A Khatira from “The Character of the Muslim”: The Chapter on Moderation and Chastity

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on 1 May 2018 ahead of Ramadan Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and blessings and peace upon the servant of Allah, His Prophet and Messenger, our master and our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and all his Companions. To proceed:

Our episodes continue with the book “The Character of the Muslim” by Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazālī, may Allah, Blessed and Exalted, have mercy on him. And I never cease to say each time that this book is a great volume in the world of ethics, in which Allah brought together, on the tongue of its author, the words of the people of philosophy, psychology and the science of ethics, and the divine formulation of the words of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, and the divine formulation with which the words of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ were formulated, whose speech he described, upon him be blessings and peace, with His words, glory be to Him: ﴿وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَىٰ﴾ (“Nor does he speak from his own inclination”).

And today we meet with a very great title, “Moderation and Chastity.” I preferred to speak about it ahead of Ramadan, because of the behaviors of extravagance, neglect or excess in people's lives, whatever the terms that express the conditions of many of them, for they may not suit the Noble Month and what the Lord of the worlds wanted in it from His believing servants. And I do not want to go deep into people's behaviors in Ramadan so much as I want to concentrate on what the Shaykh said on the issue of moderation and chastity, and then we link this with that, by Allah's permission.

Combining the Demands of the Body and the Soul

The Shaykh, may Allah have mercy on him, says: Islam joins together the demands of the body and the soul in its teachings, and restrains the tyranny of one over the other. That is, the Qur'anic texts and the prophetic ḥadīths combined the demands of the soul and the demands of the body. And there is always a struggle between the requirements of the soul, the requirements of the body and the requirements of the spirit; the spirit always wants to rise to Allah, glory be to Him, the soul may incline to its desires, and the body is created from that dust to which it inclines from time to time. So there is a spirit that summons the body's aspiration and tries to resist desire within the soul, and there is a soul that wants to revolt against this spirit and satisfy its instincts and demands, and there is a body that wants to be lazy in performing its tasks and neglect what is required of it.

Then he says: And Islam sees in coordinating its needs a help for a person in fulfilling his mission in this life. And what is required of the Muslim is summed up in the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ﴾ (“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me”).^[1] And this worship requires the work of a heart, the work of a mind and the work of a body: it requires a sincere intention for Allah, glory be to Him, whose place is the heart, and it requires prostration, standing, bowing, glorification and remembrance, and it requires the heart to be free of tyranny, rancor, hatred, hostility, envy and everything similar, and it also requires movement and effectiveness in life. For worship in its general, comprehensive sense is the movement of buying and selling, it is production in a factory, it is striving and journeying in the land, it is teaching people, it is rescuing the soul from existing negatives. An integrated work in which all the faculties that form that great structure, which is the structure of Allah, that is, the human being, take part.

And coordinating all these faculties and meeting all their needs at the same time is a matter that almost all philosophers saw as complex, especially since the human soul, whose secrets only its Creator, glory be to Him, knows, is composed to a degree that makes understanding difficult except for one who listened to the Noble Qur'an and saw in it a clear indication expressing the foundation of what Allah created, the fiṭrah of Allah upon which He created people, ﴿لَا تَبْدِيلَ لِخَلْقِ اللَّهِ﴾ (“no change in the creation of Allah”). Then we listen to the saying of the Lord of the worlds as He speaks about this soul: ﴿وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا * فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا * قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا * وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا﴾ (“And by the soul and He who proportioned it, and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness, he has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who instills it with corruption”).^[2] An equation of utmost simplicity and ease.

Then you see the completion of this rule that the Lord of the worlds laid down in His description of the soul in His saying, glory be to Him: ﴿وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَىٰ * وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا تَجَلَّىٰ * وَمَا خَلَقَ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَىٰ * إِنَّ سَعْيَكُمْ لَشَتَّىٰ * فَأَمَّا مَنْ أَعْطَىٰ وَاتَّقَىٰ * وَصَدَّقَ بِالْحُسْنَىٰ * فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُ لِلْيُسْرَىٰ * وَأَمَّا مَن بَخِلَ وَاسْتَغْنَىٰ * وَكَذَّبَ بِالْحُسْنَىٰ * فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُ لِلْعُسْرَىٰ﴾ (“By the night when it covers, and the day when it appears, and He who created the male and female, indeed, your efforts are diverse. As for he who gives and fears Allah, and believes in the best reward, We will ease him toward ease. But as for he who withholds and considers himself free of need, and denies the best reward, We will ease him toward difficulty”).^[3] So there is a kind of resistance to the very thing the soul inclines to, and a response to what the spirit longs for: ﴿فَأَمَّا مَنْ أَعْطَىٰ وَاتَّقَىٰ﴾ (“As for he who gives and fears Allah”). And this, in utmost simplicity, may be the ideal description of this soul that Allah created: the origin in it is its aptness for doing good and doing evil, and then the servant expends what he can among these demands. So the Noble Qur'an, and the rules of Islam, come together summarizing the work of this soul.

The Life of the Believer and the Life of the Disbeliever

And we move to another place in our Shaykh's words, may Allah have mercy on him; he says: And we must mention a decisive fact in this matter, which is that the life of the believer who affirms the Hereafter is not like the life of the disbeliever, who considers his lifetime on the back of the earth to be both his world and his Hereafter together, and his only and last opportunity to satisfy his desire and attain his goals.

