Positive Thinking in the Prophet's Life

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered after the Isha prayer and the night prayer (qiyām) on October 28, 2016 Source: 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 Messenger, our master Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and Companions. May Allah welcome you and bless your steps to this blessed place, and I ask Allah, the Most High, the Almighty, that just as He has gathered us in this world upon obedience to Him and upon what pleases Him, He gather us in Paradise.

I had prepared material for this gathering on positivity in Islam, or positivity in general. But after a last look at the material, before the prayer, I realized that we are heading in a somewhat different direction: positivity in thinking, or "positive thinking" if we like. And the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, willed that our reciter in the night prayer should recite to us the words of the Blessed and Exalted: ﴿قَدْ نَعْلَمُ إِنَّهُ لَيَحْزُنُكَ الَّذِي يَقُولُونَ فَإِنَّهُمْ لَا يُكَذِّبُونَكَ وَلَٰكِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ يَجْحَدُونَ﴾ (We know that what they say grieves you; it is not you they deny, but the wrongdoers reject the signs of Allah).^[1]

A Divine Direction in the Pattern of Thinking

In this noble text there is guidance from Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, to His Messenger ﷺ specifically on the matter of thinking. When the Prophet ﷺ heard from the polytheists what he heard, he heard it according to a pattern of thinking in which they were deliberately out to harm him. And let us consider: from the beginning of his call, peace and blessings upon him, did the polytheists do anything but try to harm him ﷺ? Yes, they did. So his thinking ﷺ in this particular matter rests on past experience and on what had been practiced against him before; he builds a set of conclusions on a set of premises.

But Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, wanted a higher level of thinking for His Prophet ﷺ. After saying: ﴿قَدْ نَعْلَمُ إِنَّهُ لَيَحْزُنُكَ الَّذِي يَقُولُونَ﴾ (We know that what they say grieves you), the Lord of the worlds directs his thinking ﷺ to the fact that ﴿وَلَقَدْ كُذِّبَتْ رُسُلٌ مِّن قَبْلِكَ﴾ (messengers before you were also denied), and that those messengers were patient. It is as though He wants to move him to another pattern of thinking, which is thinking about the matter of patience. Then He says, glory be to Him: ﴿فَإِنِ اسْتَطَعْتَ أَن تَبْتَغِيَ نَفَقًا فِي الْأَرْضِ أَوْ سُلَّمًا فِي السَّمَاءِ فَتَأْتِيَهُم بِآيَةٍ﴾ (so if you are able to seek a tunnel into the earth or a ladder into the sky and bring them a sign), that is: if you are content with this pattern of thinking that you want to stay in, then produce miracles on your own. And you will not be able to, because that is only by the command of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, exalted in His majesty.

"You Know Best the Affairs of Your Worldly Life"

From this very simple analogy we go on to what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did throughout his life, when he was thinking about a matter and wanted the Ummah to think by the same logic. We have a very famous story that people ask about, the story of the pollination of the date palms. You have heard that the Prophet ﷺ asked his Companions, when he saw them pollinating the palms: Why do you do that? They said: O Messenger of Allah, we are accustomed to it, and this is what we have learned. He said: Why do you not rely on Allah, the Blessed and Exalted? — this is if the report is sound in the wording I have mentioned — so they left it. When the following year came, they found no fruit in their hands. Then the Prophet ﷺ said his utterly famous sentence: «أنتم أعلم بشؤون دنياكم» (You know best the affairs of your worldly life).^[2]

What is to be learned from this sentence? With this single word, in the simplicity of its wording, the Prophet ﷺ threw open wide the door of thinking for his Companions, so that they might begin the stage of independent reasoning (ijtihād), the stage of reflection, a stage of creativity and of envisioning the future. It concerns a simple matter, but it sets an example and a measure for everything that would come about later in the affairs of nations.

And the Prophet ﷺ gives us these examples, and you can read his biography in this way: if you wanted to sort out papers on positive thinking in the life of the Prophet ﷺ through his fragrant biography, and then read the biography while trying to catch this particular point, by Allah you would come away with a very great treasure.

