by Allah's permission. And I ask Allah that hearts remain connected, and that affection remain as it has been known.

The subject of our talk is the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: «كلُّ ابنِ آدمَ خطّاءٌ، وخيرُ الخطّائين التوّابون» (Every son of Adam is prone to error, and the best of those prone to error are those who repent often).^[1] And within this ḥadīth is a set of principles that organize our lives for us.

The First Principle: We Are Not Angels

To begin with, not one of us sitting here now is an angel protected from error, nor was any of Allah's creation, Blessed and Exalted, molded that way. Allah, Blessed and Exalted, created the human being capable of good and of evil, as the discussion of that will come, by Allah's permission. And within the frame of this explanation from the Prophet ﷺ in his saying «كلّ بني آدم خطّاء» ("every son of Adam is prone to error") is a clarification that a person, before he punishes himself and kills himself if he is the one who erred, must realize this truth; and before he punishes another, if it is the other who erred, he must likewise realize this truth. Accordingly, the sensible person must take in the state he is in.

Our falling into mistakes is exactly like our bodies' exposure to illnesses that come from here or there. The servant does not know when illness will come to him through something, whether he took precautions against it or did not, and whether he took his safeguards or did not, and everything is by the decree of Allah, Blessed and Exalted. Yet the susceptibility of the human soul to falling into error is a known matter from the ḥadīth of the Prophet ﷺ. And let no one wrongly understand that the Prophet ﷺ commanded us to err, on the grounds that every son of Adam is prone to error and that you must err and it is inevitable that you err; no, rather the Prophet ﷺ is speaking about the existing possibility, so that we may be realistic and logical in our thinking and our conceptions as we deal with ourselves or with the aspects of life in which we live. «كلّ بني آدم خطّاء» ("Every son of Adam is prone to error"): so if you pass judgment on yourself, know that, and if you pass judgment on others, know that as well.

The Second Principle: Error Can Be Treated

And the second foundation, which is a matter of the utmost importance, is the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿وَاللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّن بُطُونِ أُمَّهَاتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْئًا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ﴾ (And Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers not knowing a thing, and He made for you hearing and vision and hearts).^[2] So Allah brought us out not knowing anything, then gave us the faculties of learning and receiving in life. So if we find that we erred because of our human nature, the matter is treatable, and if we see that we erred because of our ignorance or lack of knowledge, the matter is also treatable.

And error in human life is among the trials with which Allah, Blessed and Exalted, tried people in order to test them by it. And perhaps by that we grasp the situation of Adam, upon our Prophet and upon him the best of prayers and peace. He is a prophet whom Allah, Blessed and Exalted, created to be the first of creation and the first of the prophets, and Allah gave him mastery of all knowledge: ﴿وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا﴾ (And He taught Adam the names, all of them). So there was nothing that was not, in its sum or its content, known to Adam, peace be upon him.

And here we come to a matter: however learned a person may be, of a high level in scientific advancement, having earned different kinds of doctorates, and won prizes such as the Nobel Prize and so on and so forth, all of this does not exempt him from remaining a human being, and this humanity is liable to the possibility of error and liable to the possibility of being right. So we come away from this talk with an important benefit: that none among us is incapable of erring. That is to say, we do not have infallible masters, and we do not have saints whom evil or error cannot touch. And this is an important aspect of our learning how to treat our mistakes, and of the principles on which we build afterward how to treat mistakes.

