03
(Essay)
Watch Your Company
The friends you keep, and the man you become by keeping them.
By Mike Rashid King • Allah's Humble Servant
The room you sit in
The first time you hear it, it bothers you. The tenth time, you laugh. By the twentieth, you are the one saying it.
That is how company works on a man. It does not argue with him. It repeats itself around him until its normal becomes his.
Look back over your own years and you can see it. The words you picked up. The jokes you started laughing at. The prayer you started pushing to the end of its time. Then look at who you were sitting with in each season. The two lists track each other. That is an inference, and you can test it against your own life.
I have written about the tongue, the temper, the promise, pride, the eyes and your parents. This one is about the people you let close, because they work on every one of those.
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What Allah says about company
Allah shows you a man on the Day of Judgment biting his own hands. The wrongdoer will bite on his hands and say: oh, I wish I had taken with the Messenger a way (25:27). Then he names the mistake.
يَٰوَيْلَتَىٰ لَيْتَنِى لَمْ أَتَّخِذْ فُلَانًا خَلِيلًۭا
Ya waylata laytani lam attakhidh fulanan khalila
Oh, woe to me! I wish I had not taken that one as a friend. (Surah Al-Furqan 25:28)
He led me away from the remembrance after it had come to me (25:29). The reminder reached him. A friend walked him away from it.
Fulan means so-and-so. Allah left the friend without a name, and every reader can put a face there. That reading is mine.
The word for friend is khalil. Ibn Manzur's Lisan al-Arab explains khullah, the friendship of a khalil, as a love that enters the heart and settles inside it. It is the word Allah used for Ibrahim, ʿalayhi as-salām (peace be upon him): Allah took Ibrahim as an intimate friend (4:125). The same word holds the best friendship a man can have and the one that ruins him.
Quran 25:27-29 · Quran 4:125 · Quranic Arabic Corpus on kh-l-l · Lisan al-Arab on kh-l-l
Then Allah shows you two friends after the Judgment. A man in Paradise turns to the others and says: indeed, I had a companion who would say, are you indeed of those who believe that when we have died and become dust and bones, we will indeed be recompensed? (37:51 to 53). He looks and sees him in the midst of the Hellfire. By Allah, he says, you almost ruined me. If not for the favor of my Lord, I would have been of those brought in (37:55 to 57).
Two friends. One of them nearly took the other with him.
Allah told His Messenger ﷺ himself whom to keep close: keep yourself patient with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, seeking His countenance, and let not your eyes pass beyond them, desiring adornments of the worldly life, and do not obey one whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance (18:28).
He even gave a place to a dog for the company it kept. The young men of the cave withdrew from their people and what they worshipped (18:16), and their dog lay at the entrance with his forelegs stretched out (18:18). Allah counts him with them three times when He tells of their number (18:22). Ibn Kathir said of that dog: this is the benefit of accompanying good people, and so this dog attained fame and stature.
Quran 18:28 · Quran 18:13-22 · Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 18:18
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What the Prophet ﷺ said
He put the whole matter in one sentence: a man follows the religion of his close friend, so let each of you look at whom he befriends. The word in the Arabic is khalil, the same word as the friend in 25:28. Al-Albani graded it hasan, which means sound, a chain of narrators the scholars accept.
Sunan Abi Dawud 4833, hasan per Al-Albani
Then he gave the picture. The good companion and the bad one are like a man carrying musk and a man blowing a blacksmith's bellows. The one with the musk will give you some, or you will buy some from him, or at least you will leave smelling of it. The one at the bellows will burn your clothes, or you will leave with his smell on you.
You do not have to buy anything to leave smelling of musk. Sitting near it is enough. The bellows work the same way.
A man asked him about someone who loves good people but cannot catch up with their good deeds. Everyone will be with those whom he loves, the Prophet ﷺ said. Who you love decides who you stand with at the end.
And he told of a man who set out to visit his brother in another town. Allah posted an angel on his road. Where are you going? To my brother in this town. Have you done him a favor you want repaid? No, only that I love him for the sake of Allah. Then I am a messenger to you from Allah, the angel said: Allah loves you as you love him.