Joseph, Peace Be upon Him: We Plant a Seed in Hearts Whose Fruit We Will Harvest One Day

But let us move on to what we spoke about earlier from this blessed pulpit, which is the story of Joseph, upon our Prophet and upon him be peace and blessings. What pattern of thinking did our master Joseph, peace be upon him, practice when he helped everyone he met in his life and spared no effort in serving society? His positive thinking was directed toward the idea that we plant in the hearts of the people around us a crop, or a seed, whose fruit we will harvest someday. When? Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, knows best. But no sooner had Joseph, peace be upon him, set foot in the house of the ʿAzīz of Egypt than he began to do what he could do, and he served people with all he was able. Indeed, some reports say that the ʿAzīz admired him and entrusted him with managing the palace — if what was reported about that is sound — so through his positive thinking he came to be at the top of the pyramid, even if it was a small pyramid in his own eyes and in the eyes of the people.

Then the crisis comes upon him, and the story of the ʿAzīz's wife comes, and Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, decrees that he be in prison. So how is the thinking then? A man wronged, persecuted, slandered, ordered into prison, not knowing for how long. But his thinking in this direction is confined to a greater matter, which is pleasing Allah by bringing happiness to His servants: ﴿لَا يَأْتِيكُمَا طَعَامٌ تُرْزَقَانِهِ إِلَّا نَبَّأْتُكُمَا بِتَأْوِيلِهِ قَبْلَ أَن يَأْتِيَكُمَا﴾ (No food will come to you that you are provided with except that I will inform you of its interpretation before it comes to you), then he adds: ﴿ذَٰلِكُمَا مِمَّا عَلَّمَنِي رَبِّي﴾ (That is from what my Lord has taught me);^[3] to draw the attention of those sitting and present — as it appears from the transcript — to the fact that this is from your Lord, who teaches you the unseen. So he begins to explain the creed with the utmost simplicity and ease of understanding for the people. And that is a matter called the question of religious discourse: where are its dimensions, its axes and its tasks, and does it need development in itself or not? That is another matter we leave to one side, as we do not want it to cut across our words on this pattern of thinking. What matters is that Joseph, peace be upon him, cast into the souls of those around him the seed of faith, or at the least the matter of reasonableness in their thinking about their affairs as they go about them.

Then the days pass and there comes to him the one who says: ﴿يُوسُفُ أَيُّهَا الصِّدِّيقُ أَفْتِنَا فِي سَبْعِ بَقَرَاتٍ سِمَانٍ﴾ (Joseph, O truthful one, give us your ruling about seven fat cows). And let us reflect here. The Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, did not mention that Joseph, peace be upon him, thought: What can I collect from these people? What can we negotiate over? How will the results be for me? What is my interest in this matter? And the opportunity, had he wished, was an enormous gain. First condition: that I come out of prison. Second condition: that Islam be recognized as the religion of this state. Third condition: that the ruler of the land receive me. Fourth condition: that the wife of the ʿAzīz come to my feet weeping tears of blood over the wrong and aggression she committed, and so on. All of these conditions were possible and could have been met by them, because they were facing a catastrophe, and everyone wanted to please that king who had seen this vision.

But Joseph, peace be upon him, did not set a single condition. His words were utterly simple and clear, and utterly in service of this society in which he lived, while he was a wronged man thrown into prison, persecuted in this country on a charge related to his religion, or his basic charge, which was his chastity, his purity, his concern for honor and for honoring the one who had honored his stay. Joseph was a model of simplicity in the positive thinking by which he served society, and served his primary cause, which is the religion of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Exalted: ﴿قَالَ تَزْرَعُونَ سَبْعَ سِنِينَ دَأَبًا فَمَا حَصَدتُّمْ فَذَرُوهُ فِي سُنبُلِهِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّمَّا…﴾ (He said, "You will plant for seven years consecutively, and what you harvest leave in its ear, except a little of what…"). This is how the verses express to us what we should do: the Muslim is positive in his thinking toward the future.

And this is a matter that needs no explanation when you read the story of the believer of Āl Yāsīn, or the believer of the House of Pharaoh — call him what you like — but you are reading the story of a man who read the future: ﴿وَجَاءَ رَجُلٌ مِّنْ أَقْصَى الْمَدِينَةِ يَسْعَىٰ قَالَ يَا مُوسَىٰ إِنَّ الْمَلَأَ يَأْتَمِرُونَ بِكَ لِيَقْتُلُوكَ فَاخْرُجْ﴾ (And a man came running from the farthest part of the city; he said, "O Moses, the chiefs are conspiring about you to kill you, so leave").^[4] He thought in a positive way toward the available solutions: either sitting at the table of dialogue and negotiation, or leaving this place immediately, so that we find a fruit in our hands.

