Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam 12: Part of the Excellence of a Person's Islam Is Leaving What Does Not Concern Him

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered at the American Imams Academy (AIA) on July 19, 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

After the Shaykh supplicated for the best of the day and the best of what is in it and the best of what follows it, and for the soundness of religion, this world and the Hereafter, and that Allah prepare for us right guidance in our affair, he moved on to the twelfth ḥadīth of the book "Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam," which is the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: «مِنْ حُسْنِ إِسْلَامِ الْمَرْءِ تَرْكُهُ مَا لَا يَعْنِيهِ» (Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is his leaving that which does not concern him).

And he said at its outset: This ḥadīth is among the most famous ḥadīths in the Muslim community, and among the ḥadīths that the fewest in the Muslim community follow. Then he remarked that the laughter of those present expresses a painful reality.

The Prophet ﷺ Is Concerned for You

The understanding that comes to mind is that no one should interfere in people's affairs, and this is a correct view that protects people from meddling. But he drew attention to another aspect: the Prophet's ﷺ care for you, and his concern for you. And he gave a familiar example: someone comes to you and says: Our Shaykh, we were in a gathering and people spoke about you, and I could not answer for you because of the overwhelming talk. So you ask him: And was what they said true? He says: By Allah, I know nothing of what was said about you. So we say to him: May Allah reward you with good, but why did you inform me? If our Lord, glorified be He, silenced this blessed tongue in the gathering there, why do you make it speak in front of me? You were silent there and came to speak here! There is no purpose in that except to inflame my heart against those who were speaking without truth. So when the Prophet ﷺ says: «مِنْ حُسْنِ إِسْلَامِ الْمَرْءِ تَرْكُهُ مَا لَا يَعْنِيهِ», he is addressing you, and is concerned for your inner self, and protects your mind.

What Drives People to Interfere?

Then he said: Come, let us look at those who interfere in people's affairs, what are their inner motives? Either he has surplus free time, he has no occupation. For the busy person is not occupied, and this is a rule. Consider: you have ten tasks in your day that must be done, and you have no time in between. So you complete the first and the second and the third... up to the eighth, then you tire, and say: Allah is the One whose help is sought, and the ninth comes, then the tenth. That is why it is said about arranging the day's schedule: begin with the most important, for the most important things are done first or else they will not be done, because they are the hardest. As for the hard matter that you cannot even begin well, break its routine by doing even a small part of it, ten percent for example, then leave it, and the rest will come by itself. Then he said: But that is not our topic.

A Witness from the Qur'an

So what is the Messenger of Allah ﷺ concerned with in this ḥadīth? To begin with, we have other witnesses in the Noble Qur'an; our Lord says: ﴿وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌ﴾ (And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge) [al-Isrāʾ: 36]^[1]. That is, do not try to find out about what is not your specialty and has no connection to you, for as long as there is no connection between you and the matter, do not barge into it, and do not go out of your own accord, with meddling, to barge into the affairs of people.

And why? To begin with, because you preserve the soundness of society. For souls change when something that harms them reaches them about people. This is agreed upon. But let us look at the speaker himself: what has he gained? You spoke about people concerning money, or some worldly possession, or their religion. If you spoke about people's religiosity and accused them falsely, what did you take? Either you are truthful or you are lying. And if you spoke about a matter of money or an engagement, for example, did you come out of it with a single useful sentence? Nothing. And what was the effect on the other side? People went back two steps, ten steps backward, and the relationships that existed between people were broken because you interfered in what does not concern you, and you were not even asked in the first place^[2].

Guarding the Tongue and Soundness of the Heart

And I look at the speech in view of the fact that the Prophet ﷺ wanted soundness of heart for me. When he says to one of his Companions: «أَمْسِكْ عَلَيْكَ لِسَانَكَ، وَلْيَسَعْكَ بَيْتُكَ، وَابْكِ عَلَى خَطِيئَتِكَ» (Restrain your tongue, let your house suffice you, and weep over your sin)^[3], what is the significance of this? Its significance is that what comes out of this tongue may throw people on their faces into the Fire, and about that the Prophet ﷺ spoke: «وَهَلْ يَكُبُّ النَّاسَ فِي النَّارِ عَلَى وُجُوهِهِمْ إِلَّا حَصَائِدُ أَلْسِنَتِهِمْ» (And does anything throw people on their faces into the Fire except the harvests of their tongues?)^[4]. So the sum of what comes out of this tongue is what leads its owner to the Fire, and it is not merely entering it, but imagine a person being dragged on his face in it.

And the point, my brothers, is that the Prophet ﷺ wanted to protect your inner self. When you interfere in people's affairs and learn that he has such-and-such money, jealousy arises in yourself, and you are pained, and you try to compare yourself with him. And when you learn that his son excelled in his studies and joined such-and-such, you compare his son with your children, so what happens inside you?

With What Should a Person Be Occupied?