Adam, Peace Be upon Him: The First Model

And Adam, peace be upon him, as you know, and as we read in Sūrat al-Baqarah in the opening of the noble Qur'an, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, presents to us in him that first model of human beings. And perhaps I may say, and Allah, Exalted, knows best, I ask Allah for forgiveness, and I am ashamed to speak in the presence of my teachers, may Allah preserve them, that when Allah, Blessed and Exalted, presented Sūrat al-Baqarah to us, He defined for us from the start, with the disjointed letters, the intellectual stimulus that stirs its possessor so that he tries to learn, for this draws people's attention. Then the Lord of the worlds, Glorified be He, shows us three types of human beings: some who respond completely, some who deny completely, and some who are between these and those, and they are the hypocrites. The verses speak of the believers at the beginning of Sūrat al-Baqarah in five verses, then comes the speech about the disbelievers in two verses, then comes the speech about the hypocrites in about thirteen verses.^[3] And after that Allah, Blessed and Exalted, shows us the experience: the first model of human beings, and how this model is susceptible to many kinds of environments in which it may find itself.

And perhaps you notice: the first mention of Adam in the Qur'an was coupled with what? The first thing Allah, Exalted, mentioned of Adam: ﴿وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا﴾ (And He taught Adam the names, all of them). So the mention of Adam, peace be upon him, came coupled with knowledge in the first appearance of him as a human being created by Allah, Glorified and Exalted, and he is the one whom you and you and you and these human beings represent. Allah mentioned him coupled with that knowledge without which we would not be able to attain anything of the necessities of life nor of the necessities of religion. For people knew nothing about the Lord of the worlds except through what they learned, or through what Allah, Exalted, guided them to of the first reasoning toward perceiving the existence of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. Then the details about the existence of the Creator, Mighty and Majestic, come through the revelation that descends upon the prophets. And people grasped nothing in their practical lives except through knowledge, which by its nature is built on experience, so the scientific heritage is formed, which is then taught to the following generations.

Adam, peace be upon him, was a first model of human beings, whom Allah, Exalted, placed in an environment that contained every kind of benefit, so he learned knowledge and was in Paradise, and found nothing around him to trouble him except that caller to disobedience, the caller to error, who is Satan. Satan, who spoke to Adam, peace be upon him, with his words (what did Satan say?): ﴿يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ﴾ (O Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and a kingdom that will not deteriorate?). Let us pay attention: Satan enters upon Adam, peace be upon him, from a rational, logical entrance, for he uses knowledge. Adam is a learner, and his head is full of the kinds of knowledge that the Lord of the worlds, Glorified be He, instilled in his head, and accordingly it would not suit Satan to come to him with the temptation of theft or the desire for adultery, we seek refuge in Allah, or doing such and such, but rather he came to him through rational logic.

And know that Satan comes to you from where he can persuade you, and that he works by the method of persuasion more than by the method of desires; because he wants you, if you become clothed in a disobedience, to be clothed in it while fully convinced of it. So if anyone around you wants to return you to the first starting point at which you stood in terms of obedience, you find it difficult, because you have become convinced. And they used to teach us in the science of oratory, may Allah, Exalted, honor our teachers, that speech, if built on reason alone, may not be completely successful, but it is still stronger than speech built on emotion alone. So if you are able, as a lecturer or preacher, to address people with reason and feelings together, then you are at the peak of kinds of success and influence. And we ask Allah, Exalted, for well-being.

The Desire for Eternity and the Desire for Possession

We return to that scheming of Satan: ﴿فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ﴾ (Then Satan whispered to him), he said: ﴿يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ﴾ (O Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and a kingdom that will not deteriorate?). In his attempt to persuade Adam, Satan chose two kinds of desire latent in the human soul: the desire of love of eternity, and the desire of love of possession. And under these two desires fall all kinds and patterns of mistakes in people's lives. For love of possession drives its owner to theft, or to forgery, or to fraud and swindling, or to trickery against people; all these kinds of deceptions fall under the matter of love of possession. And into love of eternity enters the desire for women, and the renewed continuation through them by having children, and so on. And through these two desires Satan set out to persuade Adam to eat from the tree. And if we look at these two desires we find that Allah, Blessed and Exalted, used the phrase ﴿لَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ﴾ (do not follow the footsteps of Satan) in these two places: in the matter of eating the lawful and eating the unlawful, and there in Sūrat al-Nūr in the matter of desire and women and what goes with that.^[4] And we ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, for well-being and safety, O Lord of the worlds.

