Friends.

السلام عليكم

I pray you're all well and in the best of imaan. I had a question recently about friendship, and the type we should keep, so i thought it would be a good idea to write about it, as it's something we all need to hear.

Friends. They constantly come and go. You have friends who genuinely want the best for you and you have those who 'appear' to want the best for you, but don't actually. You can often distinguish these kinds of friends from the first couple of interactions. Also, the topic of conversation helps to identify who are the best of people. Is the conversation about worldly love? Celebrities? Back biting? Islam? Music & movies? I say this because it's so important to watch your company from the very start. More often than not, we get too involved with the wrong kinds of people, just because of the material/ social status they have to offer, and then end up doing things which are wrong, be it islamically or even socially, and regret it. By that point, we're too involved and feel as though there's no way we can leave. It may not even be to such an extreme.

Put yourself in these shoes;

Let's say you were a really simple, respectful person. Once you got to know this person/these people, you slowly started to pick up on the way that they would behave, their dress, etc and your character and appearance started to change; you wanted to be like them because of the attention and love they would receive, because of the way they dressed and stuff they done. Your respect, manners, religion, character, appearance all started to decline, for the worse, but you seemed to like the change. Your family could tell you were changing as a person but you felt you were in a better place. Through all of this, what you were not aware of, is that Allah doesn't like the new you. Allah loved you before, and when He loves you, He tells the angels to love you, and tells everyone in the dunya to love you, but now that you're slowly changing and doing stuff against what He likes; humbleness, humility, simplicity, respect, modesty, you begin to get distant from Him. You may be THINKING that more people love you more than they did before, but believe me they don't. It's not the pure love that Allah has told people to love you for/by. It's a feeling and emotion shaytaan puts into your heart.

You may be thinking i'm wrong, and that friend's don't have SUCH an affect on you, or that you NEED friends, otherwise you'll look like a loner, but our OWN Prophet (saw) has said, to the nearest meaning;

الرَّجُلُ عَلَى دِينِ خَلِيلِهِ فَلْيَنْظُرْ أَحَدُكُمْ مَنْ يُخَالِلُ

'A person is considered to be on the deen of he whom he befriends, therefore you should see who you befriend'.

Muhammad (saw) told us this in HIS time, when companionship was no where near as corrupt as it is now. Putting it into perspective, just imagine how much more importance we should be giving to this Hadith now, more than ever. Your friends will either take you into Jannah or Jahanaam. Which one's worth it? Temporary enjoyment, fame, laughter, or eternal enjoyment, fame and laughter? The choice is yours, but any normal person would pick something ever lasting. Be wise, remember friends come and go! Don't ruin yourself. Don't worry about being a loner, or having no friends, i swear to you, my biggest promise, and i say this time and again, when you give up something wrong for Allah, he will love you and make everyone love you. Like i mentioned before, when Allah loves you, he orders the angels in the heaven to love you, and makes an announcement to those on earth to also love you. How pure. You'll begin to notice that people will love you, and those who you never had even thought would! That's pure love from Allah.

Let me tell you, and we hear this time and again, from elders and parents; watch you who you befriend! It's not said as a throw around statement. They've lived longer, they have experience. It's true and it's in our best interest. Your friends shape the person that you are. Through however many years of experience we all have, we can all say we've had good and bad friendships. It really is NOT about who we've known the longest. You know, one thing i've learnt and i'll say, is that the best people are those who will always give you the best advice to become a better Muslim, will always want the best for you, will be there in your difficult times, not just happy times, will speak good about you in your absence, and will tell you your (deeny) mistakes, out of love. (notice those who are constantly speaking ill about others to you, they'll surely do the same about you in your absence)

Honestly, the only kind of friends that we need in these testing times is those who will better our Imaan. It's literally my only piece of advice but i can't leave it at that because we're all on different journeys.

I now stick by this, and i tell everyone this; ONLY befriend those who will take you into Jannah. By 'only' i mean; CLOSE companionship. Only maintain close relations with those who you know will better you as a human, better you in your deen, and who will take you into paradise. Not to say you cant have contact with anyone else. You should, in fact you must keep good ties with everyone, but all in limits. You need to know your boundaries and where to draw the line. The more involved you get in the wrong company, the deeper you'll fall into sin. Think about it, what good are those friends who will take you further away from Allah, when our only job on earth is to get close to him? What good are those who will make you commit sin? Surely they're not your friends if they encourage you to do wrong. I'm not talking about MAJOR wrongs, i'm saying those sins, which we don't even count as sins anymore for some reason such as music, movies, intermingling, smoking, drinking etc. I put movies and music first because there's NO gathering or conversation now without such things being mentioned or even played. It's all wrong, and it's sad that we enjoy such company and don't see it as wrong. One sin ALWAYS leads to another, bare that in mind.

A really good Hadith that's been given to help illustrate companionship, and its that of the perfume seller and blacksmith.

مَثَلُ الْجَلِيسِ الصَّالِحِ وَالْجَلِيسِ السَّوْءِ كَمَثَلِ صَاحِبِ الْمِسْكِ، وَكِيرِ الْحَدَّادِ، لاَ يَعْدَمُكَ مِنْ صَاحِبِ الْمِسْكِ إِمَّا تَشْتَرِيهِ، أَوْ تَجِدُ رِيحَهُ، وَكِيرُ الْحَدَّادِ يُحْرِقُ بَدَنَكَ أَوْ ثَوْبَكَ أَوْ تَجِدُ مِنْهُ رِيحًا خَبِيثَةً ‏"‏‏.‏

Allah's Messenger (saw) said (to the nearest meaning): "The example of a good companion (friend) in comparison with a bad one is like that of the musk seller and the blacksmith's bellows (or furnace); from the first you would either buy musk or enjoy its good smell while the bellows would either burn your clothes or your house, or you get a bad nasty smell thereof."