Those who restrain their tongues are those preoccupied away from creation. So how has our religion occupied us? Your religion first occupied you with the obligations, that you be concerned with them, then it followed that with the voluntary acts, then with general remembrance, then with the affairs of people. Then an objector objects: What is this? We warn against people's affairs! And it is narrated from the Prophet ﷺ: «مَنْ لَمْ يَهْتَمَّ بِأَمْرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ فَلَيْسَ مِنْهُمْ» (Whoever does not concern himself with the affair of the Muslims is not one of them)^[5]. So how do we reconcile this with that? There is a difference between concern for the affair of the Muslims out of respect for their need, in which you may intervene at the proper time, and thrusting that into your life: has so-and-so's wife given birth or not yet? Did so-and-so sell his shop or not? And the money he had in such-and-such place, what happened to it? What concerns you in this? Why do you ask about the excess of people's circumstances?

Without doubt there is emptiness behind that, and the official manager of emptiness is Satan. If a gap occurs in the servant's life, Satan storms into this gap to manage it, so he urges you to open the reels, and reply to so-and-so, and to the empty and full comments, and to occupy the time with what does not benefit and rather harms.

And the Prophet ﷺ, as he related this ḥadīth, considered that you have a mind, and this mind distinguishes between what benefits and what harms, and between what I have a specialty in and what I have no specialty in.^[6]

The Spider and the Headache

And he gave an example: a man sitting at home, idle, with nothing to do, and his wife says to him: What is with you, resting your head on the pillow? He raises his eyes to the ceiling and finds a spider on it, and says: Since when has this spider been here? Why do you not clean the place? How long are we going to stay in this state? But if we imagine that this same man has a very severe headache, and he is lying on the same bed, looking at the same ceiling with the same spider on it, will he see it? No. Why? Because his mind is occupied with what is more important.

When the Qur'an Occupied a Man Away from His Anger

Then he said: If one of us were preoccupied with the Qur'an... and he gave another example. Then he mentioned a very well-known story of one of our brothers, may Allah protect him: whenever he wanted to go out somewhere and told his wife, she was late for him, so he would sit in his car waiting for her for an hour or two, and say to her: We have a quarter of an hour and we must reach the people, do me a favor and let us not be late. So they would quarrel every time, very greatly.

Then one time, from the intensity of his anger, he found in front of him a muṣḥaf he had not been paying attention to, so he took it and opened it and began to read in it a little, but Allah honored him and the reading took hold of him, so he read two pages and three and four and five. And our heroine was coming down, psychologically prepared for the fight, waiting for him to raise his voice first so she could answer him. She got into the car and shut the door, and was surprised to hear him say: In the name of Allah, we put our trust in Allah, and he set off. She was very astonished: How did he not get angry with me today? He looked at her and said: I did not notice; the Qur'an occupied me.

And the Shaykh said: This is not empty talk, this is a true incident. The Qur'an occupied him from everything, even from what used to anger him. Then when they set off and attended to their errand, our heroine was surprised that even at the traffic lights he was reciting some of what he had read, for he was occupied away from the whole affair. And when she went to where she wanted and came back, she found that a great portion of the muṣḥaf had been completed, and she said: We did not fight today! There is no god but Allah. And she returned home and found him in a corner of the house. It was as though Allah, blessed and exalted, had issued a command to open this heart to the Noble Qur'an at that moment, so the heart opened to the Book and did not close afterward, and the Qur'an became his chief preoccupation.

A Digression on Regard for Time

And he said: We have another error that is treated elsewhere, which is the lack of regard for time among many of our sisters. But what we do not understand is that this is part of personal makeup: Allah, blessed and exalted, constituted your mind to think about time more precisely than others, because time is part of obtaining your provisions, and obtaining your provisions is part of your essence in life, and your essence in life is that you are a man. So you make your calculation: I will meet so-and-so at such-and-such hour, so it is such-and-such hour. As for our sister, she does not think by this logic, but thinks by the higher goal, that she will meet so-and-so, and that this dress should be thus, and that the matter is thus. And he said: We are not alike, but this is the logic.

And the point of the talk: if we occupy ourselves with Allah, we are kept busy from people, and the one who is busy from people will be kept from them in their affairs, even in talk about him and his household, and so he turns away from people altogether.

A Personal Experience

Then he told of a personal experience in the recent period, and said: One of our brothers, may Allah honor him and be pleased with him, spoke to me about something called artificial intelligence, have you heard of it, you masters of speech? So I said: Let me try this thing. So I began to work on some of my own matters, and to complete some things that had been left behind for ten or fifteen years, scattered and strewn about. And at one moment I was surprised that time had gone away with me so that I answered a call for no reason.

And look at the kinds of calls that come to you every day: so-and-so wants a favor from you, and so-and-so asks about something, and so-and-so wants to borrow money, and so-and-so just wants to waste your time, and so-and-so talks to you about something trivial he will relate to you about such-and-such person. So you came to know people because you have empty time, or have time with you, so you talk to all of creation. When we are occupied with such an occupation, we are occupied away from every circumstance, so what of having as your preoccupation the Book of the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted be He? The Prophet ﷺ said: «مِنْ حُسْنِ إِسْلَامِ الْمَرْءِ تَرْكُهُ مَا لَا يَعْنِيهِ».

