Inward and Outward Manners
One’s etiquette in social situations is the key foundation to having strong relationships with others. This article is the thirty-second in a series taken from the On Demand Course: Discussion on Sulami’s Adab of Keeping Company.
Inward manners are manners with Allah. You have one governing concern: What will be pleasing to Allah?
The outward proper manners are how you are with creation and how you conduct yourself in life. Proper manners are an attitude. Adab is an inward attitude and concern that results in the right actions and responses in word and deed. Do things in the right way, but also respond in the right way.
Adab with Allah and Creation
Sayyid Naqeeb al-Attas highlighted how religion is adab (proper manners): it is adab with Allah and adab with creation. How to be sound with God and how to be right with God. How to be sound with creation and how to be right with creation. That is adab.
The test of having proper manners is how you conduct yourself and how you cultivate inward manners. Actively strive to uphold outward manners. We are created to struggle. If we did not err, we would become proud, conceited, and arrogant. People with such characteristics would eventually feel no need for God. Our struggles, failings, and shortcomings, are central to our being servants of God and being humble.
Always be sincere for Allah. True manners in any situation are going about what one is doing in a manner pleasing to Allah.
Trying Situations
Upholding outward proper manners being an indicator of upholding inward manners goes back to intention. It is for the sake of Allah that one will conduct themselves in the best of ways. It is easy to conduct yourself in the best of ways when things are easy but where it becomes challenging is when you are provoked, angry, or in a difficult situation. That is the real test of character.
In trying situations, return to your intention of pleasing Allah. Do not behave in an irrational manner resulting in detriment. Pause. You do not have to respond right away. This can help you to get your thoughts in order and think about what is most pleasing to Allah. Consult teachers or other respectable people and get their insight before responding to a situation.
Remembrance of Allah
This relates to the topic of Islamic manners. The fact that when you eat, you eat with the right hand, eat in small bites, chew your food well, and other etiquettes like how you enter and exit a room, how you drink in sips, not gulps, how you put on the right shoe first, take off the left shoe first, and how to use the restroom (such as keeping your feet open wider than keeping them close together being a much more efficient way of relieving oneself at various levels), these are small manners but they give us restraint. They control our behavior.
They give us an ongoing consideration of doing things in a manner that is pleasing to Allah. Doing things in a manner that accords with the Prophetic example. Have a purpose behind it: “I am doing this for the sake of Allah, in a manner pleasing to Allah.”
All the proper manners are enveloped in remembrance of Allah. Make the most of all of your moments.
