Character (Akhlāq) and Iḥsān: The Third Dimension

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Deen · Character

A man in very white clothes walked into the mosque in Medina, sat knee to knee with the Prophet ﷺ and asked him three questions. The first two, about islām and īmān, gave Muslims the five pillars and the six articles of faith. The third question was about iḥsān, and the answer was one sentence long. This page is about that sentence, and about the everyday thing the texts tie to it: character.

The five pillars post covers what a Muslim does and what a Muslim believes. This one covers how a Muslim is meant to be while doing it: honest, slow to anger, careful with words, patient, grateful, humble, merciful, free of envy, modest and just. These are not extras in the sources. Some of the strongest statements in the hadith literature about who is closest to God and heaviest on the Scale are statements about character.

I have tried to follow the site's rule of putting the evidence first. For each trait the Qur'an comes first, then hadith with their grades, then what later scholars built on them, labelled as theirs. A few well-known sayings turn out to be weak, and I say so where they appear. Arabic terms are explained once and collected in the glossary at the end.

Contents

1. The third dimension: iḥsān
2. Why character carries so much weight
3. What character is, and whether it can change
4. Virtue and vice explorer
5. Honesty and keeping promises
6. Anger and forbearance
7. The tongue
8. Patience and gratitude
9. Humility and pride
10. Mercy and gentleness
11. Envy, suspicion and rancour
12. Modesty (ḥayāʾ)
13. Justice
14. How the traditions organised it
15. Iḥsān, tazkiya and the Sufi question
16. From text to habit
17. Glossary
18. Sources

The third dimension: iḥsān

The scene is narrated by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and recorded by Muslim at the very start of his Ṣaḥīḥ.¹ A stranger, with no sign of travel on him and known to no one present, asks the Prophet ﷺ about islām, then īmān, then iḥsān, then the Hour and its signs. After he leaves, the Prophet ﷺ tells ʿUmar that it was Jibrīl (Gabriel), "He came to you in order to instruct you in matters of religion." Al-Bukhārī records the same scene through Abū Hurayra,² and al-Nawawī placed it second in his Forty Hadith, which is where many Muslims first meet it.³

قَالَ فَأَخْبِرْنِي عَنِ الإِحْسَانِ. قَالَ: أَنْ تَعْبُدَ اللَّهَ كَأَنَّكَ تَرَاهُ، فَإِنْ لَمْ تَكُنْ تَرَاهُ فَإِنَّهُ يَرَاكَ

He said: Inform me about al-Ihsan. He said: That you worship Allah as if you are seeing Him, for though you don't see Him, He, verily, sees you.

Muslim 8a, translation as on sunnah.com¹

The word iḥsān comes from the root ḥ-s-n, "good" or "beautiful". As a verbal noun it means doing something well, and doing good to someone. Both senses are in the Qur'an. "Indeed, Allah commands justice, grace [iḥsān], as well as generosity to close relatives," says 16:90, where Khattab renders iḥsān as "grace".⁴ Elsewhere: "And do good, for Allah certainly loves the good-doers," where the good-doers are the muḥsinūn, the people of iḥsān.⁵

The hadith definition points inward. Iḥsān is worship done with full awareness of being seen by God. It names no new act. The prayer and fast are the ones already described under islām; iḥsān is the quality of attention brought to them. Another hadith in Muslim widens the word beyond worship altogether: "Verily Allah has enjoined goodness [iḥsān] to everything," and the example given is the slaughter of an animal, with a sharpened knife so that it dies comfortably.⁶ So iḥsān covers how you pray and also how you treat a sheep, and the texts do not keep the two in separate compartments.

That is the reason for this post's title. Islām is the outward practice and īmān the inner belief. Iḥsān is often described as their perfection, and the texts most often describe that perfection through character: how a person speaks, forgives, trades and treats the weak. The hadith literature has a dedicated category for this, kitāb al-adab or kitāb al-birr wa-l-ṣila (the book of manners, or of righteousness and keeping ties), and the hadith quoted below mostly come from those chapters.