There Is No Ceiling to Talk About People

Then he said: Let us conclude with a word. Among the things that diminish the excellence of Islam^[7] is that you backbite people, that you speak about people's honor. For talk about people has no ceiling. And today I am speaking within what is permitted: our brother's shirt looks very beautiful, masha'Allah. If someone comes to me and says: This morning I saw our brother wearing a shirt that looked very beautiful, is this good or bad? Good, praise be to Allah, and I ask Allah to bless him and purify him, and this is a beautiful thing. But this may move on to another question: And do you know what he does for work? He says to me: He works in such-and-such. Then it is said: Is this talk lawful or unlawful? So we move from the stage of praise to the stage of "What is this? We are going to issue fatwas," and we begin to issue fatwas, and most of those who issue fatwas are not qualified to. And we begin to move from talk about merely so-and-so's garment, whether it looked good or ugly, to so-and-so's wife, his children, his honor, his family, and his house. Allahu akbar! What happened? That the ceiling of talk about people does not stop.

Withdrawal and Giving Without Volunteering

And therefore it is wise that if the talk is not about something beneficial, the default is to withdraw from it. And we have reached a stage where withdrawing from all people is the wisest wisdom in a time like this. Answer whoever asks you, and respond to whoever requests of you, and do not disappoint anyone's hope in you, and do not withhold your effort from anyone who asks you for something, but do not volunteer. Because your volunteering many services after these many tricks makes you a target of suspicion. Sometimes you take from your children's food to honor a guest who has come to you, and when he leaves your house he relates how much you have, as though you were seizing money from people by force. And sometimes you hear that someone is in a problem, so you volunteer to give before you are reassured and know the circumstances.^[8]

Conclusion

The summary of the matter, and I ask Allah, glorified be He, to forgive us all: part of the excellence of a person's Islam; if you are not concerned with yourself, then be concerned with your Islam. And if you are not keen on people, then be keen on your own self. And the Prophet ﷺ mentioned that the bankrupt one of his community is the one who comes on the Day of Resurrection having insulted this one, cursed this one, and slandered this one^[9], and this may be to people's faces, and it may be in their absence.

And I ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to give us and you insight into the guidance we have before us, and to grant us sincerity in word and deed, and to take us by our forelocks to what He loves, and to keep us firm; indeed He is the Guardian of that and Able to do it.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The verse was pronounced in the transcript as "wa lā taqfū," and the wording given is that of the muṣḥaf, ﴿وَلَا تَقْفُ﴾; it is limited to as much of the verse as the speaker cited. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The examples at this point (the pilgrimage and coffee, a sum of money, and an engagement) are garbled in the automatic transcript, and only the apparent meaning has been kept of them, while the details and the sum have been omitted. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir (may Allah be pleased with him), narrated by al-Tirmidhī, who said: ḥasan; the speaker cited it in abridged form. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Part of the long ḥadīth of Muʿādh (may Allah be pleased with him), narrated by al-Tirmidhī (who said: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ) and Ibn Mājah, with the wording: «وَهَلْ يَكُبُّ النَّاسَ فِي النَّارِ عَلَى وُجُوهِهِمْ — أَوْ قَالَ: عَلَى مَنَاخِرِهِمْ — إِلَّا حَصَائِدُ أَلْسِنَتِهِمْ» (And does anything throw people on their faces into the Fire — or he said: on their noses — except the harvests of their tongues?); the speaker limited himself to what is mentioned in the body text. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The speaker cited it by its meaning (and what is heard in the transcript is "fa-laysa minhu"); its chain contains weakness according to the ḥadīth scholars, so it is not to be used as evidence as though it were authentic, and it should be verified before publication. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: This was followed in the transcript by a jest about a man asking the members of his household about matters of cooking, garbled in wording, so it was omitted. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: It was pronounced in the transcript as "nawāqid," and what is probably meant is what diminishes the perfection and excellence of Islam (not "nawāqiḍ al-Islām," in the sense of what takes one out of it), which agrees with the context of the ḥadīth; and this is among what is heard from the clip. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: This was followed in the transcript by a jest about a "dollar tree," garbled in wording and containing numbers, so it was omitted. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by Muslim from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), with the wording: «إِنَّ الْمُفْلِسَ مِنْ أُمَّتِي مَنْ يَأْتِي يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ بِصَلَاةٍ وَصِيَامٍ وَزَكَاةٍ، وَيَأْتِي قَدْ شَتَمَ هَذَا، وَقَذَفَ هَذَا، وَأَكَلَ مَالَ هَذَا، وَسَفَكَ دَمَ هَذَا، وَضَرَبَ هَذَا…» (The bankrupt one of my community is he who comes on the Day of Resurrection with prayer, fasting and zakat, and comes having insulted this one, slandered this one, consumed the wealth of this one, shed the blood of this one, and struck this one…); it is given in the body text by meaning, according to what the speaker mentioned.