At Home: Two Readings of One Situation

Let us bring the matter of thinking back to the homes we live in, to see what negative thinking looks like when a man enters the door of his house at the end of his day after work and finds no food. Negative thinking dictates to him at once that this woman does not respect his presence, that she does not care about him when he comes home, that she is lazy today, and that she and she... And the devil begins filling this head with what produces, a few moments later, harsh words on the tongue. Positive thinking, in the other direction, says: I wonder what delayed my wife from what she is accustomed to do for me? I have known her to be generous, sincere and devoted, I have known her humility, and I have known that she does not fall short in such and such. I wonder what has happened? So the question is about how she is, about her well-being and her affairs: How are you? Are you well? And so matters appear in a set of features of the utmost simplicity.

A funny joke comes to mind in this context, and it has no narration and no chain of transmission, and the responsibility for it does not rest on the narrator. It is told that three women, one married to an American, the second to a Frenchman, and the third to an Egyptian,^[5] agreed among themselves not to make food for two or three days. When they met afterward, the Frenchman's wife said: The first day he said nothing, the second day he said nothing, and on the third day I found him coming straight to me and saying: Darling, shall we go out and have lunch together today? I feel you are upset. And he became tender with me after a few days, and things became romantic, and I lived the loveliest week of my life. The other said: The first day he said nothing, and the second day likewise, and on the third day he went straight to the kitchen and worked on his own, and although he looked upset, I left him upset to see how it would end with him. As for the Egyptian woman — may Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, honor her — she said to them: By Allah, the first day I saw nothing, and the second day I saw nothing, and on the third day I began to see with my left eye! So thinking among us, of course, has a swift effect. And I say this jokingly, and I take liberties with our Egyptian brothers here, so let no one understand me wrongly or rightly.

So positive thinking may take you in a direction in which you assume the best that can be assumed, and negative thinking takes you in a direction in which you assume the worst that can be assumed.

We watched a very short and very simple video of a child playing at a wall and writing on it, and the father came in and hit him because he was dirtying the wall; he thought in that direction. In a second scene, the father comes and pats the boy and says to him: What are you writing? He says: Today is your birthday, and I used to write to you every year when you were well. So what do you think? It is the same child writing the same sentence with the same feelings inside him, but negative thinking took us in one direction, and positive thinking took us in another.

And if we try to give examples: one of the employees at your work is absent, and negative thinking tells you: This man does not deserve it, we showed him kindness and gave him shelter, and here he does not return the favor, and this person must be dismissed. And another kind of positive thinking, in which you ask about his health, his well-being and his circumstances, and it turns out that a calamity has befallen him, or an excuse has come upon him, or hardship has pressed upon him, and so on, whatever it may be.

In Society: Participation and Reputation

Positive thinking also turns toward this country in which we live now, as we stand at the door of these elections — and I learned that you have a lecture on this subject. What can matters come to with negative thinking? He says: We have nothing to do with this, what will happen will happen, we rely on Allah and we are living and that's it, and may our Lord shield us and our children, and what are we to do, I mean? Should we meddle in the affairs of the world and of religion? And so on. This is negative thinking.

As for positive thinking, consider the Prophet ﷺ when he was chosen to judge between them in the matter of placing the Black Stone. Do you know what the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, did? No, the question is: what did he say? He could ﷺ have said some words to them and gone on his way: These are disbelieving people who do not deserve it, polytheists who worship idols, and they are not at our level. But the Prophet ﷺ did not think in this way; rather he thought in another way: to extend his hand in what is called social participation, which resulted from positive thinking that bears fruit for this society in which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ lived. And on that basis this was in the record of his deeds ﷺ for which he was attested among these people. So when he climbed the mountain one day and said: «If I told you that cavalry behind this valley wanted to raid you, would you believe me?» how was their answer? They said: We have never tried you in a lie.^[6] The deeds bore fruit as thought among these people, and became a common ground on which we then build the close relationship between us and the people living around us.

And the question remains, starting from positive thinking: what reputation do we leave among those who work with us or with whom we work in our different places? If you work in a school as a teacher, or as a doctor in a hospital, or a professor in such and such, or an engineer in such and such, whatever your work, among workers or professors or engineers: what do they say about you when you turn your back and leave? Do they say: A hidden terrorist, leave him asleep? This man is lying low until a disaster happens and then we find he is the one who made it? Or do they say about you: A sincere man, meticulous in his work, keeping to his time, respecting those around him, behaving courteously with people as much as he can? What are the people around you saying about you? And if you have neighbors, how is your conduct and reputation among them? Is it not part of positive thinking that we leave a good imprint with these people, so that if Allah decrees and we are tried together with them by what the world is being tried with now, an event or a calamity or a catastrophe or otherwise, will they not be, by Allah's leave, the first pillar among human beings for us, those who protect us, the first of the people around us to protect us? And perhaps they would be closer to you, and bolder in facing society and the people, than many of the Muslims who will bury their heads in the sand then, so that neither tongues nor feet nor hands will move for them, and they will do nothing to support you if you are accused of something falsely or slanderously or mistakenly or otherwise.

