Public Shame Law and Islam

• Recently there was a law that was going through the Washington State Legislature on shaming citizens who violate the certain laws; for example, currently in Ohio, they have a law that if you are caught driving drunk, you are mandated to have a bright yellow license plate as a form of public shame; WA was about to do something similar

• This brings up an issue that I would like to discuss in this khutba today; the role of shame as a deterrent in our lives; as we know from the Qur’an, there are three stages of the soul, and not necessarily are they one after another: nafs al amaara: desiring soul; nafsil lowwaama: the self reproaching soul, and nafssil mutu ma’inna: sould at peace/rest

• And it is the nafsil lowwaama that gives us, as humans, the aspect of shame; and we know it exists because Allah swears by it in the Qur’an:

“laa uqsimu bi yowmil qiyaama; wa laa uqsimu binnafsil lowwaama”
I swear by the Day of Resurrection; and I swear by the self reproaching soul

• It is the soul that is in between desire and peace; and Allah has put it there as a check for us; it is the one that feels guilty, embarrassed, shame; all things that will move us away from becoming animals; however if we keep ignoring this soul, then it becomes weaker and weaker; and if we listen to it, it becomes stronger and stronger until it transforms into the soul at rest; if you commit a sin for the first time, you feel really bad; bad enough to stop doing it; but if you continue, then each subsequent time, the feeling gets easier, until no remorse exist; and the opposite is true as well

• So this self reproaching soul is there because Allah knows we will make mistakes; this is in our nature as Allah created us:

“khuliqal insana dha’eefa” created mankind weak

• So we cannot all be good all the time, and this is not what Allah wants; what Allah is looking for from us is what we do after we make mistakes; do we remain arrogant and refuse to accept it, or do we seek forgiveness from Allah; and remember that it is a balance that is struck; if we were all, as humans, making mistakes and never asking for forgiveness, then we have many examples in the Qur’an of all can destroy us; and if we are never sinning and are perfect, then Allah will still destroy us and create a being that will make mistakes, and seek forgiveness

• But this idea of shame, in Islam, is something that is inward, not to be shown in public; that when someone commits a sin, (s)he should try to hide it and not make a public display of it; that is why a person who, say, drinks alcohol in the confines of his house (hides it) is still better than a person who does it publicly; similarly, if another person sees someone committing a sin, (s)he should try to hide it and not expose it; as in the hadith we find that if a believer conceals a sin of another in this life, then Allah will conceal his sins on the Day of Judgment; so this idea of public shame and humiliation is not in Islam and could have the opposite effect of making people worse;

• So in the example of the drunk driver who has a yellow license plate, although it might start of as a plate of shame, it might end up as a license to commit more acts; like a badge of honor;

• I ask Allah to keep our reproaching soul strong so that on the Day of Judgment, it is a soul at rest;


• So as I mentioned earlier, in my opinion, Islam does not want us to publicly humiliate people for their wrong actions, and on the contrary, there are benefits to hiding one’s sins and having others hide them for you as well

• So obviously, the question that comes to mind if I say that Islam is against this and it is not what Allah wants, is what about some public acts that are seen as humiliation in Islam; i.e. cutting of the hands, stoning to death, etc.

• The one thing to keep in mind is that in the current laws that are proposed or enacted, they are a form of humiliation and shame to make the person not do it again; if you don’t want them to do it, don’t give them a yellow license plate, take away their license

• Also, the public displays that happen in Islamic law are an evidence not of committing an act, but rather of having been forgiven by Allah; so the idea of the hands being cut is not so that everyone in public knows you stole something, that will happen anyway, but rather that by your hands being cut off, you have been saved from something worse in the hereafter;

• Furthermore, public shame usually implies that you are or have something less than normal; and thus the humiliation; again in Islam it is not that way; consider the story of the woman who committed adultery; she came to Prophet and he turned the other way, she came again, and he said you are carrying a child; after 9 months, she came again, and he said you have to wean the child; she came after 2 yrs and finally the Prophets gave her the punishment; and will it was being carried out publicly, again it was to show redemption of this woman and not to shame her; how do we know this? Cause as the companions were stoning her, some blood fell on one of them and he went aback in disgust; the Prophet noticed this and said publicly, that this woman had more faith than all present here combined, so don’t look down upon her; that she has been forgiven by Allah;