One order of priority needs saying early, because talk of character can be used to wave away obligations. In a ḥadīth qudsī in al-Bukhārī, God says that the most beloved thing by which His servant draws near to Him is what He has made obligatory, and that the servant then keeps drawing nearer through voluntary acts until God loves him.⁷ Character is not offered as a substitute for prayer. The Qur'an, describing the righteous, lists belief, charity, prayer, alms, kept pledges and patience in a single sentence (2:177).⁸

Why character carries so much weight

"An outstanding character"

وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ

And you are truly ˹a man˺ of outstanding character.

Qur'an 68:4⁹

The verse is addressed to the Prophet ﷺ in Sūrat al-Qalam, two verses after "By the grace of your Lord, you ˹O Prophet˺ are not insane" (68:2), an answer to people who were calling him mad.¹⁰ Ibn Kathīr records two early readings of khuluq ʿaẓīm. Ibn ʿAbbās, followed by Mujāhid and others, took it as "a great religion", meaning Islam. Qatāda connected it to the answer ʿĀʾisha gave when Saʿd ibn Hishām asked her about the Prophet's character: "Don't you read the Qur'an? … The character of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the Qur'an."¹¹ That exchange is in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.¹² Ibn Kathīr's own gloss is that he acted on what the Qur'an commanded and avoided what it forbade, and that God also gave him modesty, kindness, courage, pardon and gentleness.¹¹ The two readings are less far apart than they look. If his character was the Qur'an, his religion and his character were the same thing seen from two sides.

The Qur'an also makes him the model: "Indeed, in the Messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for whoever has hope in Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah often" (33:21).¹³ Most of what Muslims know about his character comes from people who lived in his house. Anas ibn Mālik served him for ten years and said he never once said "uff" to him, or asked why he had done something or not done it.¹⁴ ʿĀʾisha said he never struck anyone with his hand, woman or servant, and never took revenge for his own sake.¹⁵¹⁶

"I was sent to perfect good character"

This is probably the best-known saying on the subject, and its chain deserves a careful look. Mālik's Muwaṭṭaʾ has it as something that "reached" him (a balāgh), with no chain at all: "I was sent to perfect good character" (buʿithtu li-utammima ḥusn al-akhlāq).¹⁷ On its own that would be a weak basis. But al-Bukhārī records it with a connected chain from Abū Hurayra in al-Adab al-mufrad, a separate book from his Ṣaḥīḥ, in the wording "I was only sent to perfect righteous character" (ṣāliḥ al-akhlāq).¹⁸ Aḥmad has it in his Musnad (no. 8952), and al-Ḥākim has it in al-Mustadrak, where he judged it ṣaḥīḥ by Muslim's criteria. Al-Albānī graded it ṣaḥīḥ in al-Silsila al-ṣaḥīḥa (no. 45) and in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Adab al-mufrad (no. 207), Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ graded the Musnad version ṣaḥīḥ, and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr called it ṣaḥīḥ centuries earlier.¹⁹ The form you hear most often, with makārim al-akhlāq ("the noblest traits"), is a variant wording. The meaning is the same, and its standing rests on the connected versions.

Heaviest on the Scale

Several hadith outside the two Ṣaḥīḥs, graded sound or good, make the point directly:

• "Nothing is heavier on the believer's Scale on the Day of Judgment than good character" (al-Tirmidhī 2002, graded ṣaḥīḥ by the Darussalam editors).²⁰ A related report adds that the person of good character reaches the rank of the one who fasts and prays (al-Tirmidhī 2003, ḥasan).²¹
• Asked what most often brings people into Paradise, the Prophet ﷺ said: "Taqwa of Allah, and good character." Asked what most often brings them into the Fire: "The mouth and the private parts" (al-Tirmidhī 2004, ṣaḥīḥ).²²
• "The most perfect believer in respect of faith is he who is best of them in manners" (Abū Dāwūd 4682, graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī).²³ Al-Tirmidhī's version adds: "And the best of you are those who are best to your women" (1162, ḥasan).²⁴
• "By his good character a believer will attain the degree of one who prays during the night and fasts during the day" (Abū Dāwūd 4798, ṣaḥīḥ per al-Albānī).²⁵
• The nearest to him on the Day of Judgment will be the best in character; the furthest will be the thartharūn and the mutashaddiqūn, people who talk too much and show off in speech, and the mutafayhiqūn, explained in the same hadith as "the arrogant" (al-Tirmidhī 2018, ḥasan).²⁶

And in al-Bukhārī itself: "The best among you are the best in character."²⁷ When al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān asked about virtue (birr) and vice, the answer in Muslim was: "Virtue is a kind disposition [ḥusn al-khuluq] and vice is what rankles in your heart and that you disapprove that people should come to know of it."²⁸ That last clause is a test anyone can use.

