Three Practices That Transform Your Character
The Three Disciplines of Patience, Modesty, and Self-Sufficiency: A Hadith Commentary
Summary
This lecture discusses a hadith from the chapter on patience, specifically the 26th consecutive narration, which teaches important lessons about self-sufficiency, modesty, and patience through the example of the Prophet Muhammad's interactions with needy companions from the Ansar. The Prophet first gave them everything he had, then taught them three principles: whoever attempts modesty, Allah will make him modest; whoever attempts to be self-sufficient, Allah will suffice him; and whoever attempts patience, Allah will make him patient. The speaker explains that the Prophet deliberately gave first before teaching these lessons to avoid creating suspicion or misunderstanding among his companions.
The lecture emphasizes that patience, modesty, and self-sufficiency are disciplines that must be practiced and developed over time, similar to any other skill. The speaker clarifies that self-sufficiency in Islamic context means relying on Allah alone rather than on other people, not the secular concept of self-reliance. He stresses that these practices require continuous effort and repetition to build, and that failure is part of the learning process. The key message is that attempting to practice these virtues invokes Allah's help and support in developing them.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
Alhamdulillah. Continuing in the chapter of patience, the 26th consecutive narration. And now says, We already spoke about and his father in detail in the previous narrations that some of the needy from amongst the Ansar, the companions The Ansar, the people of Medina, they came to the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam. They were in need of financial help. So they came to him and asked him and he gave them and then they asked him again on another occasion and he gave them or they asked him on the same occasion. meaning that they asked him for help. He helped them. They said we need some more you know increase us. So he obliged and this continued until he didn't have anything else left to give. And then he said to them after he had given them everything that he had to give, there is nothing that I have hidden, nothing that I own or possess that I could possibly give you or help you with that I would hide from you. Yet whoever attempts modesty and whoever attempts to not ask, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will suffice him. Is to attempt being sufficed. You're in need, but you try to push on without asking. You try your best to exhibit sufficiency. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam teaches us some of the most important lessons here. These three statements he is going to say. I hope that we all take them to heart. he says, these are the three statements he made to them. He said, "Whoever attempts modesty or whoever attempts self-sufficientness, being self-sufficient, Allah will make him self-sufficient." When we say self-sufficient, meaning not in need or in dire need of other human beings, we don't mean that a person, you know, is said in in popular culture today, you know, believe in yourself and love yourself and all this nonsense that doesn't make any sense really. This is not what we're talking about. self-sufficient meaning that a person needs only Allah that a person is able to rely on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alone that a person is not in need of extending his hand to others right if a person is in need of his brothers then there is no shame in that and his brothers are obligated by Allah to pull him out of whatever difficulty he is In however a person attempts modesty, modesty in asking and whoever tries to be self-sufficient, Allah will suffice him. And whoever tries to be patient, Allah will make him patient. And this is the reason he put this narration in this chapter. The wording here, the structure of the word right in Arabic articulates trial and error articulates practice. Whoever tries to practice patience, Allah will make him patient. So why didn't he tell them this before he gave them? Because the prophet sallall.aii wasallam said the veins of the human being just like his own blood. The most destructive or one of the most destructive of things is suspicions of your Muslim brother, your Muslim sister. Person may say, well, come on. How could they be suspicious of the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam? This is the point. The prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam is trying to not give a shan any foothold to not give him any chance to whisper. They come to him. Imagine this scenario. They come to him to ask for some help and then he starts telling them about being patient. Right? A person may get the idea that he's just he doesn't want to help us. That's why he's telling us all of this, right? He's making it seem this is for our good, but it's just cuz he doesn't want to help us. Obviously, his companions were much better than that. But in previous nations, many of the followers of Misam, of the prophets before, they were harmed by their people in this exact way. And so the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam in order to teach them this lesson he gave them everything he had first he first gave them everything he had then when there were nothing left to give he said if I had anything else I wouldn't hide it from you however whoever attempts modesty Allah will make him modest and whoever attempts to be sufficient Allah Allah will make him sufficient and whoever tries to be patient Allah will make him patient. Now the lesson is learned and so this statement here whoever tries to be patient Allah will make him patient. This gives us a feeling of trying a feeling of practice and that's correct. Patience any other discipline and Islam in general. The practices of Islam and patience specifically, they are a discipline. You have to practice them. And the more you practice them, the better you get. And any discipline once you reach a level of skill, you can lose that skill and it can regress if you don't continue to practice it. It It's not you reach there and then that's it. You're at the summit, you're fine, you'll be there for the rest of your life. No. No. If you don't continue to practice, you will lose your progress and you will lose that skill and the blade of your patience will become dull. Right? So patience, modesty, sufficient, you know, being sufficient, these are things that a person has to practice. If we were looking into the other narrations also this is mentioned with knowledge this is mentioned with forbearance right these same things that are to be practiced. So patience for instance becoming upset or being offended or reaching out for help when you could push yourself a little bit further. whatever the situation is, right? Being patient, it is something that you practice and build up, right? And it takes time and you're going to you're going to fail a lot just any skill. When you first begin, you fail 10 times out of 10 or nine times out of 10, but you're conscious of the failure now. And then you continue to practice, continue to practice, and now you fail only nine times out of 10. Now you fail only eight times out of 10. Seven, six, five. Now your skill is building up. Half of the time you do it, half of the time you fail. You continue to practice and practice until you're able to not fail 10 times out of 10. And now you have to continue to practice in order to retain that discipline and skill. And whoever attempts patience and tries to be patient, Allah will make him patient. Subhan Allah. Wasamuhammed.