The Process of Change

• Spoke a couple of weeks ago about Change and how it is a buzz word these days; that real change in history has never happened from the top down, but from the grass roots; and Allah confirms this in the Qur’an when he says:

“Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves”

• So if we want to change society, we need to change ourselves; and one thing to remember is that it is not a light that goes off or on in your head and you are changed; it is always a process; maybe the only time it is that dramatic is when Allah moves people towards change, then it is instant – companions accepting Islam, many in modern day having near death experiences and then accepting Islam; but even with this, after the initial change, the complete transformation is a lifelong process

• This process can be summed up into four different parts: muhaasaba (taking account), tauba, the change itself, and finally maintaining what has changed;

• Muhasaba: the first thing we have to do as we begin the process is to reflect upon, think about, take to account our lives; and we should be doing this constantly; that is why Allah mentions this over and over again in the Qur’an; afalaa tafakaroon, afalaa tadhakaroon, afalaa ta’qiloon?

• And in this process we have to be honest with ourselves; it is very easy to deceive ourselves, or be deceived by Shaitan into thinking we are doing just fine; there is no need to change; but keep in mind that if there was nothing to change then a) we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in today, and b) if you didn’t need to change then we would be perfect, which is only something that Allah has a right to claim; and if we were perfect without sin, then as the Prophet mentions, Allah would replace us with another creation that did make mistakes and then asked for forgiveness

• Tauba: Repentance; small word but large meaning; it is different that seeking forgiveness (istighfaar), which is only a part of taub; so tauba is not that you do things wrong during the day, go home, ask forgiveness from Allah, and then the next morning you go back to doing the same thing; that Allah may or may not forgive; but tauba is something that Allah says he will accept;

• So the two parts of tauba are istighfaar with a hatred of what you did was wrong; and then making a commitment not to do it again; if you do this, then acceptance from Allah is yours; more importantly, if you follow up this tauba with righteous deeds, then Allah promises to not only wipe the sins, but to take them and convert them into good deeds on the day of judgement:

“except those who repent and believe and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is oft-forgiving, Most Merciful”

• the next thing we have to discuss is the change itself; and here it is very important to realize that this will take time, and the best way to approach change is not revolution, but evolution; so if you have a whole list of things you want to change about yourself, then you don’t do all of them at once, but rather take them one at a time, the easiest one first, and work you way from there;

• and the Prophet has taught us that it takes 40 days to make a change, for some, maybe a bit less, for others, maybe a bit more; to paraphrase: “if two brothers are together for 40 days, one of them will change the other”;

• so many times I see brothers who take change as a revolution and not evolution and fail; grow religious, long beard, everything haram, mean look, and 6 mos. Later, everything is halal!!!! Why? They got burned out, their body could not handle the change, and neither could their mind, and so they gave up; but if they would have taken things slowly, then they would have continued

• story of frog put in boiling water jumps out; but if you put it in water and turn up the heat, it will die and never jump out. Why? Incremental change, the frog didn’t notice;

• finally we come to the last part of change, which is the maintaining the change; and so after you have picked out items to change about yourself, you begin to change them; but remember that it will always be a struggle; so if you take it one month at a time, then the second month, you should be focused on 2 things, the first one and the second; because if you just focus on the second, you will lose the first; third month, 3 things, and so forth; from the stories of the companions we learn that once they began to do something good, they hated to drop it:

• a companion came to the Prophet and said that he wanted to fast as a worship to Allah, the messenger said to fast the middle of the month; the companion said he could do more, and so the messenger said add Monday and Thursday to it; to which he said he could do more, and the Prophet said to fast every other day; later on in his life, the companion said he wished he had never started this fasting every other day because in his old age, it is very difficult; he didn’t give it up!!!!

• and remember the this process of change is on going for the rest of your life and does not stop; if you have bad, then change by getting rid of it slowly, but if you have no bad and only good, then one should change by adding more good to it;

• and one very important thing we have to remember is that no change is possible without the help of Allah; so we should make it a point to make du’a to Allah to help us change: maqalib al-quluub