Shia hadith collections say much the same in their own chains. The chapter on good character in al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī opens with a report from Imam al-Bāqir that among the believers of most perfect faith is the one whose character is best, graded ṣaḥīḥ by both al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī. The report there about the Scale is graded weak by al-Majlisī, while another, from Imam al-Ṣādiq, about reaching the level of those who pray all night and fast all day, he grades "ḥasan, like ṣaḥīḥ".²⁹ The two traditions, with separate chains and separate grading systems, reach the same place on this point.

What character is, and whether it can change

The Arabic khuluq (plural akhlāq) shares its root with khalq, "creation", and Fazlur Rahman's entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica glosses it as "inborn character, moral character, moral virtue."³⁰ The shared root raised an old question. If character is part of how one was created, can it change? If not, what is the point of commanding it?

The Qur'an's answer is in the oath of Sūrat al-Shams: "And by the soul and ˹the One˺ Who fashioned it, then with ˹the knowledge of˺ right and wrong inspired it! Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul, and doomed is the one who corrupts it!" (91:7–10).³¹ The soul is given both possibilities, and the outcome depends on what a person does with them. A hadith in Muslim points the same way: "Verily Allah does not look to your faces and your wealth but He looks to your heart and to your deeds."³²

Al-Ghazālī took the question up in the book of the Iḥyāʾ on disciplining the soul. Following earlier writers, he defined character as a settled state of the soul from which actions come easily, without reflection.¹²⁶ A generous person, in this sense, is not someone who once gave money but someone for whom giving has stopped being an effort. He answered the objection that character is fixed by pointing out that even animals can be trained out of their dispositions, so human beings can too. His case also rests on the commands themselves: the texts that order better character presuppose it can be improved.^1263334 His method, which comes up again below, is training: repeating the acts of the trait one wants until they stop being an effort.

This is scholarly reasoning built on the texts, not a text, but the texts support its premise. The hadith on anger examined below give practical steps, and steps are pointless unless the trait can be worked on.

Virtue and vice explorer

Pick a trait to see the core Qur'an verse, a sound hadith, any well-known weak report to be careful with, and the practical steps the texts themselves give. Each card links to the fuller section below. Without JavaScript, all the cards are simply listed.

Honesty and keeping promises

The Qur'an asks believers to "be mindful of Allah and be with the truthful" (9:119) and to "say what is right" (33:70).³⁵³⁶ The fullest hadith on truthfulness is in both Ṣaḥīḥs: "Truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise. And a man keeps on telling the truth until he becomes a truthful person. Falsehood leads to Al-Fajur … and Al-Fajur leads to the (Hell) Fire."³⁷³⁸ The hadith describes a path: each truth makes the next one easier, and each lie does the same in the other direction.

Promises and trusts sit next to honesty. "Honour ˹your˺ pledges, for you will surely be accountable for them" (17:34),³⁹ and the Qur'an's description of righteousness in 2:177 includes those "who keep the pledges they make."⁸ The hadith on the signs of a hypocrite give three in one version (he lies when he speaks, breaks his promises, betrays a trust) and four in another, which adds treachery in covenants and foul behaviour in a quarrel.⁴⁰⁴¹ The longer version itself says that whoever has one of these characteristics has "one characteristic of hypocrisy unless and until he gives it up."⁴¹

The Qur'an also condemns the gap between words and deeds: "O believers! Why do you say what you do not do? How despicable it is in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do!" (61:2–3).⁴²

Honesty has a commercial side that is easy to forget. Buyer and seller who "spoke the truth and described the defects" are blessed in their deal; if they lie or hide something, the blessing is lost.⁴³ The Prophet ﷺ pushed his hand into a pile of grain in the market, found it wet underneath, and said the seller should have put the wet part on top where people could see it: "He who deceives is not of me."⁴⁴ In al-Kāfī, a report from Imam al-Ṣādiq, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī, says not to be impressed by how much a person prays or fasts, because that can become a habit; test them instead by the truth of their speech and how they return what is entrusted to them.⁴⁵

