Haya (modesty)

Haya is the disposition that restrains from the disgraceful; Bukhari gives it a chapter 'haya is part of faith' ¹.

Bukhari's chapter collects the hadiths on haya, and the encyclopedia treats the rulings connected to it and what is taken out of modesty ^{1 2}.

The Sheikh distinguishes between a poet who served Islam and one who did not, and says the gap between them is wide ⁴. He recalls Umm Sulaym's words to Abu Talha as an example of modesty, and says he wants women to keep their modesty and the new generation to grow up with it ⁴.

The Sheikh says that modesty shows in how people deal with one another, that a woman's voice is not awra, and that when the imam errs in prayer the men say Subhan Allah while the women clap ⁵.

He regards the clapping in this case as a door of modesty rather than a way of erasing the woman, so that women keep their modesty by it ⁶. He relates that last year an imam in one mosque made a mistake in his recitation (needs_source) ⁶.

The Sheikh says that modesty is not merely a matter of the face or of lowering the eyes to the ground, which is one of its forms, and that its forms are many ⁷. He gives the example of a wife whose husband's family visit her: she receives them well and honours his mother, who bore him and lived with him for many years, and he counts this as her modesty towards her husband ⁷.

He counts it as modesty when a woman holds her tongue towards her husband's father, brother and sister ⁸. The Sheikh asks whether religion is only hijab, niqab, a beard and a short robe, and says these are the last page in the book of reform ⁸.

He says that every religion has a defining character, and that the character of Islam is modesty ³. He holds that the worst thing we have is resisting information, and he criticises those who cling to the view of a single scholar and accept no other, like villagers who follow only their own imam ³.