For the believer in his conceptions of this world and the Hereafter is not like the disbeliever in his conceptions of them. This disbeliever imagines that he is here and only here, and so he wants to gather the greatest amount of money, the greatest amount of desire, and to obtain everything he wants and everything his soul longs for in this world. As for the believer, he leaves the lawful that Allah made lawful for him at times, seeking what is with Allah of Paradise. And fasting in Ramadan out of faith and seeking reward contains a leaving of the lawful, and not only a leaving of the unlawful; for the man refrains from his wife and from his food and drink that he earned by his toil and effort and that are in front of him, and he does not go near them. Why? Because he is fasting. And why? Because he wants what is with Allah of Paradise, he wants to enter from the gate of al-Rayyān, the gate of the fasting, from which no one else enters. This intention, this conception and that faith is the difference between the disbeliever and the believer.

The Shaykh, may Allah have mercy on him, says: And most of those who lose their chastity, follow their whims and live for pleasures alone belong to the latter group or end up in it, unless they return to their senses and turn back from their error. Citing the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُدْخِلُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ﴾ (“Indeed, Allah will admit those who believe and do righteous deeds to gardens beneath which rivers flow”), this is the destiny of the believers. And we complete the verse: ﴿وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا يَتَمَتَّعُونَ وَيَأْكُلُونَ كَمَا تَأْكُلُ الْأَنْعَامُ وَالنَّارُ مَثْوًى لَّهُمْ﴾ (“But those who disbelieve enjoy themselves and eat as grazing livestock eat, and the Fire will be a residence for them”).^[4] That is the difference. And the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, says in another place: ﴿رُّبَمَا يَوَدُّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَوْ كَانُوا مُسْلِمِينَ * ذَرْهُمْ يَأْكُلُوا وَيَتَمَتَّعُوا وَيُلْهِهِمُ الْأَمَلُ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ﴾ (“Perhaps those who disbelieve will wish they had been Muslims. Let them eat and enjoy themselves and be diverted by hope, for they are going to know”).^[5] They are going to know the truth that the believers grasped through their faith and certainty in Allah from the beginning, so they spared themselves all these questionings.

Dividing Hopes Between This Life and the Return

As for the believer, he divides his hopes and desires between his livelihood and his return, and seeks good for himself in his today and his tomorrow. And the Qur'an has taught us that looking forward to blessing and happiness in both cases is among the greatest forms of remembrance of Allah, glory be to Him. Let us listen to the saying of the Lord of Might: ﴿فَإِذَا قَضَيْتُم مَّنَاسِكَكُمْ فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ كَذِكْرِكُمْ آبَاءَكُمْ أَوْ أَشَدَّ ذِكْرًا فَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا وَمَا لَهُ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنْ خَلَاقٍ * وَمِنْهُم مَّن يَقُولُ رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ * أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمْ نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا كَسَبُوا وَاللَّهُ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ﴾ (“And when you have completed your rites, remember Allah as you remember your fathers or with greater remembrance. And among the people is he who says, ‘Our Lord, give us in this world,’ and he will have in the Hereafter no share. And among them is he who says, ‘Our Lord, give us in this world good and in the Hereafter good and protect us from the punishment of the Fire.’ Those will have a share of what they have earned, and Allah is swift in account”).^[6] And He, glory be to Him, said in another place: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَلْتَنظُرْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ لِغَدٍ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ﴾ (“O you who have believed, fear Allah. And let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow, and fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Aware of what you do”).^[7]

And there is an example the Qur'an formulated for us on the ground of reality, the example of Qārūn, around whom his people gathered, and they formulated for him advice in easy, smooth wording; the Lord of the worlds said, on their tongues, in their advice to Qārūn: ﴿وَابْتَغِ فِيمَا آتَاكَ اللَّهُ الدَّارَ الْآخِرَةَ وَلَا تَنسَ نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا وَأَحْسِن كَمَا أَحْسَنَ اللَّهُ إِلَيْكَ﴾ (“But seek, through that which Allah has given you, the home of the Hereafter; and do not forget your share of the world, and do good as Allah has done good to you”).^[8] It is an integrated relationship between his view of what he wants here and what he wants there, and his assessment of what he has been given and what Allah, Blessed and Exalted, has granted him, and the bliss he has enjoyed and the bliss he may come to in the Hereafter, on the condition that he gives everyone with a right his due.

Then the sum of the qualities of the Muslim: that he not be a slave to his stomach, that he not be a slave to his desire, and that he not be a slave to a dinar or a dirham. The Muslim is the one who forbids himself the lawful in obedience to the command of Allah in Ramadan, and who knows that some of his wealth is not lawful for him because it is zakāh for those poor people. That believer is the one who shapes his life as the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, wants it, content with what Allah, Mighty and Majestic, gave him of advantages in this worldly life, enjoying it to the highest degrees of enjoyment, without depriving the soul of its right, or the mind losing its distinction, or the spirit's landmarks being effaced. That is the believer through whose faith his structure and form are completed, and who rises in the presence of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him.

I ask Allah, the Most High, the All-Powerful, to let us reach Ramadan, and to grant us from that fasting a paradise in this world before the paradise of the Hereafter. And peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Dhāriyāt, verse 56. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Shams, verses 7–10. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Layl, verses 1–10. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Muḥammad, verse 12. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Ḥijr, verses 2–3. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Baqarah, verses 200–202. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Ḥashr, verse 18. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ, verse 77.