Anger and forbearance

A man asked the Prophet ﷺ for advice. "Do not become angry." He asked again, and again, and got the same answer each time.⁴⁶ The Qur'an praises those who "control their anger, and pardon others. And Allah loves the good-doers" (3:134). The word for those who do good there is muḥsinīn, the people of iḥsān.⁴⁷ And: "The strong is not the one who overcomes the people by his strength, but the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger."⁴⁸

The hadith do not just forbid anger. They give steps. When two men were abusing each other and one's face had gone red, the Prophet ﷺ said he knew a phrase that would calm him: "I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the outcast."⁴⁹ In Abū Dāwūd, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī: "When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down."⁵⁰ Another report, graded ḥasan by al-Albānī, promises a great reward for one who swallows his anger when he is able to act on it.⁵¹ The condition matters. Holding back when you have no power is not forbearance.

The positive virtue is ḥilm, usually translated "forbearance": the ability to absorb provocation without losing judgement. To al-Ashajj of ʿAbd al-Qays the Prophet ﷺ said, "you possess two such qualities which Allah loves," and the Arabic names them as ḥilm and anāh, forbearance and deliberateness (the sunnah.com English renders them "insight and deliberateness").⁵² His own example is the evidence that this was expected of him too: he "never took revenge (over anybody) for his own sake," only when God's limits were violated.¹⁶ The Qur'an's instruction for dealing with an enemy goes further than restraint: "Respond ˹to evil˺ with what is best, then the one you are in a feud with will be like a close friend" (41:34).⁵³

None of this asks a person to feel nothing. The Prophet ﷺ became angry when God's limits were crossed, and the texts are about what anger is allowed to make you do. Al-Kāfī has a full chapter on suppressing anger and another on forbearance.⁵⁴

The tongue

A large number of hadith deal with speech. A few of the plainest:

• "Whoever can guarantee (the chastity of) what is between his two jaw-bones and what is between his two legs … I guarantee Paradise for him."⁵⁵
• "Anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should talk what is good or keep quiet."⁵⁶
• "A Muslim is the one who avoids harming Muslims with his tongue and hands."⁵⁷
• A person may say a word without thinking whether it is right or wrong and fall into the Fire because of it.⁵⁸

When Muʿādh ibn Jabal asked for an action that would take him to Paradise, the Prophet ﷺ went through the pillars, then the "doors of good" (fasting, charity and prayer in the depths of the night), then took hold of his own tongue and said, "Restrain this." Muʿādh asked whether they would really be held to account for what they said, and was told that people are thrown into the Fire on their faces because of "what their tongues have wrought" (al-Tirmidhī 2616, ḥasan per the Darussalam editors).⁵⁹ The Qur'an's opening description of successful believers includes "those who avoid idle talk" (23:3),⁶⁰ and it tells believers "to say only what is best" because Satan uses words to divide people (17:53).⁶¹

Backbiting and slander

Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt has the Qur'an's most vivid image on this: "O believers! Avoid many suspicions, ˹for˺ indeed, some suspicions are sinful. And do not spy, nor backbite one another. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of their dead brother? You would despise that!" (49:12).⁶² The verse before it forbids mockery, defamation and "offensive nicknames" (49:11).⁶³

Muslim records the definition. Backbiting (ghība) is "your talking about your brother in a manner which he does not like." Asked what if the thing said is true, the Prophet ﷺ replied: "If (that failing) is actually found (in him) what you assert, you in fact backbited him, and if that is not in him it is a slander."⁶⁴ So the truth of a remark is no defence.

A well-known saying with a disputed grade

"Part of the perfection of one's Islam is his leaving that which does not concern him" is the twelfth of al-Nawawī's Forty, and al-Nawawī called it ḥasan. The Darussalam editors of al-Tirmidhī, whose grades sunnah.com shows, grade al-Tirmidhī's chain ḍaʿīf.⁶⁵ The meaning is supported by the sound texts above, but this particular wording should not be quoted as if its authenticity were settled.

