Modesty

What is modesty? These are important questions that, navigating in a modern world, perhaps don't come to the front of our mind, but this is something that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ called towards. He ﷺ said that every deen, every religion, every way of being has a particular and unique trait and the way of my deen is modesty - haya.

So it's important that we understand. So we have unlocked to us the realities of this deen, we understand what it means to be a Muslim. Not just going through the actions, but really internalising what it means and connecting ourselves to Allah ﷻ.

So modesty is related to shyness, modesty is related to an awareness and a connection that Allah is always aware, and Allah is watching. And in that love and in that awe, there is also a fear that we don't want to displease Allah ﷻ.

That has an impact when it's rooted in the heart on the things that we do. In the way that we speak, we're going to be minimalistic in our approach to the way we speak, we're not going to be superfluous, we're not going to speak too much, because we're aware that in every word that we utter, Allah is watching.

And every word that we speak, there is a reward, there is a light, there is a beauty that we have the opportunity to access. But on the flip side, if we say bad things and we accustom ourselves, our words, our behaviours, to things which are the opposite of modesty, to an arrogance and a haughtiness, then we start to have the signs of Allah ﷻ moved away from us.

What does that mean practically in our lives? Oftentimes when people "become religious", we pile on a garb and we take things on, but it's very easy to burn out. Especially when you're often going against the friction of modernity, of the modern world.

We're going against a way of being which often tells you why do you need to be modest, what's the point of being modest. And the nature, if we're not rooted, if we're not anchored, we're going to find that challenging, we're going to find that really disturbing.

So what we want to do is to cultivate this modesty in our heart, first and foremost by the intention.

The intention is to follow the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ . He was incredibly shy and this is not weakness, this is power, because what it does to you is it gives you an inward compass to suss things out before you rush into them. If we're imbalanced and we're not shy and modest in the way that we approach things, we're going to find this.

This has an impact in the way that we dress. In the way that we behave. In the way that we project ourselves, and who we ultimately identify as.

Our identity ultimately is that being that is designed to be with Allah ﷻ . The more we come in line with our humanity, the more that we're able to be with Allah ﷻ and this is what it means to be human.