With the Hadith
The Chapter on Spreading Salam as Part of Islam
We greet you all, dear listeners, everywhere, in a new episode of your program "With the Hadith," and we begin with the best greeting: Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
It is mentioned in Sahih Muslim in Al-Nawawi's explanation "with modification" in "The Chapter on Spreading Salam as Part of Islam."
Qutaiba narrated to us, saying: Al-Laith narrated to us, from Yazid bin Abi Habib, from Abi Al-Khair, from Abdullah bin Amr, that a man asked the Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - which Islam is best? He said: "That you feed food and greet with peace those whom you know and those whom you do not know."
Dear Listeners:
"Spread Salam," which implies a request to offer greetings to everyone. The expression "spreading" is used here to indicate dissemination and abundance. What is required is that peace spreads among Muslims and increases. This concept is confirmed to us through his saying - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him -: "And greet with peace those whom you know and those whom you do not know." This, in fact, reflects a vision of the individual's relationship with the community. The Muslim considers himself a part of the community. This is how the rulings of Islam are: "You are on a frontier of Islam, so do not let it be breached from your side." People, as much as they love Islam as a religion, love to see it applied in their daily lives. Therefore, "religion is conduct," as he, peace and blessings be upon him, said. Therefore, Islam also took care of the community as a whole as a whole composed of parts, not as disparate individuals, each searching for himself in a narrow circle of selfishness. Muslims are like one body; if his eye complains, his whole body complains; if his head complains, his whole body complains. Islam is keen to take every person out of the narrow circle of the individual to the circle of the family, to the circle of the neighborhood and the city, to the wider circle of the community and the state, so that he lives for others, and that - in my life - is the lost happiness today under the unjust capitalist systems that have brought man down to the level of animals, or even lower.
This is how Omar bin Al-Khattab - may God be pleased with him - understood spreading Salam, through his daily tour that he used to make in the markets of the city, and when Al-Tufail asked him about this action, he said to him: "We only go out for the sake of Salam, we greet whomever we meet."
This - O Muslims - is what we aspire to: that we feed food and greet with peace those whom we know and those whom we do not know."
We ask God to honor us with Islam and to honor Islam through us.
O God, hasten for us a caliphate in which the disarray of the Muslims is gathered, and lift from them what they are in of affliction. O God, illuminate the earth with the light of Your gracious face. O God, Amen, Amen.
Dear listeners, until we meet you with another prophetic Hadith, we leave you in God's care, and peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
Written for the radio: Abu Maryam