Patience and gratitude

The Qur'an pairs patience (ṣabr) with prayer as the believer's means of coping: "O believers! Seek comfort in patience and prayer. Allah is truly with those who are patient." The passage that follows (2:153–157) speaks of being tested "with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property, life, and crops," and gives good news to those who, when struck by disaster, say: "Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will ˹all˺ return."⁶⁶ The reward of the patient is "without limit" (39:10).⁶⁷

The hadith add two things. First, timing: a woman weeping at a grave told the Prophet ﷺ to go away, not recognising him; when she came to apologise he said, "Verily, the patience is at the first stroke of a calamity."⁶⁸ Patience is measured at the moment the blow lands, not weeks later when the shock has passed. Second, patience can be learned: "whoever remains patient, Allah will make him patient. Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience."⁶⁹

Gratitude (shukr) is patience's partner. "If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely My punishment is severe" (14:7).⁷⁰ Muslim records the hadith that joins the two: "Strange are the ways of a believer for there is good in every affair of his … if he has an occasion to feel delight, he thanks (God) … and if he gets into trouble and shows resignation (and endures it patiently), there is a good for him in it."⁷¹ When the Prophet ﷺ prayed at night until his feet swelled and was reminded that his sins were forgiven, he answered, "Shouldn't I be a thankful slave of Allah?"⁷²

Gratitude also has a social form. "He who does not thank the people is not thankful to Allah" (Abū Dāwūd 4811 and al-Tirmidhī 1954, both graded ṣaḥīḥ).⁷³ And it can be very small: "Allah is pleased with His servant who says: Al-Hamdu lillah while taking a morsel of food and while drinking."⁷⁴ Al-Ghazālī put patience and gratitude together in a single book of the Iḥyāʾ, the thirty-second, among the virtues that save.⁷⁵ Al-Kāfī gives each its own chapter.⁵⁴

Humility and pride

"The ˹true˺ servants of the Most Compassionate are those who walk on the earth humbly, and when the foolish address them ˹improperly˺, they only respond with peace" (25:63).⁷⁶ Luqmān's advice to his son is the same picture in more detail: "do not turn your nose up to people, nor walk pridefully upon the earth … Be moderate in your pace. And lower your voice" (31:18–19).⁷⁷ And bluntly: "Surely you can neither crack the earth nor stretch to the height of the mountains" (17:37).⁷⁸

Muslim has the instruction directly: "Allah revealed to me that we should be humble amongst ourselves and none should show pride upon the others,"⁷⁹ with the promise that "no one humbles himself for the sake of Allah except that Allah raises his status."⁸⁰ The warning is equally direct: "He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise." A man asked whether liking fine clothes and shoes counted. The answer defined the vice precisely: "Verily, Allah is Graceful and He loves Grace. Pride is disdaining the truth (out of self-conceit) and contempt for the people."⁸¹ On this definition pride is a matter of how one treats the truth and other people, and nice clothes are not the issue.

The Qur'an removes the usual grounds for looking down on others: "Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you" (49:13).⁸² Since no one can see righteousness in another person's heart, no one is in a position to rank themselves above anyone. In the sermon describing the God-fearing in Nahj al-balāgha, compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī from sayings attributed to ʿAlī, the God-fearing are introduced like this: "Their speech is to the point, their dress is moderate and their gait is humble."⁸³

Mercy and gentleness

The Prophet ﷺ is described as sent "only as a mercy for the whole world" (21:107),⁸⁴ and the Qur'an credits his success with people partly to his gentleness: "It is out of Allah's mercy that you ˹O Prophet˺ have been lenient with them. Had you been cruel or hard-hearted, they would have certainly abandoned you" (3:159).⁸⁵

"He who is not merciful to others, will not be treated mercifully."⁸⁶ The occasion of one version is a domestic one. The Prophet ﷺ kissed his grandson al-Ḥasan, and al-Aqraʿ ibn Ḥābis said he had ten children and had never kissed one of them. The reply was that sentence.⁸⁷ Al-Tirmidhī adds: "The merciful are shown mercy by Ar-Rahman. Be merciful on the earth, and you will be shown mercy from Who is above the heavens" (ḥasan per the Darussalam editors).⁸⁸ The believers in their mutual mercy are "resembling one body," so that when one part aches the whole body shares the fever and sleeplessness.⁸⁹