Applying the Principle: No One Is Infallible

So we have at the outset: there is no one who is protected from error. Let us pay attention to that. So if one of us falls into some mistake, or those under your care fall into mistakes of any kind, then take that into account at the outset (put it in your head before you act, before you carry out any step) remember this fully: that this is a human being capable of error. This telephone in your hand, if it falls into water, know that it will suffer some defect; do not expect to take it out perfectly sound, working as it did the first time. And likewise if you find in front of you, or find yourself, falling into some mistake, remember this initial principle: that this human being is capable of committing error. And must we discipline him, or punish him (excuse me), or kill him? There is a difference between discipline and revenge.

We come away from that, my brothers and sisters (may Allah honor this noble, blessed gathering), with the fact that infallibility belongs to Allah, Blessed and Exalted, alone, and that the human soul is not an angel, and also not a devil. The Lord of the worlds, Glorified be He, when He swore in Sūrat al-Shams, said: ﴿وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا * فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا﴾ [الشمس: ٧-٨] (And by the soul and He who proportioned it, and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness). Every soul on the face of the earth has in it the capacity for good and has in it the capacity for evil, so the human being is neither an angel nor a devil, but is between this and that. So he has the capacity to do good until his rank and standing increase, so that he may become perhaps above the rank of the angels in some respects, and he has the capacity to do evil until he becomes one day a teacher to Iblīs, teaching him how to subdue people and how to persuade them of error and make error appear attractive to them as though it were right. The human soul is capable of this and capable of that.

Children: We Do Not Assume They Are Angels

And I mention this point specifically because when we deal with our sons and daughters, we always assume in them the fitness to do right only, and we do not assume that a desire might lead them astray, or that a measure of persuasion might come upon them so that they do some mistake. We deal with them as angels only, and that they cannot become devils some day. And the more we are able to surround them with a great deal of care and attention, and admonition and good words and beautiful advice and encouragement and so on, the more they stay with us on the straight line we seek. But what is missing in such a case is the matter of the role model, which is of the utmost importance. For the human being, or the child in general, only imitates those who came before him in what they do, and sometimes imitates without awareness, and imitates the one he trusts. And those whom children trust most are their fathers and mothers, so they do the wrong simply because the fathers and mothers do it. That is why I completely disapprove of a father who comes to say: my son smokes, so I ask him: do you smoke? He says: yes. So I say: where is the defect? The boy smokes like his father.

How Is Error Measured? The First Criterion: An Error in Itself, or in Your Evaluation?

If we try to say: by what is error measured? We say that error is measured by a number of things. Among them: is this act that occurred in front of you or from you an error in itself, or is that your own evaluation? And let us mention a short story about a young man from among the young Companions, who sat in the mosque one day worshiping Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and perhaps he was in need of money or something else. And while he was sitting, an older man passes by him, not turning to him nor looking at his face, and throws him a charity and leaves, and did not look at him so as not to embarrass him; he put down the money and went away. So the young man returned with the money he had to his house, and the first one he showed the money to was his father, and he said: look, Father, Allah, Exalted, provided for me this day a man who passed by and gave me this money in charity. The father said: you? He said: what do you mean? He said: I am the one who gave the charity, and I did not mean you by it, I did not intend you, so this money is not yours. The son said: rather it is mine, Allah, Exalted, only sent it to me. He said: no, it is not yours. He said: rather it is mine. So he went to "the scout who does not lie to his people" ﷺ, and went off to him.

So when he explained the matter to him, the Prophet ﷺ evaluated the matter with a different logic. Where is the logic with the son, and where is the logic with the father? The son says: this money is mine and you have no right to take it back under any circumstances, and I am not mistaken. And the father says: you are mistaken in obtaining money that I did not intend for you. And the son says: rather perhaps your evaluation, Father, is not correct, for the matter of whether you intend me or do not intend me is outside the frame of conduct and assessment. Here the disagreements come, and here each of us assesses the other's position as being, if not wrong, then at least not right. So what did the Prophet ﷺ say? He said: «لك ما نويتَ… ولك ما أخذتَ» (For you is what you intended... and for you is what you took).^[5] This is a matter completely settled; so the Prophet ﷺ evaluated the situation with another logic.

