Spiritual courtesy (adab) in the believers' relationship to the Prophet of God

By Michel Abdallah Grimbert · June 13, 2024 · 7 min read

Contents

The notion of adab concerns the whole of human behaviour, both in our relation to others (which is called, depending on circumstances, politeness, civility or citizenship) and in our relation to God and to His Prophet. This notion is described in the sunna and in the sacred Text. Thus, for the believer, the question arises of the meaning of the prophetic practice he benefits from, on the strength of its astonishing coherence, the practice called sunna, whose fulfilment has been happily prolonged down to the present day through the example of our precious spiritual masters. This wisdom, as can be seen, which is measure, equilibrium and harmony whatever the circumstances and conditions of existence, goes well beyond the mere undiscerning imitation (taqlid) of practices marked by the manners and customs of the time when Islam appeared. But more important still than these relations to the Prophet of God’s practice, which can at times seem anecdotal, is to describe the notion of adab (which concerns the whole of our behaviour) on the basis of the sacred Text’s very precise recommendations, of which the Prophet was the living model and which our heart always welcomes with the best attention and the most extreme discernment; for what we have here, in truth, is a profound and subtle education, whose savour and benefits keep growing for the one who puts it into practice, after the example of God’s ‘friends’ (awliya’). Let us take up, in this regard, a few prophetic sayings (hadith) reported by the great traditionists:

‘I was sent to perfect the excellence of conduct.’

‘There is in the body a piece of flesh which, if it is sound, makes the whole body sound; but if it is corrupted, the whole body becomes corrupted. Well then! It is the heart.’

‘Everything has its polishing, and the polishing of the heart is done through the invocation of Allah.’

‘Someone asked: O Prophet, who is the best person to sit beside? He said: he whose sight reminds you of God, whose words add to your knowledge and whose acts remind you of the hereafter’¹.

‘Forgive him who was unjust towards you, visit him who never visits you, and give to him who deprived you.’

All these sublime words find their setting in the Prophet of God and their source in the sacred Text, as we shall now discover and specify.

Courtesy between believers

Concerning first the believers themselves, it is said: ‘O you believers, let not some among you mock others; it may be that the latter are better than the former. Nor let women mock other women; it may be that the latter are better than they’ (XLIX, 11). Which the following verse very pragmatically completes: ‘O you who believe! When you are told: make room for others in the gatherings, do so; and God will make room for you. When you are told: rise! Then rise!’ (LVIII, 11).

The prophetic dimension

Next comes the necessity for the believers to consider the prophetic dimension: ‘Know that the Prophet of God is among you; and if in many matters he obeyed you, you would be in great difficulty’ (XLIX, 7); and to adapt our behaviour: ‘O you believers, do not raise your voices above the Prophet’s voice. Do not address him as you address one another, lest your works should be in vain without your being aware of it. As for those who lower their voices in the Prophet of God’s presence, those are the ones whose hearts God has probed in order to put in them His reverential fear (taqwa)’ (XLIX, 2-3). Likewise, at the moment of our direct contact with the Prophet of God, there is an imperative recommendation reiterated in the following form: ‘O you who believe, when you have a private interview with the Prophet, precede it with alms (sadaqa); that is better for you and purer. Do you shrink from preceding your interview with alms (sadaqat)? But when you cannot do so, God is merciful. If you do not do it, God accepts your repentance. Then perform the prayer (salat) and give the alms (zakat)’ (LVIII, 12-13). Here one understands very exactly the difference between the sadaqa, voluntary alms (mandub), and the zakat, the legal alms of reparation (fard).

The Prophet’s house

But also, in the order of adab, concerning more particularly the Prophet of God’s house, there are three very precise indications that follow one another thus.

Firstly: ‘The Prophet is closer to the believers than they are to one another; his wives are their mothers’ (XXXIII, 6), that is to say explicitly that they cannot contemplate marrying those whom God has established as their ‘mothers’.

Secondly: ‘O you wives of the Prophet! You are not comparable to any other woman. If you are pious, do not abase yourselves in your speech, lest he whose heart is diseased should covet you. Use a seemly manner of speaking. Remain in your houses, do not display yourselves in your finery as the women did in the time of the former ignorance (al-jahiliyya). Perform the prayer, give alms; obey God and the Prophet. O you people of the house! God wills only to remove defilement from you and to purify you utterly’ (XXXIII, 32-33).

And thirdly, crowning these recommendations, it is specified: ‘When you ask some object of the Prophet’s wives, do so from behind a veil (hijab); that will be purer for your hearts and for their hearts. You must not offend the Prophet of God, nor ever marry his former wives; that would be, on your part, an enormity before God’ (XXXIII, 53). It will be noted here, with discernment, that the term hijab concerns the specific protection which the Prophet of God’s wives must enjoy, for the purity of their hearts, notably as ‘mothers’ of the believers; and that only the men, on account of their undiscerning and sometimes unseemly behaviour, are at the origin of these divine recommendations.

Obedience and permission

Finally, for adab to be exercised in its fullness, the believers are obliged to take account of the divine prescriptions and of the Prophet of God’s recommendations and decisions. The sacred Text states it thus in the three verses we have chosen.

There is first the concern to obey: ‘When the believers are summoned before God and His Prophet, for the latter to judge their disputes, they pronounce but a single word: we hear and we obey (sami’na wa ata’na)! It is they who will prosper’ (XXIV, 51).

Next, the believer must be pervaded by the deep feeling that it is not for him to choose the moment when his interview with the Prophet of God should end. Thus: ‘… When they are with him on a matter that gathers them together, they do not withdraw before asking his permission (idhn). Those who ask thee this permission are those who believe in God and in His Prophet’ (XXIV, 62).

Finally, the decision once taken imposes itself in all its majestic rigour. For: ‘When God and His Prophet have taken a decision (qada Allah), it is fitting neither for a believing man nor a believing woman to maintain their choice (khiyara), that is, their capacity of free will (ikhtiyar), in that affair. He who disobeys God and His Prophet strays then totally and manifestly’ (XXXIII, 36). As we have already noted, the manifestation of human free will cannot be seemly in the face of the immutable divine decree.

Whereby one sees clearly that adab always resides in the effacement of the ego (nafs) and in servitude (’ubudiyya). In this regard, one of the people of God (ahl Allah), a practitioner of the Sufi way, said: ‘He who surpasses me in good conduct surpasses me in Sufism (tasawwuf)’. A saying which, for the sincere seeker, opens his heart to the necessity of a guidance and a spiritual companionship.

Michel Abdallah Grimbert