Gentleness (rifq) is mercy in manner. "ʿĀʾisha, verily Allah is kind and He loves kindness and confers upon kindness which he does not confer upon severity."⁹⁰ "Kindness is not to be found in anything but that it adds to its beauty."⁹¹ When some men greeted him with "al-sāmu ʿalaykum," death be upon you, and ʿĀʾisha cursed them back, he told her to be calm, because God loves kindness "in all matters"; he had already answered them with "and upon you."⁹²

The scope extends to animals. A man who climbed down a well to bring water up in his shoe for a panting dog was forgiven for it, and when the Companions asked whether there is reward for kindness to animals, they were told, "there is a reward for serving any animate."⁹³ It is the same iḥsān in slaughter that the Muslim hadith described.⁶

Envy, suspicion and rancour

The last sūra but one ends by seeking refuge "from the evil of an envier when they envy" (113:5),⁹⁴ and the Qur'an asks of some opponents, "do they envy the people for Allah's bounties?" (4:54).⁹⁵ Envy (ḥasad) in the technical sense is wishing that someone else's blessing would be taken from them.

The sound hadith put envy in a list of habits that break communities apart: "Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the others' faults and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert … one another, and do not hate one another; and O Allah's worshipers! Be brothers."⁹⁶ Another version adds that a Muslim may not cut off his brother for more than three days.⁹⁷ The positive form is: "None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself."⁹⁸

Not every kind of wanting what another has is condemned. "Do not wish to be like anyone except in two cases": someone given wealth who spends it rightly, and someone given wisdom who acts on it and teaches it.⁹⁹ Scholars call this ghibṭa: wanting the same good for oneself without wanting it taken from the other person.

"Envy devours good deeds": the evidence

Modesty (ḥayāʾ)

Ḥayāʾ is hard to translate. Modesty, shyness, a sense of shame and self-respect are all part of it, and sunnah.com's translator gives up and lists several. The Prophet ﷺ passed a man telling his brother off for being too shy and said: "Leave him as Haya' is a part of faith."¹⁰³ Faith has "more than sixty branches," and ḥayāʾ is one of them.¹⁰⁴ It "does not bring anything except good."¹⁰⁵ Al-Tirmidhī pairs it with reticence as two branches of faith, against obscenity and loose talk as two branches of hypocrisy (ṣaḥīḥ per the Darussalam editors).¹⁰⁶

In the Qur'an the outward side of modesty is lowered gaze and guarded chastity, "purer for them" (24:30),¹⁰⁷ and the inward side is the "clothing" of righteousness, which "is the best clothing" (7:26).¹⁰⁸ The definition of vice quoted earlier, "what rankles in your heart and that you disapprove that people should come to know of it," depends on ḥayāʾ: the discomfort is a conscience doing its job.²⁸ The Twelver tradition has a chapter on it in al-Kāfī as well.⁵⁴

This section is about the trait, not about dress codes. The rulings on dress, and the arguments about them, are discussed in the Women in Islam post.

Justice

Justice (ʿadl) appears in 16:90 alongside iḥsān,⁴ and two verses set the standard high. "O believers! Stand firm for justice as witnesses for Allah even if it is against yourselves, your parents, or close relatives" (4:135).¹⁰⁹ "Do not let the hatred of a people lead you to injustice. Be just! That is closer to righteousness" (5:8).¹¹⁰ Fairness in measure, weight and speech is part of the same instruction: "Whenever you speak, maintain justice, even regarding a close relative" (6:152).¹¹¹

In a ḥadīth qudsī God says: "O My servants, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another,"¹¹² and "Oppression will be a darkness on the Day of Resurrection."¹¹³ When the Quraysh wanted a woman from the noble clan of Makhzūm spared punishment for theft, the Prophet ﷺ refused the intercession and told the people that the nations before them "went astray" because they let the noble thief go and punished the weak one, adding that if his own daughter Fāṭima stole, he would apply the punishment to her.¹¹⁴ The just, in Muslim's hadith, will be on thrones of light near God, and they are defined widely: "those who are fair and just in their rulings and towards their families and those who are under their authority."¹¹⁵ So justice applies at home and at work as well as in the courts.

How the traditions organised it

Everything above comes from the Qur'an and the hadith. Later scholars arranged that material into systems, and the systems differ. They are useful, but they belong to their authors, and each has its critics.

