Hadith 20 of Nawawi : « Among what the people retained from the words of the first… »

Upon the fact that the prior prophethoods came with this speech, and that it spread among the people until it reached the first of this community. In some versions he said: "the people retained from the words of the first prophethood only this." Reported by Obayd ibn Zanjawayh and others.

The meaning of "when you have no shame, do as you wish"

His saying "when you have no shame, do as you wish" has two possible meanings. The first: it is not an order to do as one pleases, but it carries the sense of blame and prohibition. The holders of this view have two paths. The first: it is a command in the sense of threat and warning. The meaning: if you have no shame, do as you wish, Allah will repay you, like the word of the Most High: "Do as you will: He sees perfectly what you do"; and His word: "So worship, apart from Him, whatever you will"; and the Prophet's word (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Whoever sells khamr, let him carve it into pieces for the pigs", meaning he cuts it whether selling it or eating it, and the examples of this kind are many. This is the choice of a group, among them Abu al-Abbas Tha'laba.

The second path: it is a command whose meaning is informative. The meaning: whoever has no shame does as he pleases, for what prevents committing vilenesses is shame; whoever has no shame abandons himself to every turpitude and blameworthy thing, where the one with shame refrains from the like of it, according to the word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Whoever lies about me deliberately, let him take his seat in the Fire." The wording is that of a command, and its meaning is informative: whoever lies about him will take his seat in the Fire. This is the choice of Abu Obayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam (may Allah have mercy on him), Ibn Qutayba, Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi and others. Abu Dawud reports from Imam Ahmad what indicates a saying like this.

To whom shame is removed, he is a wayward devil

Ibn Lahi'a reports, from Abu Qabil, from Abdallah ibn Amr, from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "When Allah detests a servant, He removes shame from him; when He removes shame from him, you meet him only with loathing, despised; and He removes sincerity (amana) from him; when He removes sincerity, He removes mercy from him; when He removes mercy, He removes the bond of Islam from him; and when He removes the bond of Islam, you meet him only as a wayward devil."

Reported by Houmayd ibn Zanjawayh; and Ibn Majah reported its like with a weak chain, from Ibn Umar, also in raised form. From Salman al-Farisi: "When Allah wills the loss of a servant, He removes shame from him; when shame is removed, you meet him only as an abominable, despised one; when he is abominable, He removes sincerity, and you meet him only as a treacherous deceiver; when he is a treacherous deceiver, He removes mercy, and you meet him only as a harsh and coarse one; when he is harsh and coarse, He removes the bond of faith from his neck; and when the bond of faith is removed from his neck, you meet him only as a banned, stoned devil." From Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both): "Shame and faith are in one tie: when shame is removed, the other follows it." All of it reported by Houmayd ibn Zanjawayh in his Book of Adab.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) made shame a part of faith, as in the two Sahihs, from Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both): "The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) passed by a man who was blaming his brother for his shame, saying: How shameless you are!, as if he were saying: it has harmed you. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: Leave him, for shame is part of faith." In the two Sahihs, from Abu Hourayra: "Shame is a branch of faith." In the two Sahihs, from Imran ibn Houssayn, from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Shame brings nothing but good." In a version of Muslim: "Shame is all good," or he said: "Shame, all of it, is good." Imam Ahmad and an-Nasai report the hadith of al-Ashja' al-Asari: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to me: "You have in you two qualities Allah loves." I said: which are they? He said: "Gentleness (hilm) and shame." I said: long acquired or recent? He said: "Rather long acquired." I said: Praise be to Allah who placed me upon two characters Allah loves. Isma'il ibn Abi Khalid said: Ouayna ibn Houssayn entered upon the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and with him was a man who asked for water; water was brought and he drank; the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) veiled him in modesty, and he said: What is this? He said: "Shame, and faith: you have been commanded both, and prohibited both."

Shame is of two kinds

Know that shame is of two kinds. The first: what is innate character, not acquired; it is among the noblest characters Allah grants His servant and forges upon him. That is why the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Shame brings nothing but good": he thereby refrains from committing vilenesses and base characters, and is urged to practice the noble characters and their heights; it is thus, in this respect, one of the traits of faith. It is reported from Umar (may Allah be pleased with him): "Whoever has shame hides himself; whoever hides himself fears; whoever fears is protected." And al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami, who was the knight of the people of Syria, said: "I left sins out of shame for forty years, then piety (wara') overtook me." And one of them said: "I saw disobediences as lowly, so I left them for nobility; they became piety."