And here we ask about the mistakes that happen in front of you: what did the boy do? What did the girl do? What did your neighbor do? What did your business partner do? What did your companion on the road do? What did so-and-so who prays with you in the mosque do? What was it that he did? Is it truly an error, or is it an error from your own point of view? Sometimes we inflate things to the point that you call someone and he does not answer you, and you say: he neglects me and does not care about me. Or you think about another matter: with what did I anger him? What did I upset him with? Why? And you make a hundred questions, while the phone was turned off, or was on silent since after the prayer, or he did not notice it, or perhaps his wife hit him as usual so he does not hear the phone's sound at all. So there are very simple things that happen in our lives which we inflate so that they become very big problems.

The Source of Authority: Who Evaluated the Error?

So we say: the first criterion: is that thing an error in itself, or is it an error in your own point of view? And who evaluated that error? Is it an evaluation from me: this conduct is an error that is not to be repeated, and this is a law of mine in this house, you must follow the instructions and the children must abide by this from the date of its announcement, which is announced now? Is this an error that I evaluated and issued a decision about? Or is it an error by consideration of the law, the law of the state in which we live? Or is it an error that the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, evaluated or issued a direct command about?

In matters of upbringing they always teach us: do not teach your son that this is an error on the basis that you are the reference, but teach your son that this is an error on the basis that Allah, Exalted, said something about it, or that the Prophet ﷺ forbade it. So do not make the reference for your children always yourself, but make the reference for your children always Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. And why is this? … Yes, all of that is completely known. But if you are the first reference, he will come across a teacher of his at school who is smarter than you, or come across a friend who is wiser than you, or the most knowledgeable one in the community, in society, more reasonable in matters, whose conduct pleases him more than your conduct pleases him, so the reference that he had is removed from him, so he becomes without a reference and is lost. But if the reference is Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, is this reference his alone or for all of us? For us together. So if there is some error, we are together bound not to do that thing, because Allah, Blessed and Exalted, is the One who made it a crime, or because the Prophet ﷺ is the one who prohibited it.

And accordingly, days and nights pass, and years and years pass, and after twenty and after fifty years the father is, say, seventy or eighty years old, and the son is thirty or forty, and each of them still acknowledges that this thing is an error and that this thing is right, and that we will do that together, and that we will not do that together, because both of us only take into account the command of Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and the command of His Messenger ﷺ. So when days and years pass and the son comes to obey his father, will the obedience remain because he is simply the father and he is my reference, or because I and my father have as our reference Allah, who commanded him to bring me up in the first place, and commanded me to be dutiful to him at the beginning and at the end? Has this matter become clear? And Allah, Exalted, knows best.

The Second Criterion: Small or Large?

Is the error small or large? And that too is a matter measured according to the criteria we mentioned. The matter of a divorce occurring in the home because the wife (may Allah, Blessed and Exalted, honor her) was not concentrating while washing the dishes, so she broke a cup, and the husband (may Allah honor him) came in, and there went on what was not clear in the transcript, and then: you have always wronged me, no, rather you are such and such, and you and you... in the name of Allah, as Allah wills, may our Lord protect everyone. Well, this is an error, so what resulted from it? Is the falling of the cup from the hand in itself an error by the general measure? Then: what are its causes? What brought it about? The sister was agitated, she was distressed that the children were late from school, and she was anxious, not concentrating, and fearful for the girl and the boy and so on and so forth, so what happened happened. So what happened and how did you assess the matter? Is it a small error or a big error?