Al-Ghazālī: what destroys and what saves

Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) built the second half of his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn ("Revival of the Religious Sciences") around character. The first two of its four quarters cover worship and everyday customs. The third, the "Quarter of Perils" (rubʿ al-muhlikāt), opens with books on the heart and on disciplining the soul and then works through the vices: the banes of the tongue, anger, malice and envy, love of the world, greed, love of status and showing off, pride and vanity, and self-deception. The fourth, the "Quarter of Deliverance" (rubʿ al-munjiyāt), covers the virtues that save: repentance, patience and gratitude, fear and hope, poverty and abstinence, trust in God, love, sincerity and truthfulness, self-examination, contemplation, and remembering death.⁷⁵ Books 22 and 23 are available in English in T. J. Winter's translation.³⁴

The Iḥyāʾ has been read and copied for nine centuries, and it has also been heavily criticised. Its hadith are the main problem. Al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1404) wrote a takhrīj, a source-check, of its reports, and al-Zabīdī (d. 1791) later did so in greater detail in his commentary. Defenders say al-Ghazālī used weaker reports in the area of asceticism, where many hadith scholars tolerated them.¹¹⁶ Ibn Taymiyya, quoted in an Islam Q&A answer, said the book contains weak and even fabricated reports along with Sufi and philosophical errors, while acknowledging that "there is a great deal of good" in it. The same answer points readers to Ibn Qudāma's abridgement, Mukhtaṣar Minhāj al-qāṣidīn, instead.¹¹⁷ Anyone using the Iḥyāʾ for hadith should check each report against a grading.

Miskawayh and philosophical ethics

A century before al-Ghazālī, Miskawayh (d. 1030) wrote Tahdhīb al-akhlāq ("The Refinement of Character"). Fazlur Rahman describes it as the cornerstone of the philosophical tradition of ethics (ʿilm al-akhlāq). It draws on Plato, Aristotle and Galen, names four cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance and justice), and treats each virtue as a mean between an excess and a deficiency, which gives eight vices.³⁰ Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī's Persian Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī was based on it, particularly in its first discourse, though it goes beyond it in scope and arrangement.¹¹⁸¹¹⁹ Rahman also says the Iḥyāʾ's book on disciplining the soul is "strongly indebted" to Miskawayh.³⁰ On Rahman's account, al-Ghazālī accepted Miskawayh's version of Greek ethics because he judged that it did not contradict the Book and the Sunna. The Greek origin of the framework is plain, but most of the virtues it recommends are ones the texts also praise.

Ibn al-Qayyim: the stations of the path

Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), the student of Ibn Taymiyya, wrote Madārij al-sālikīn ("The Ranks of the Wayfarers") as a commentary on al-Harawī's Manāzil al-sāʾirīn, a Sufi manual of a hundred "stations" on the way to God. He reorganised it, corrected what he disagreed with, and drew heavily on his teacher.¹²⁰ One of the stations is character itself. There he opens a section with the line often quoted from him, "al-dīn kulluhu khuluq": religion is all character, so whoever surpasses you in character surpasses you in religion. He adds at once that the same is true of Sufism, citing an early Sufi who said Sufism is character. A few lines later he describes good character as standing on four pillars: patience, chastity (ʿiffa), courage and justice.¹²¹ His four overlap with Miskawayh's (temperance is ʿiffa in both, and courage and justice appear in both), but he describes each by the conduct it produces: patience, for example, carries a person to bear harm, hold back anger and act gently. He puts patience where the philosophers put wisdom.

Al-Māwardī: religion and the world

The Shāfiʿī judge al-Māwardī (972–1058), whose Ordinances of Government (al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya) became an influential statement of Muslim political theory,¹²⁷ also wrote Adab al-dunyā wa-l-dīn ("The Conduct of This World and of Religion"). It moves from reason and desire, through knowledge and religion, to worldly life and the discipline of the self.¹²² It belongs to the broad adab tradition that Rahman describes as "seriously ethical in purpose" while being literary and anecdotal in form.³⁰

