Muhammad and Modesty before God
The Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon
him, said:
“Every religion has its characteristic, and the
characteristic of Islam is modesty.” (al-Muwatta)
Modesty, in the sense of shyly protecting oneself with
propriety from the lustful or envious gaze, means one takes care about how to
express oneself in word and deed. One does not want others to look at one
strangely or as if one is blameworthy. It encourages one to be proper in
behavior and thought with other people, and with one’s relationship with God.
The Prophet once said to his companions:
“Be bashful before God according to His right to modesty
before Him”.
They said: “O Messenger of God, verily we are shy, praise
be to God.”
He said: “That is not it. Modesty before God
according to His right to modesty is that you protect your mind in what it learns;
your stomach in what it ingests. And remember death and the tribulations
attached to it; and whoever wishes for the Hereafter, leaves the adornments of
this life.
So whoever does all that is truly bashful before
God according to His Right to modesty”.
Modesty and shame apply to every aspect of one’s life,
and awareness of God’s presence helps one to be bashful and seemly in the way
we comport ourselves in every activity we are engaged in. It crowns the moral
ethics of behavior and practice, for it inspires him to do all that is
beautiful and prevents him from doing all that is wicked. It is a shield of chastity
for the body and of purity for the soul, as private shame concerning one’s
wickedness stems from being aware that God is watching. The Prophet said:
“Modesty is from the faith, and the faith is in Paradise.” (Ahmed)
Muhammad and the Wedding Feast
On the occasion of his marriage in Medina with Zaynab,
the daughter of Jahsh, the Prophet invited the people to his wedding feast.
This was a late morning invitation, and most people simply rose and left after
eating, as was the custom. The bridegroom, however, remained sitting and some
people, perhaps thinking that this was a signal that they, too, should remain
with him, stayed behind after the other guests had left. Out of propriety, the
Messenger of God did not like to tell the people to go away, so he got up and
left the room with his ward, ibn Abbas.
He went as far as the room of Aisha, another of his
wives, before returning back to Zaynab’s room, expecting the guests to have
taken the hint. However, they were still there, sitting in their places, so he
turned away once again and went back to Aisha’s room, still accompanied by his
ward.
The second time they returned the people had left, so the
Messenger of God went in. Ibn Abbas was going to follow him, but Muhammad took
the dividing curtain and drew it across the doorway, blocking the egress
One of the story’s lessons is that a person’s home is
private and one should be shy of abusing an invitation to it. Moreover,
because Muhammad was too nice to ask people to leave, his actions provide an
example of how to teach a lesson without being offensive. He used a non-verbal
means to show the people they should leave and, once his private space was
vacated, he used another non-verbal gesture to drive home the fact that the
invitation was over.
Moses and Zaphorah
After waiting for a long time in the queue, being only
two females among all the males, someone finally helped them, and they were
able to take their flock of sheep and goats home. Their father was old, and
they had no brother to do their outside chores. Being one of the most onerous
of tasks, drawing water from the well in order to water one’s livestock was one
performed by men; a lucky day for them to come home early with the drove freshly
watered. The father was surprised about their early return, and when he inquired
into the occurrence, his daughters told him that a man who seemed a traveler had
helped them. The father asked one of them to seek the man out and invite him home.
Upon returning to the well, the lady approached him shyly. When she was in
earshot, she gave him her father’s invitation so that he might recompense him
for his help. He kept his gaze low to the ground as he replied to her, saying
that he had done it for the sake of God alone, and required no compensation. However,
realizing that this was God sent help, he accepted the invitation. As she was
walking ahead of him, the wind blew her dress, which revealed part of her lower
legs, so he asked her to walk behind him and point out the way he should follow
when he reached a fork in the foot path.
Once they arrived at the house, the father presented him
with a meal and asked where he was from. The man told him that he was a
fugitive from Egypt. The daughter who had brought him home whispered to her
father: “O Father, hire him, because the best of the workers is one who is
strong and trustworthy.”
He asked her: “How do you know he is strong?”
She said: “He lifted the stone lid of the well that
cannot be removed except by many together.”
He asked her: “How do you know that he is trustworthy?”
She said: “He asked me to walk behind him so that he couldn’t
see me as I walked, and when I conversed with him, he kept his gaze low with shyness
and respect.”
This was Prophet Moses, may the mercy and blessings of
God be upon him, who had run away from Egypt after killing someone by mistake,
and the father of the girls was a God fearing man from the tribes of Midian; a
man who was sonless, but had had these two daughters.
The verse in the Quran that tells us this story stresses
upon the manner of her approaching Moses:
“So one of the two (daughters) came to him walking modestly...”
(Quran 28:25)
Both the way Zaphorah approached Moses and his care
about not seeing more of her than was needful at the time describe acute senses
of propriety. Neither had a chaperone, nor could people see what they did, yet
both conducted themselves with the utmost decorum. This was done out of fear
of the One who sees everything. The outcome was that when her father proposed
to Moses that he marry one of his daughters, Moses considered them a suitable
marriage prospect. He and his daughters also saw in him all the virtues a man
needs as a mate for a woman to consent to his guidance and nurture through life.
Moses accepted, and also ten years hire as a shepherd.
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