The second: what is acquired, from knowing Allah, knowing His greatness, His nearness to His servants, His knowledge of them, His knowledge of the eyes' treachery and what breasts conceal. This is among the highest traits of faith, indeed among the highest degrees of excellence (ihsan), it was mentioned earlier that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to a man: "Have shame before Allah as you have shame before a righteous man of your family." And in the hadith of Ibn Mas'oud: "Shame before Allah is to guard the head and what it contains, the belly and what it holds, and to remember death and decay; and whoever desires the Hereafter leaves the world's adornment. Whoever does that has had true shame before Allah." Reported by Imam Ahmad and at-Tirmidhi in raised form. Shame before Allah may also be born from contemplating His blessings (Exalted is He) and seeing the shortcoming in thanking them. When acquired and innate shame are stripped from the servant, nothing remains preventing him from committing the ugly and base characters: he becomes as one having no faith.

It is reported from the mursal reports of al-Hasan, from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Shame is twofold: one part of faith, the other is weakness." It may be a word of al-Hasan. Likewise Bachir ibn Ka'b al-Adawi said to Imran ibn Houssayn: we find in some books that among shame is serenity and gravity for Allah, and among it is weakness. Imran became angry and said: I relate to you from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and you find contradiction in it?! The matter is as Imran said (may Allah be pleased with him): the praised shame in the Prophet's speech (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is the character urging beautiful action and abandoning the ugly. As for weakness and impotence entailing shortcoming in some right of Allah or of the servants, it is not shame: it is weakness and lowliness, impotence and vileness. And Allah knows best.

The second saying on the meaning of "do as you wish"

The second saying on the meaning of his word "when you have no shame, do as you wish": it is a command to do as one wills upon the apparent wording. The meaning: if what you intend to do is among what is not shameful to do, neither before Allah nor before people, being of the acts of obedience, or of the beautiful characters and praiseworthy manners, then do of it as you wish.

This is the word of a group of imams, among them Abu Ishaq al-Marwazi the Shafi'i. The like is reported of Imam Ahmad; it also occurs in some versions of the abridged questions of Abu Dawud from him, and what is in the complete relied-upon versions, as we cited before, and al-Khallal reported it from him in the Book of Adab.

From this too is the word of some of the Ancients, asked about nobility (mourou'a): it is to do nothing in secret that one would be ashamed of in public. And there will come the word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Sin is what wavers in your breast and you hate that people discover", at its place in this book, Allah the Most High willing. Abd ar-Razzaq reports in his book, from Ma'mar, from Abu Ishaq, from a man of Mouzayna: it was said: "O Messenger of Allah, what is the best given to the Muslim man?" He said: "Beautiful character." It was said: "And what is the worst given to the Muslim man?" He said: "When you hate that something of yours be seen in the people's assembly, do not do it in solitude." And in the Sahih of Ibn Hibban, from Usama ibn Charik: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "What Allah detests of you, do not do it in solitude." At-Tabarani reports from the hadith of Abu Malik al-Ash'ari: I said: "O Messenger of Allah, what completes righteousness (birr)?" He said: "To act in secret as in public." And he also reports from the hadith of Abu Amir as-Sakouni: I said: "O Messenger of Allah..." and he mentions it. Abd al-Ghani ibn Sa'id the hafiz reports in his Book of the Narrators' Manners, from his chain, from Harmala ibn Abdallah: I came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) to increase in knowledge, and I stood before him and said: "O Messenger of Allah, what do you command me to practice?" He said: "Do the good, avoid the blameworthy, and look at what your ear heard of good that the people say to you when you rise from them: go to it; and look at what you hate the people say to you when you rise from them: avoid it." He said: "I looked, and behold they are two affairs leaving nothing: doing the good and avoiding the blameworthy." Ibn Sa'd reports it in his Tabaqat in the same sense. And Abu Obayd relates, in the sense of the hadith, another saying he cites from Jarir: its meaning is that a man intends to do good, and shame before people leaves him, as if fearing ostentation. He says: let shame not prevent you from going to what you intend, as comes in the hadith: when the devil comes to you while you pray and says: you are showing off, then lengthen it. Then Abu Obayd said: this hadith does not lend itself, neither by its wording nor its expression, to this interpretation, nor do people carry it upon it. I say: were it as Jarir said, the hadith's wording would be: when you feel shame from what is not shameful, then do as you wish. And the distance of this from the hadith's text and meaning is evident. And Allah knows best.