Is the error that comes from the boy, that he did not do his school homework today, measured by the same rate of error as that he smoked a cigarette, or drank a glass, or stayed up late in such and such a place, or befriended so-and-so of whose depravity and criminality we know? How are errors measured? And is the error small or large?

The Third Criterion: Spread and Impact

And error is also measured by its spread and its impact. The one who issued a ruling that people be killed in the streets (that one is someone who stood on a pulpit and spoke to the whole world: kill them) that is an error. Is this error measured against a man who came to you at the mosque and said: Shaykh, by Allah, I do not know, I came back from travel late and caught the ʿIshāʾ prayer and prayed ʿIshāʾ behind the imam, and I do not know now, do I pray Maghrib alone after it, or pray Maghrib and then ʿIshāʾ once more? That is, he is confused, my master, I do not know. Is this measured against that? Is this an error or right, and is that an error or right? Allahu akbar.

They said in the past, and it is still so: "the slip of a scholar." The error that comes from a scholar is a scholar's slip, why? Because people watch him. So if you are alone, and may Allah, Blessed and Exalted, pardon you if you are so, the error from you between you and yourself is never assessed as equal to an error that comes from a father in front of his dependents and in front of his wife. And if you are the head of a whole family, meaning you are the eldest in your family, so your wife and your children follow you in that, and you have paternal cousins and maternal cousins, and you have a large family, and the conduct from you is broadcast among all of them in a moment, on Instagram or the like. And so the error's impact lies in its spread, and it is never assessed as equal to a small error that comes from a person alone between himself and himself.

And I always give people the example and say: if you saw me wearing this dress or the Azhari garb or the like, holding a cigarette and walking in the street like this and smoking, people would look: what is this? I seek Allah's forgiveness! This is a shaykh! Or: my dear man, is it permissible, this is our master the shaykh... and he is walking in the street! But if I were the same person but wearing ordinary clothes, like the clothing of our brother Jalāl, if I were walking along the road wearing ordinary clothes like everyone else and smoking, people would pass by me and not look; but when I was a person with a garb or emblem, whatever its type, people turn to it. Sir, how many people pass by you while you are driving your car fast? But if a police car passed you running without its light on, would it catch your attention or not? So it is like that: what is the rate of spread of the error that comes from the person or from the persons?

The Fourth Criterion: Is It Open to Correction?

Well, is the error correctable or not correctable? Is there an error that came from anyone and that is it, God willing, meaning we get dragged along, and we say: how will the corrections be carried out, or not? When the Prophet ﷺ found a man in the mosque urinating in the mosque (a great offense!) that is, as for us, we cannot bear the children who move around among us, and who keep making problems every so often: go away from here, and move back, and pray together and take them to some place in such and such a corner. And on the contrary entirely: let us turn aside to this point, for when we find narrations telling that the Prophet ﷺ would prostrate and his grandson would climb on his back, and the Prophet ﷺ would stay prostrate until he came down. What happened? Imagine the matter, what is the situation? The situation is that the entire Muslim community is held up because of a child! Is that not so? The whole movement of the Muslim community is held up because of a child (in our telling) playing happily on his grandfather's back, very happy, thoroughly comfortable. So why does the Prophet ﷺ bear with him? And behind the Prophet ﷺ had gathered Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, and all the leaders of the community, he is not hurrying for anything on his own account or by himself, this is the movement of the entire community; and yet the Prophet ﷺ bears with him. Why does he bear with him? Perhaps from up there he is learning how to be a leader, for instance (for example) we do not know.^[6]

And the point of the statement: this error that came from the Companion (may Allah, Exalted, be pleased with him) when he urinated in the mosque, this is a very big error in the eyes of the Companions. But when the Prophet ﷺ assessed it and realized that it was correctable, the Prophet ﷺ forbade them from cutting off his urination at the outset, because acting to treat it would lead to a result worse than the one we are in now. Hence we must be reasonable as we treat our mistakes today or tomorrow. Then the Prophet ﷺ comes to him and teaches him, or says: pour a bucket of water over his urine (or as the narrations related) in the way of treatment that came from the Prophet ﷺ.^[7]