From the latter, you get nothing good out of him, and in the same way, you get nothing good out of a bad friend, but from a perfume seller, even if you don't buy the perfume, you can still enjoy its smell. So similarly, you get goodness out of a righteous friend, even if you don't change straight away. If we don't have negative friends, then we need to have a look at our own life. Are we that person making someone do wrong? You know it's said, Allah will not change the condition of the people until they don't change the condition of themselves. The reason i fit this here, is because we need to always look at ourselves first, and see if we're that bad friend. Once we do that, and change, then only will we get righteous friends.

There's another example of friendship thats been given, and it's of a jewel in a sewer. If you have a jewel in a dirty smelly sewer, and go to put 5-10 jugs of water to clean it, while it remains inside, it's not going to get cleaned because it's still with all the dirt. However, the moment you remove that jewel from the sewers, even just half a glass of water will clean it. Why? Because it's been removed from the filth. That's exactly the same with us and our imaan. We will never change our behaviour, character and imaan until we don't remove ourselves from toxic environments. If we have people in our company that are detrimental to our imaan, and steering us away from Allah, then we must make every effort to reduce the contact. For none besides the sake of Allah and our hereafter. There is nothing that corrupts a person/rectifies him, more than his companions. You will be resurrected on the day of Judgement amongst those who you imitated, followed, and lived your life with. Believe me, on that day, it will be every man for himself. Your friend won't even care about you, we'll all be drowning in our own sweat, so don't make that day harder for yourself by being in their negative company now.

Think about it, why are we told to sit close to people (in the Masjid or Islamic gatherings), so much so, that our limbs are touching? It's so that maybe just maybe, the barakah and goodness from the person besides us, can enter into us also.

A companion asked the Holy Prophet (saw), "who can be the best companion for us". He answered (to the nearest meaning) "such a person that, (1) when you see him, you remember Allah (ie dress and manners), (2) when you listen to him, your knowledge of islam increases (not futile talk that we do), and (3) when you see his actions; you're reminded of the hereafter (Salaah, Quran)".

The perfect friend possesses one or all three of these qualities. If they don't, cut yourself back. Friends don't come with you in your grave/hereafter, its your deeds that do. But if you have good, Allah fearing friends, then both, them and your deeds will take you into Jannah, because through them, you'll be on your deen. Not just that, but we're told, when one passes away, they may be have been destined for Jahanaam, Allah save us.

When we are/ one of our companions are in Jannah, we'll be looking around, trying to find this person, so we'll ask Allah, to say, where so and so person is, i cant find them here. In the world they used to remind me of you. Then Allah will say, he's in the fire, but go and take him out, remove him. SubhanAllah this gives me shivers every time. Imagine the mercy of Allah, we may have transgressed him our whole life but through his Rahma, he's allowing us to leave the punishment. But more importantly, we see how important it is to have righteous friends. They quite literally will either take us to heaven or hell.

Allah even commanded Nabi (saw) to keep good companions. He said, "O Messenger. Keep the company of those who pray to Allah every morning and evening, and they desire only his pleasure; and do not turn your eyes from them to the attractions and adornments of the worldly life; and do not follow him whose heart we have turned away from our remembrance and who follows his desires and (therefore) he has broken the limits (of the religion)."

This is a very powerful Hadith because it's Allah telling the Prophet to watch who he befriends. The prophet! The one who would have only righteous companions. By Allah, how much more attention must we then give to our friendships. Notice how in the above Hadith, Allah is telling Muhammad (saw) to stay away from all those things & friendships that we all love today. May Allah honestly save us from such evils.

Some advice to make the best friend:

1. Be prepared to overlook the faults of your friends/ give them excuses for their incorrect behaviour- not to say to overlook sin but rather use it as a form to advise and guide.

2. Never embarrass one another with sin- hide each others faults, for Allah will hide your sins on the day of Judgement if you hide others faults.

3. Seek companions who are seeking paradise in the hereafter.

4. Don't chase after friends, they won't last forever. Worry about your own imaan over your social life.

5. If your friends are not reminding you of Allah, but rather, feeding you with dunya knowledge, cut the connection. It's not worth sacrificing your Akhirah for friends.

6. Don't start speaking ill about each other/ their actions when you're no longer friends. Address the issue nicely, say you want to depart the friendship for the sake of Allah, and end it there.

Something to understand and take from all of this, is that friendship + companionship is not a modern creation of society. It's something that pre existed before our time, and was around in the time of the Prophets. Hence Allah knows the effects of companionship on humans, and how important it is for one to have good friends. He has given us multiple Hadiths and stories, warning us on the sorts of friends we must keep. If it was something not relevant to us today, then Allah wouldn't have revealed such things. But Allah knew, there will come a time where relationships will be so corrupt. Therefore, we must understand what's trying to be told to us, and the emphasis put on the company we should keep.

It's better to have no friends than have friends who will take you into Jahanaam.

Remember, when you do something for the sake of Allah, you give up wrong for the sake of Allah, and when you love Him above everything, He loves you, He orders the angels, who are the most purest beings in the heavens to love you, and also He makes an announcement to those on earth to love you. Which one is better?

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I really hope this post was beneficial and that we all choose our friends wisely.

Give this post a like, comment, and share it with those who may also benefit, and don't forget, first look into your life. Are you that bad friend?

Lots of love xxx

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