Answer

Sheikh said, for starters, this is a very important tradition, to promoting the good, and discouraging the bad. He said this is a very important tradition and we must be careful in looking at it, because there are narrations stating that if people stop promoting the good and forbidding evil then Allah would make the tyrants rule the world and the pious people would pray and their prayers would not be accepted.

In order to actually do this tradition, there are certain conditions. And the conditions are for the person to understand what the ‘good’ (ma’roof) is and what the ‘bad’ (monkar) is. And this is based on two pillars. That is the person that’s going to be the commanding and forbidding and the person that is going to be receiving the advices. For the person that is promoting the good, and forbidding the bad, he has to understand that there are four conditions. Firstly he must know what is ma’roof and what is munkar. Secondly, he has to know that the person that’s commiting the munkar, understands it’s a munkar and that he would understand if you speak to him, and he has to make sure that he would affect that person if he speaks to him, that the other person would listen and do by what he is advised. And fourthly, he has to make sure that no harm comes to him if he advices that person, if there is any harm coming to him if he advices that person, then he is not allowed to advice him, and especially if the harm is not only for him, it may harm him and the rest of the Muslims.

The condition for this statement to be satisfied is that the person that is committing the sin, must already know that it is wrong and he does it. And that when you tell him not to commit that sin, he knows that it’s a sin his committing, its not that he is doing it and he doesn’t know that it’s wrong, he knows its wrong and then when you advice him not to do wrong, then that statement applies that you are forbidding him from committing a sin, he understands it’s a sin. Or if he is leaving a ma’roof such as prayer or fasting, he knows he has to fast but he doesn’t want to fast or he knows he has to pray but he does not want to pray. Now this person is intentionally not doing ma’roof even though he knows its something wajib. For a person to command him to do good, this condition has to be satisfied, that you have to understand that the person that is doing the sin understands that it’s a sin or a person that is doing haram, e.g. drinking alcohol, as sheikh said, he knows that it is haram to drink alcohol, then this statement applies, you command him to stop committing that sin, that is if he knows it is wrong. However, if he did not know it was wrong, if he was doing something that is haram but he did not know its haram, then it does not satisfy this statement.

Sheikh says that the realm for this can be pretty wide and narrow, he said if a person does a mustahab (recommended action), then it is mustahab to advice him to do that mustahab. Or if a person does not usually do makrooh (unrecommended action) and is doing a makrooh then it is mustahab to advice him to leave that makrooh. However, if he is leaving a wajib, and he knows he is leaving a wajib, its wajib to advice him. And if he is committing a sin, and he knows he is committing a sin then it is wajib to advice him to stop committing that sin.

Sheikh is saying that also you have to understand that there are ways in dealing with amir bil ma’roof and nahi ala almonkar and that comes into stages, and this stages start with a soft stage, hard stage and a harder stage. And in dealing with this there is a hadith that says that first you deal with the hand, if you can’t then with the tongue, if not at least with your heart. Each advice, you have to know how to approach, if your advising someone you should know what stage and what type of advice should you chose, should you advice with your hand, your tongue or just be quite and keep it in your heart.

Sheikh is saying, as mentioned earlier how the stages of approaching a certain advice, whether its advising someone to leave a sin or begin a ma’roof. There are stages of doing it, if you are the person doing the advice, you have to take into consideration the feeling of that person, so you say it in a way you do not humiliate him or embarrass him or make him feel bad, so you have to start with the softest minimum approach that you maybe able to affect him without hurting him in any way. If that does not work then you move to increment a little bit harder and a bit harder until you get the job done with the minimum amount of damage to the sensation of that person and that could go from maybe just a little sign with your hand and if its not maybe more of a sign or a small nice word if not then maybe two words then it gets harsher and it can get to the some stage of even hitting somebody but that why you have to understand the levels in order for you to apply this particular wajib.

The person that is doing the advice must understand what is commanding good and forbidding evil and he has to know the limitations and he has to understand and know that humiliating a mo’min (believer) or hurting a mo’min is a sin.

Back to repeating some of the information, first the person doing the advice must understand it , he must be qualified and he starts off with a movement of a hand or a sign, if it does not work, you make a stronger sign or maybe with your face or if its not working then you say a nice word if not a stronger word and so on and it gets farther to the extent you could hit but that needs permission by a jurisprudence judge who gives permission to somebody that is qualified to do that without breaking any bones or anything like that and because this is limited to the judge so the people that are qualified to do that would know what their limits are. In general society, you have to understand what your limitations are, you say with a nice word and the stages we have mentioned before, except for example a parent with a son, there are also other examples such as someone under your supervision and other examples as well that we will not go through.

You cannot go to a more extreme level if your able to do the job with a less extreme level. This is a very important point.