And there is another Companion who speaks in the prayer: someone yawns or sneezes, so he says to him: may Allah have mercy on you, and the people strike at him on... He says: I imagined that I had committed a calamity, so I held in (I suppressed my anger) and did not speak, that is it, we will get through it until we finish the prayer. Then the Prophet ﷺ comes to him and says: this prayer is not fit for anything of such and such, and teaches him how to remember Allah, Glorified and Exalted, in his prayer and how to perform his prayer.^[8]

So is the error correctable? Is every mistake that happens at home an error and a calamity and a disaster over which we raise the world? The world has stopped and been halted, and the universe has been halted just like that, because something happened to me? My brothers, the matter of reasonableness in assessing situations and conduct, and yielding to people's wishes...

Minor Lapses and Major Sins: Degrees on the Scale

Then there are errors, as regards the matter of assessment, that the noble Qur'an called "lamam" (minor lapses): ﴿إِلَّا اللَّمَمَ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ وَاسِعُ الْمَغْفِرَةِ﴾ (except for the minor lapses; indeed your Lord is vast in forgiveness). Simple things that happen, things of life that occur. These things, even if they come from you, do not cause you psychological disturbance or depression, although you must care, because most of the fire starts from small sparks; and we must combine the two matters. We speak of that, but these are not what makes Satan prevail over you; so seek forgiveness of Him, and Allah, Blessed and Exalted, wipes it away by it: ﴿إِنَّ الْحَسَنَاتِ يُذْهِبْنَ السَّيِّئَاتِ﴾ (indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds),^[9] and the matter ends.

But sometimes Allah, Exalted, called the error a major sin: ﴿إِن تَجْتَنِبُوا كَبَائِرَ مَا تُنْهَوْنَ عَنْهُ نُكَفِّرْ عَنكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَنُدْخِلْكُم مُّدْخَلًا كَرِيمًا﴾ (If you avoid the major sins which you are forbidden, We will remove from you your misdeeds and admit you to a noble entrance). And there are errors that the noble Qur'an called transgression (ṭughyān), and there are errors the Qur'an called aggression: "muʿtadīn" (transgressors).

The Qur'anic Method in Correcting Errors

On what did the Qur'anic method rely in correcting errors? The Qur'an relied on offering advice directly to people, whether in the direct way or by way of hinting. So, for example, when we read the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿أَمْ تُرِيدُونَ أَن تَسْأَلُوا رَسُولَكُمْ كَمَا سُئِلَ مُوسَىٰ مِن قَبْلُ﴾ (Or do you intend to ask your Messenger as Moses was asked before?), we see with utmost simplicity how the Qur'an raises the Muslim community through this phrase. And how the noble Qur'an guides people through this phrase: ﴿لَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ آذَوْا مُوسَىٰ فَبَرَّأَهُ اللَّهُ مِمَّا قَالُوا﴾ (do not be like those who harmed Moses, and Allah cleared him of what they said)? And how the Qur'an raises people through this phrase: "لا تكونوا من المفسدين" (do not be among the corrupters)?^[10] The Qur'anic method relied on the educative address that aims to establish firm principles in the human soul, so that it stands firm on what is right under all possibilities; so it brings you up from within, it brings you up from your depths. So it established and implanted in us the matter of belief in Allah, Glorified and Exalted: that we have a God whom we are mindful of in all circumstances, and we look to the places of His pleasure and the places of His displeasure, and we follow these and avoid those. So none of us deliberately commits a mistake, even a slight one, as long as he believes that Allah, Blessed and Exalted, watches him and records his steps one by one.