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Why company shapes a man
Systems Thinking looks at the ground a habit grows in. A man's company sets his defaults: what gets said, what gets laughed at, when the night ends, whether the prayer gets mentioned at all. Each evening with them moves his normal a little, and years of evenings move it a long way. That is an inference.
Dialectical Thinking demands the objection. I am my own man. My friends do not change me.
Allah answered it about one kind of sitting: when you hear the ayat of Allah denied and ridiculed, do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation; indeed, you would then be like them (4:140). He did not say you would agree with them. He said you would be like them.
And He lets the people of the Fire make the confession themselves: we were not of those who prayed, nor did we feed the poor, and we used to enter into vain discourse with those who engaged in it (74:43 to 45).
The second objection is the better one. The Prophet ﷺ sat with all kinds of people. Do I cut off any man who is not righteous?
No. A Jewish boy used to serve the Prophet ﷺ, and when the boy fell sick, he went to visit him, sat by his head and invited him to Islam. Allah does not forbid you from being righteous toward those who do not fight you because of religion and acting justly toward them (60:8). Deal with people justly and kindly.
Closeness is a different thing. The hadith says khalil, the one you let all the way in. The Prophet ﷺ drew that line himself: associate only with a believer, and let only a God-fearing man eat your meals. Al-Albani graded it hasan. Work beside anyone. Give your closeness to the ones who bring you closer to Allah.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1356 · Quran 60:8 · Sunan Abi Dawud 4832, hasan per Al-Albani
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The practice
The rules come from the Quran and the Sunnah (the example of the Prophet ﷺ). The order is mine.
- Look at whom you befriend. Write down the names of the men you spend the most hours with, and ask of each one: does time with him bring me closer to Allah or further away? Let each of you look at whom he befriends (Sunan Abi Dawud 4833).
- Find the man with the musk. Find one man whose company leaves you better, and put yourself near him on purpose (Sahih al-Bukhari 5534).
- Sit where Allah is remembered. Keep yourself with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening (18:28): the masjid at Fajr, a study circle, a brother who reads.
- Stand up when the ayat are mocked. Do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation (4:140), and do not remain after the reminder (6:68). You do not owe them a speech. Stand up.
- Count your screen as company. The voices in your ears and on your phone can sit with you for hours a day. Choose them the way you choose a friend. That is my reading of the musk and the bellows for this age.
- Invite the God-fearing to your table. Let only a God-fearing man eat your meals (Sunan Abi Dawud 4832). The men who eat with you are the men you talk with.
- Tell your brother you love him. When a man loves his brother, he should tell him that he loves him (Sunan Abi Dawud 5124). Al-Albani graded it sahih (authentic). Say it for the sake of Allah.
Sunan Abi Dawud 4833 · Sahih al-Bukhari 5534 · Quran 18:28 · Quran 4:140 · Quran 6:68 · Sunan Abi Dawud 4832 · Sunan Abi Dawud 5124, sahih per Al-Albani
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The quiet work
A friendship is chosen in small moves: the call you return, the invitation you accept, the man you let drift away. Over years, those small moves decide who is standing next to you.
The Prophet ﷺ said that on the Day of Resurrection, Allah will ask: where are those who loved one another for My glory? Today I shelter them in My shade, on the Day when there is no shade but Mine.
The friendships built on anything else turn the other way.
ٱلْأَخِلَّآءُ يَوْمَئِذٍۭ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ إِلَّا ٱلْمُتَّقِينَ
Al-akhilla'u yawma'idhin ba'duhum li-ba'din 'aduwwun illa al-muttaqin
Close friends, that Day, will be enemies to each other, except for the righteous. (Surah Az-Zukhruf 43:67)
Akhilla is the plural of khalil, the friend from 25:28. Choose the men you want beside you on that Day. Then be the man with the musk in someone else's life.
Sahih Muslim 2566 · Quran 43:67 · Quran 9:119
Fear Allah, and be with those who are true.
By Mike Rashid King • Allah's Humble Servant