In Upbringing: Learn from the Prophet's ﷺ Conduct

We want to learn from those around us what that positive thinking looks like as they deal with very simple situations. We never saw the Prophet ﷺ reprimand a boy being raised in his hands. And the report of Anas (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) is extremely well known: I lived with the Prophet ﷺ for years, and he never said to me about anything I did: Why did you do it? nor about anything I did not do: Why did you not do it?^[7] Do you think the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, left the matter unchecked, with the boy doing as he pleased and life open for him? Or was he raising him? If this was not his means of upbringing, then without doubt the Prophet ﷺ had his other means of upbringing, and he wanted to mature a way of thinking.

And today in the Friday sermon a report came to us saying that Lady ʿĀʾishah (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with her), the day the Jew passed by the Prophet ﷺ and said: "al-sāmu ʿalaykum," ʿĀʾishah said — if the report is sound, for this is how I heard it —: "And upon you be al-sām, and upon you be the curse." The Prophet ﷺ said to her: O ʿĀʾishah, why this? She said: Did you not hear, O Messenger of Allah, that he invoked death upon you? He said: «سمعتُ، ولكنني قلتُ له: وعليكم» (I heard, but I said to him: "And upon you").^[8]

What is to be learned from that? Negative thinking thinks ill of her and imagines that she did not respect the Prophet's ﷺ presence, but rather was being bold in front of him, and that she and she and she. And positive thinking says: Her protective jealousy for the Prophet ﷺ, the beloved of her heart before he was the Messenger of Allah, and the Messenger of Allah before he was her husband, that person she is protectively jealous over; she acted out of her jealousy and could not bear it as a human being, and this is a possible matter that occurs with all people. So the position is to be praised for her before it is held against her. Then comes the other matter: that the Prophet ﷺ changes the pattern of thinking, and teaches her what the answer should be. Look at the matter with a kind of positivity.

We stand on the pulpits and invoke against people: May Allah fight them, and may Allah destroy, and may Allah remove, and may our Lord show us a black day, and so on. So what is the result? You will not find anyone believing with you after today if Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, destroys humankind. And we want to reach Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, with a great harvest of people in our scales, just as Abū Bakr (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) will find in the scales of his good deeds so-and-so and so-and-so, and Bilāl is enough for him, and just as ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān stands with all these people around him whom he helped for the sake of Allah, the Blessed and Exalted.

Positive thinking says that the Prophet ﷺ taught her how the answer should be: brief, clear, frank, giving the matter its like without any kind of concession, but at the same time without any kind of aggression. And consider our homes: the sister says to her husband: Peace be upon you, and he says to her: What is wrong with you today? She says: I am fed up, sir! I say to you peace be upon you, reply to me: And upon you be peace! And likewise he comes in and says a word, and she answers him with a bad word, or at least a harsh one.

Homes, Children and the Future

And the children in our homes do not find enough ease to confide their secrets and words to a father and a mother who are always in agreement, who feel a kind of twinship between them. We, the children and the wives are in a world going in different directions: we are walking this way, the mothers are walking that way, and the kids are walking another way. Then after a little while we weep over the ruins: that our children have left the homes and mixed with outsiders, and are now going in a different direction in faith, and that this one went with that one, and that one set off with these people to drink an intoxicant or do such and such.

Positive thinking moves us to gather up the scattered affairs of our homes, to preserve the security of these homes, and to establish in them families shaded by faith. And I am not saying romantic words; rather it is the height of romance when we say: shaded by faith. And we do not want to be, in our work, in a kind of conflict that makes people carry something in their hearts against us. And we do not want to be, in our future, heedless, closing our eyes to what may happen and to what Allah's servants may foresee.

"Iqraʾ": The First Word Revealed

And do not forget that the first word revealed in the Qur'an carries within it all patterns of positive thinking, when Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, said to His Messenger ﷺ: ﴿اقْرَأْ﴾ (Read).^[9] And reading, as you know, is not merely coming upon letters to know these words, but rather reading in the sense of getting to know things, people, the future and reality, and benefiting from the experiences of the past, and so on.

