Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam 15: ‹Let Him Speak Good or Remain Silent›

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 16 August 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The Doctor opened his khatira with a comprehensive supplication: that he ask Allah for all good, immediate and delayed, and seek refuge in Him from all evil, immediate and delayed; that He protect us in all our affairs, make us firm with the firm word in the life of this world and in the hereafter, inspire us with our right guidance, not leave us to ourselves or to any of His creation, and take charge of all our affairs through mercy and pleasure from Him.

Today's ḥadīth, by the leave of the Lord of Might, is the fifteenth ḥadīth of the book Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam by Imam Ibn Rajab, may Allah Almighty have mercy on him, as narrated by Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet ﷺ said: «من كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليقل خيرًا أو ليصمت، ومن كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليكرم جاره، ومن كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليكرم ضيفه» (Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him speak good or remain silent; and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him honor his neighbor; and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him honor his guest).^[1] The Messenger of Allah ﷺ spoke truly in what he related, and those who transmitted it spoke truly in what they transmitted from him. It is among the well-known ḥadīths in the world of the Muslims.

Faith Is the Condition and Action Is Its Realization

The application springs from the content of the ḥadīth and the way the Prophet ﷺ presented it. Making faith a condition of action ("whoever believes, let him do"), or making action a condition for realizing faith, leaves the choice with you: you decide whether you want to remain within this system or leave it, and remaining and leaving are tied to whether the action is carried out or not. So what are the actions?

"Let Him Speak Good or Remain Silent"

In the first condition: what is the relation between the tongue, between speech, and faith, whose seat is the heart? The relation is that the tongue translates what is inside a person; whoever's heart is upright, his tongue is upright, and whoever's tongue is crooked, his heart is crooked. On this line the Prophet ﷺ warns people against speaking at all about what has no benefit. One man asks him: Are we held to account for what our tongues speak? And he answers him with an answer that silences, indeed that stops anyone who would argue: Does anything throw people on their faces into the Fire except the harvests of their tongues? And the matter was finished; this accumulation from the tongue is what makes a person deserve Paradise or the Fire.^[2]

People make light of the word, because the word that comes out does not take up much time; a word comes out in a second or less or more depending on its moment, but the accumulation is what goes unnoticed. And here is an example you often find amusing and laugh about: swiping a credit card. You make light of the matter, touch the screen, "tak," and we're done. But at the end of the month our friend weeps beside this respectable statement. The point is that the harvests of the tongues are the result that is both anticipated and unexpected.

A Word Given No Thought

And our Messenger ﷺ relates a ḥadīth of the utmost gravity, mentioning that a man may speak a word to which he gives no thought, and it plunges him into the Fire, or Allah raises him by it.^[3] The matter here lies in what the Prophet ﷺ says, "gives no thought to it," that is, random speech that is an attempt to burst into a human matter, or a reaction to someone speaking in front of you so that you answer him quickly and easily without thinking. So what does the Messenger of Allah ﷺ want from you in a ḥadīth like this? He wants to awaken in you the faculty of reflecting on what you say; for people's destinies follow from the speech that comes out of them. Imagine someone standing before the judge and uttering a word that is recorded against him, so he is held to it, just a word, or a testimony, or a paper.

The point is that self-monitoring, and we have a great deal to say on this subject, is what the Prophet ﷺ is keen to awaken within you. You monitor two things: you monitor the heart, what is it dictating to you? And you monitor the mind, what is it advising you? So look to your aim, and on that basis decide your conduct.

"Let Him Honor His Neighbor"

And the other matter: «من كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليكرم جاره» (Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him honor his neighbor). So what is the relation between speaking good and remaining silent about what does not benefit, and honoring the neighbor? The neighbor is the first to be close to you, so he leaves in you negative or positive feelings. Imagine two people living side by side in housing, or side by side at work: the conduct of one leaves impressions on the other, and because the watching, observing and following is constant, he may bear it or not, and may put up with it or not. So imagine that you have a neighbor, near or far, whom you harm night and day; what is the use of this neighborhood? There is no use in it, its harm is more than its benefit, its good is less than its evil, and there is no need for it. That is why we have, even in the simple examples of our ordinary life: "Choose the neighbor before the house." So if your companion's conduct is good, he gives you rest with his tongue and your heart is at ease with him, welcome; and if he finds something else in himself and speaks, no matter: goodbye, may Allah make it easy for you, or you look for another place. Hence Islam gives you this immunity that begins with you yourself: what are you doing to yourself?

And here we speak of the right of the neighbor, concerning which the Prophet ﷺ says something of the utmost gravity, and it is related from him ﷺ that the first two disputants on the Day of Resurrection are two neighbors.^[4] The first two to stand face to face on the Day of Resurrection, imagine, two neighbors. If you narrow the word neighborhood to the neighborhood of the house, that is possible; and if you widen the word neighborhood, the first neighbor to stand before you as an adversary may be your neighbor who is in the bed. We know him, this neighbor of this bed, who is my wife: she may be the first adversary to stand before Allah, Blessed and Exalted, against me, or I against her. And neighborhood may include the children, and it may include the neighborhood of the house. And neighborhood in its wording to begin with, in the Qur'anic treatment and the comprehension of the Prophetic ḥadīths, takes in what is wider and stronger than that. Let us say it again: neighborhood takes in what is wider than that. And in the words of Allah Almighty: ﴿وَالْجَارِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْجَارِ الْجُنُبِ وَالصَّاحِبِ بِالْجَنْبِ﴾ (and the neighbor who is near, the neighbor who is a stranger, and the companion at your side)^[5] there are very many interpretations of "the companion at your side," and this widening is a Qur'anic purpose through which the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, achieves many purposes, and you know that speaking on this runs long.