So what happens? He errs, he falls into error. And there is a very great difference between one who falls into error and one who deliberately falls into error. You see the man when he walks scrupulously, that is, very careful, very attentive (may Allah honor you), walking on your way and watching the set speed, "be careful," everything is perfectly fine; but Allah decreed that some crazy person comes out from somewhere and hits something of yours. Is this an error that came from you or from another? Deliberate or not deliberate? Intended or not intended? One walking along the road being careful, but his foot fell into a pit he does not see, he did not see it, so his awareness did not fall upon it; and the other walks in his shoes, going on in the mud making it dirty, as we used to do in the old days when we were little at the canal. So the Qur'an at the outset made clear to people the patterns and kinds of souls, and made clear their susceptibility to reminding, and made clear their state and their calm with guidance, and their state and their turmoil with misguidance.

And each word of these needs some verses and some explanation. And it made clear the afflictions of souls and the patterns of incidental human defect, and you can follow that when you read the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ﴾ (and among the people), and follow that throughout the Qur'an, and look: ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَبِالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَمَا هُم بِمُؤْمِنِينَ﴾ (And among the people are some who say: "We believe in Allah and the Last Day," but they are not believers). ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ أَندَادًا يُحِبُّونَهُمْ كَحُبِّ اللَّهِ ۖ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِّلَّهِ﴾ (And among the people are those who take rivals besides Allah, loving them as they love Allah; but those who believe are stronger in love for Allah). ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُعْجِبُكَ قَوْلُهُ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَيُشْهِدُ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ مَا فِي قَلْبِهِ﴾ (And among the people is he whose speech pleases you in worldly life, and he calls Allah to witness as to what is in his heart). ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يُجَادِلُ فِي اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَيَتَّبِعُ كُلَّ شَيْطَانٍ مَّرِيدٍ﴾ (And among the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge and follows every rebellious devil). ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَعْبُدُ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ حَرْفٍ﴾ (And among the people is he who worships Allah on an edge). ﴿وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَشْتَرِي لَهْوَ الْحَدِيثِ﴾ (And among the people is he who purchases idle talk).^[11] All these and others are in the noble Qur'an, so follow them to see how Allah, Exalted, made clear to you the natures of creation and its desires and its innate dispositions and their states and their fluctuations. Read the Qur'an with the eye of a learner who reflects, read the Qur'an so that when you stop at something in it you realize a result and come away with a benefit. And if we wanted to say that the Qur'anic address relied on the educative address that shows the wrongdoer the consequence of his wrong...

The Prophet's ﷺ Method: Mercy and Reason

And if we try to speak about the method of the Prophet ﷺ (let us leave aside the Qur'an, and what remains we defer, God willing, to a coming meeting) in two minutes we say: the Prophet ﷺ dealt with the logic of mercy and the logic of reasonableness. So we say: be very wise in your conduct, and very merciful to the people who live around you. And I give just one example with which I will conclude my talk: our master Anas, may Allah, Exalted, be pleased with him, who lived with the Prophet ﷺ for years, says: the Prophet ﷺ never said to me about something I did: why did you do it? And never said to me about something I did not do: why did you not do it?^[12] That is, there is no questioning at all, no follow-up, no interrogations at all, as if the world were left loose. Do you imagine, or do you think, that the Prophet ﷺ let Anas's rein fall loose on his neck, and Anas did what he wanted? Or that he was bringing him up? And what means was the upbringing? The relationship between the one who raises and the one raised reached the point that merely by looking with your eye, your son understands what you want to do; and merely by your thinking of something you find it in your hands before you mention it with your tongue, what has fallen into the heart of the one in front of you.

I ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, to grant us sincerity in what we say, and to bestow upon us well-being in religion and the world, and to reward this noble gathering, at whose number I personally, by Allah, am amazed, and to bless you in your mosque. May Allah, Exalted, keep you safe, and may Allah reward you with good, and peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Reported by al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah from the ḥadīth of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him. The lecturer cited it with the wording given. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The locations of the verses the lecturer cited, with numbers supplied by the editor: ﴿وَاللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم…﴾ ("And Allah brought you out...") in al-Naḥl: 78; ﴿وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا﴾ ("And He taught Adam the names, all of them") in al-Baqarah: 31; and ﴿فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ…﴾ ("Then Satan whispered to him...") in Ṭā Hā: 120. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The numbers (five, two verses, and about thirteen) are given as they appear in the transcript, and the lecturer said "approximately" for the last number. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer refers to the saying of Allah, Exalted, ﴿وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ﴾ ("and do not follow the footsteps of Satan") in Sūrat al-Baqarah (in the context of eating the lawful), and to ﴿لَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ﴾ ("do not follow the footsteps of Satan") in Sūrat al-Nūr (in the context of indecency). He did not mention the verse numbers. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Maʿn ibn Yazīd, may Allah be pleased with him, and its wording is: «لك ما نويتَ يا يزيد، ولك ما أخذتَ يا معن» ("For you is what you intended, O Yazīd, and for you is what you took, O Maʿn"). The context of the story in the body text follows what the lecturer related, and it differs from the Ṣaḥīḥ in some of its details (such as the son sitting in the mosque in need and his father throwing charity to him, whereas in the Ṣaḥīḥ Yazīd placed dinars with a man in the mosque and Maʿn took them). The lecturer did not name the Companion, and the transcript has «يا معا», which is unclear in the transcript, so the vocative was omitted from the body text. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The climbing of his ﷺ grandson onto his back while he was prostrating is reported by al-Nasāʾī and Aḥmad from the ḥadīth of Shaddād ibn al-Hād and others. The word "his grandson" was not clear in the transcript (it has «حفيده أو في ده»), and I did not find a text stating that Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were behind him on that occasion, and the lecturer mentioned it in the course of his talk. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: The story of the Bedouin who urinated in the mosque is in al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, in which: «لا تُزرِموه» ("Do not cut him off"), then he commanded them to pour a bucket of water over his urine. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer did not name the Companion, and the story agrees with the ḥadīth of Muʿāwiyah ibn al-Ḥakam al-Sulamī in Muslim, in which: «إن هذه الصلاة لا يصلح فيها شيء من كلام الناس، إنما هو التسبيح والتكبير وقراءة القرآن» ("This prayer is not fit for any of the speech of people; it is only glorification, magnification, and recitation of the Qur'an"). In the ḥadīth, a man sneezed and he said to him: may Allah have mercy on you, so the people began striking their hands on their thighs. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: The locations of the verses the lecturer cited, with numbers supplied by the editor: ﴿إِلَّا اللَّمَمَ…﴾ ("except for the minor lapses...") in al-Najm: 32; ﴿إِنَّ الْحَسَنَاتِ يُذْهِبْنَ السَّيِّئَاتِ﴾ ("indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds") in Hūd: 114; and ﴿إِن تَجْتَنِبُوا كَبَائِرَ…﴾ ("If you avoid the major sins...") in al-Nisāʾ: 31. And the phrase «معظم النار من مستصغر الشرر» ("most of the fire is from small sparks") is a common proverb, neither a verse nor a ḥadīth, and it has been given without quotation marks. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer mentioned this last phrase among the examples and did not specify its location nor its verse, so it has been given in his wording without attribution. As for the two verses before it, their locations are: al-Baqarah: 108, and al-Aḥzāb: 69 (supplied by the editor), and the transcript has «أتريدون», while what has been adopted is the verse's spelling «أَمْ تُرِيدُونَ». ^[11]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer recited them in summary without numbers, and some of them were corrupted in the transcript («مريض» whereas the correct is «مريد», and «يشتري له الحديث» whereas the correct is «لهو الحديث»), so they have been given according to the text of the Qur'an. Their locations (supplied by the editor): al-Baqarah: 8, al-Baqarah: 165, al-Baqarah: 204, al-Ḥajj: 3, al-Ḥajj: 11, and Luqmān: 6. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: Reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, in nearly this wording; and the well-known length of his service is ten years, which was not clear in the transcript, so it was not given in the body text.