I do not want to prolong this for you, though I have prolonged it — so forgive me, and may Allah bless you. I ask Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, to make this gathering of ours a gathering that is blessed with mercy, accepted, and forgiven for all its sin, early and late, and to make this meeting of ours part of the scales of our good deeds, and to gather us in Paradise so that we remember this sitting, and so-and-so says: He prolonged it for us that night, and another says: No, the voice of the Sheikh the reciter was excellent and wonderful, and a third says such and such. I ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, to gather us in Paradise, and that we recall these good sittings, and that He carry us toward what pleases Him, the Mighty and Majestic, and make us and you among the foremost to His pleasure, glory be to Him, and forgive us what we have sent ahead of our deeds, and the errors of our thinking, and the sins we have committed in our lives, and keep us safe from every evil, sin and disobedience, O Lord of the worlds, and keep the devil far from us, and keep us firm upon what pleases Him; He is the Guardian of that and the One able to do it. May Allah grant you a peaceful night, and bless you, and reward you with good, and peace be upon you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The transcript is disordered at the start of the recitation (it has "and indeed We know that your chest is constricted," then "We know that what they say grieves you…"); what is established is what was recorded, and it is from Sūrat al-Anʿām: 33. What the speaker mentioned after it is from al-Anʿām: 34 (﴿وَلَقَدْ كُذِّبَتْ رُسُلٌ مِّن قَبْلِكَ﴾) and al-Anʿām: 35 (﴿فَإِنِ اسْتَطَعْتَ أَن تَبْتَغِيَ نَفَقًا فِي الْأَرْضِ أَوْ سُلَّمًا فِي السَّمَاءِ فَتَأْتِيَهُم بِآيَةٍ﴾); the sūrah and verse numbers in this note are the editor's, and the speaker did not mention them. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: "You know best the affair of your worldly life" is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim in the story of the pollination of the palms, in which: "If you had not done it, it would have been fine," then it came out poor (shīṣ), then he said what he said. The words "Why do you not rely on Allah" do not occur in it, and the speaker qualified that by saying "if the report is sound in my wording." ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The locations of the verses of Joseph that the speaker cited, with their numbers supplied by the editor: ﴿لَا يَأْتِيكُمَا طَعَامٌ…﴾ and ﴿ذَٰلِكُمَا مِمَّا عَلَّمَنِي رَبِّي﴾ in Yūsuf: 37; ﴿يُوسُفُ أَيُّهَا الصِّدِّيقُ أَفْتِنَا فِي سَبْعِ بَقَرَاتٍ سِمَانٍ…﴾ in Yūsuf: 46; and ﴿قَالَ تَزْرَعُونَ سَبْعَ سِنِينَ دَأَبًا…﴾ in Yūsuf: 47, whose completion is: ﴿فَمَا حَصَدتُّمْ فَذَرُوهُ فِي سُنبُلِهِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّمَّا تَأْكُلُونَ﴾ (what you harvest leave in its ear, except a little of what you eat). The speaker mentioned "Sūrat Yūsuf" at the last verse. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The verse is from Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ: 20. As for the believer of the House of Pharaoh, he is in Sūrat Ghāfir (verse 28), and the man of "Yā Sīn" is in Sūrat Yā Sīn (verse 20); the speaker combined the names by saying "call him what you like," and the attribution to al-Qaṣaṣ is the editor's. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The transcript is disordered regarding the husbands' nationalities ("sameen French," then the speaker's question "Chinese or what?"), so "French" was recorded, and according to the transcript the Frenchman's wife began the tale, while the American is by inference from the context of the tale. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: Agreed upon, from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) (al-Bukhārī and Muslim). The speaker narrates it by meaning, and in the transcript it has "khayran" (good), while the correct wording in the known version is "khaylan" (cavalry), and it has "أكنتم مصدّقيّ" (would you believe me) in the known version, while the text records the speaker's wording "مصدّقين" (would you believe). ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of Anas (may Allah be pleased with him); the well-known length of his service is ten years, and it was not clear in the transcript so it was not recorded in the text. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: The story is in al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her), in which the Prophet ﷺ said to her: "Allah is gentle and loves gentleness in all matters," then his saying: "I have said: and upon you." The sequence of wording here is as the speaker related it, and he qualified it by saying "if the report is sound." ^[9]: Editor's documentation: al-ʿAlaq: 1, and the attribution is the editor's.