"Let Him Honor His Guest"

Then the third part of the ḥadīth: «فليكرم ضيفه» (let him honor his guest). We say that the first condition for the realization of faith is to restrain this tongue, and not to release it in what has no benefit. Think before you speak, think before you write a message, before you send, before you utter; think about the consequences of what you say. And the other matter is honoring. We have now held back, so a kind of inner thinking, of the mind and of the heart, has been generated that has bred in you the faculty of giving. So instead of giving words for nothing, like machine-gunners firing at the people around you, calm down a bit, think wisely, for you have a quantity that wants to come out, so let it come out in the form of giving. This giving is called generosity.

So let us honor first the neighborhood, which is a guest who has descended upon me, but in a somewhat prolonged form: you live in a place, then someone comes and buys the house next to yours. Our friend here is a guest who has just arrived, but a guest who stays with us for a little while, or you are a guest at his place. And you can imagine that the honoring comes from both sides, from both sides, so you see mutual honoring through asking after one another, reassurance and affection. And we have rules for honoring the guest; if you speak about it you are speaking of very long lectures, especially in the analysis of texts rather than their narration.

And among the problems of the discourse, and I want to call it the religious discourse or whatever it is called, the discourse of preachers: that they concern themselves with more narration, and many of them do not analyze the text and dive into its depths to extract the wisdom in it that the one who spoke it intended, that its Owner intended: the Lord of the worlds in His Qur'an, and our Messenger ﷺ in his purified Sunnah.

So what is the right of the guest? The right of the guest is honoring, but he remains under the name "guest," and if he moves from the name guest to the name master of the house, the matter has changed. And Islam obliges you to have a share in honoring the guest, for no guest arrives but that he is owed honor. And we have a well-known ḥadīth: a guest comes to the Prophet ﷺ, and he asks his Companions: Who will honor the guest of the Messenger of Allah? Who will honor the guest of the Messenger of Allah? A Companion volunteers, moved by resolve and chivalry, and takes him and returns to the house, and asks his family: What do you have? They say: Nothing except what we quiet our children with. So they go to sleep.^[6] You can all picture the meaning of this phrase, if I have related it correctly: we have nothing except what we quiet the children with. Some people say: they have the children's food for tonight; no, not a full dinner, there is no full meal that satisfies the children so they can relax and sleep and start playing. Rather, he gives them two morsels, something to occupy them, as you give your child a lollipop or a pacifier or anything to amuse himself with until he is busy with something else. A child cries over some matter, and you say to him: Come, I'll give you candy, and he is given candy, and is occupied with it and forgets the other matter. So he said to her: Fine, gather up all of this, and when we sit at the table, put out the lamp. We sit down to eat and put out the light, why? So that our friend, as he bangs the spoon in the dish, feels that he is eating with him, and the guest, who knows where the food is, reaches out and eats right away. Then when morning came, the Prophet ﷺ praised this deed, and said that Allah Almighty had looked upon what the two of you did tonight. This is honoring.

And the honoring here is temporary honoring, because you do not have a guest every day, but the point remains within the soul: that it is the soul that gives, and not the soul that is keen only to take. The soul that is keen only to take is of no use. Whoever's soul is like that, let him look to what the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Exalted, will give him in this world and the hereafter.

The World Between Taking and Giving Back

The world, my brothers, life, is between taking and giving back. The more you give, the more the Giver, glory be to Him, the Exalted, gives you, and the more you are keen to take, the world will not let you take all you want, it will take from you. We have, glory be to Allah the All-Powerful, a tax on every kind of progress in life, a tax you must pay to the world in some form. And I still remember one day one of our close friends, I said to him: Brother, you are able, God willing, so buy a car to get around in, instead of continuing to beg rides from us like this; we were joking, of course. He said to me: Its tax is very big, it is a very big tax. He meant its tax in people's eyes and in life, for example.

And the point: we were young men who did not own our daily bread, then we moved to a bigger stage, we came to hold posts in our worldly life, small or large, then life carried us from one place to another, and this world in its various forms multiplied in our hands. But in return for this, and I am giving an example for all people: you see well-being decrease, peace of mind decrease, and life's irritations come, the preoccupations of the world, the troubles of business and of the people around you, and so on.

Complete Faith

And the point in the conclusion of this ḥadīth: «من كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر» (whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day). The faith the Prophet ﷺ wants is complete faith, because this is not the only condition for the realization of faith. But we have, and we have gone on a bit long with you today, what is called "mere faith" (muṭlaq al-īmān) and "absolute faith" (al-īmān al-muṭlaq): mere faith is the presence of any measure of faith, and absolute faith is the faith that has reached its completeness. And we ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, to reach such a goal.

And the point is that the Prophet ﷺ wants to stir within you the seeker of truth, the impulse of the seeker of faith and its complements: that our happiness lies in what our consciences hold and what our minds take in, not in what our hands possess.

And he concluded with a supplication that Allah guide our souls and hearts to the truth, not afflict us with what spoils the enjoyment of life for us, and not cloud our clarity. Amen.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him). ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The speaker related the ḥadīth by meaning, without naming the questioner; it is in the ḥadīth of Muʿādh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him) in al-Tirmidhī, who said: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The speaker related it by meaning, and its origin is in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him). ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The speaker did not attribute the ḥadīth; it is related from the ḥadīth of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir (may Allah be pleased with him) in Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī, and its grade is to be reviewed before publication. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, verse 36. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The speaker said "if I have related it correctly"; the story was narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), in which Allah marveled or laughed at what the couple did for their guest; the phrase "looked upon what the two of you did" is the speaker's own rendering in relaying it.