Shia ethics

Twelver Shia ethics draws first on the reports of the Prophet ﷺ and the Imams. In al-Kāfī, the Book of Belief and Disbelief has chapters on patience, gratitude, good character, truthfulness and trust, ḥayāʾ, forgiveness, suppressing anger, forbearance and humility, and further chapters on the vices, among them anger, envy and backbiting.⁵⁴ Their reports carry the gradings of later Shia hadith scholars, and as shown above, some are graded strong and some weak, so they need the same care as Sunni collections.²⁹ Nahj al-balāgha's sermon to Hammām is the best-known Shia portrait of the God-fearing person.⁸³ In the seventeenth century Fayḍ al-Kāshānī produced al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, a Shiʿi recension of the Iḥyāʾ that replaced its Sunni hadith with Shia reports, added a chapter of Shia ethics and dropped the chapter on samāʿ. So al-Ghazālī's framework ended up shaping ethics on both sides.¹²³

Iḥsān, tazkiya and the Sufi question

The Qur'an's word for working on the soul is tazkiya, purification: "Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul" (91:9).³¹ Everyone agrees that this is commanded. The disagreement is about how it should be done. Sufi writers have often presented their discipline as the science of iḥsān, the third part of the Hadith of Jibrīl, with its own teachers, chains of initiation and methods. The North African Sufi Aḥmad Zarrūq (d. 1493) put it directly: the foundation of Sufism is the station of iḥsān, a line still quoted by Sufi teachers today.¹²⁸ Critics, among them many Salafi scholars, reply that iḥsān as the hadith defines it needs no separate path or order, and that some Sufi methods have no basis in the Sunna. The Saudi Standing Committee for fatwas, for example, holds that the truth lies in following the Qur'an and the sound Sunna and that the orders are not part of Islam.¹²⁹

I won't re-argue that here, because the Sufism and Salafism posts set out both cases with their evidence. For the purposes of this page, what the Hadith of Jibrīl and the hadith on character establish is common ground. The disagreement begins with the methods built on top of them.

From text to habit

The sound texts give a set of practices for improving character. I list them first, then the methods scholars have added, labelled as theirs.

From the Qur'an and sound hadith

• Ask for it. In the opening supplication of his night prayer the Prophet ﷺ asked: "guide me in the best of conduct for none but Thee guideth anyone (in) good conduct" (Muslim 771).¹²⁴
• Repair as you go. "Have Taqwa of Allah wherever you are, and follow an evil deed with a good one to wipe it out, and treat the people with good behavior" (al-Tirmidhī 1987, ḥasan per the Darussalam editors).¹²⁵
• Use the anger protocol. Seek refuge in God, then sit, then lie down.⁴⁹⁵⁰
• Keep the tongue on a short lead. Speak good or stay quiet; avoid saying anything about an absent person that they would dislike.⁵⁶⁶⁴
• Thank people as well as God.⁷³
• Use the rankling test. If you would not want people to know about something, treat it as a warning.²⁸
• Look to the model. The Qur'an names him as the example (33:21), and his household described a man who did not take revenge for himself and did not say "uff" to his servant.¹³¹⁴

Methods scholars added

• Training by repetition. Al-Ghazālī's book on disciplining the soul explains how good traits are acquired and the heart's sicknesses treated: by doing the acts of the trait you want, against the pull of the one you have, until they come easily. It rests on his view of character as a settled state of the soul that can be reshaped.³⁴³³
• Self-examination (muḥāsaba). A regular reckoning of one's own day. Al-Ghazālī gives it a book of the Iḥyāʾ, the thirty-eighth, "On Vigilance and Accounting".⁷⁵
• Working through opposite virtues. The philosophers' idea that each virtue is a mean between two vices, from Miskawayh, gives a way to diagnose excess as well as deficiency: courage between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between meanness and waste.³⁰

These methods are tools, and several of them are disputed in detail. None of them is required by the texts in the way the instruction not to backbite is.

Glossary

adab

Good manners and conduct; also a genre of literature on conduct.

akhlāq (sing. khuluq)

Character traits; character. ʿIlm al-akhlāq is the discipline of ethics.

anāh

Deliberateness, not acting in haste.

balāgh

A report that a collector says "reached" him, given without a chain.

birr

Righteousness, virtue; also dutiful kindness, especially to parents.

buhtān

Slander: saying something false about a person.

ḍaʿīf

Weak: a hadith whose chain or text fails the conditions of authenticity.

ghibṭa

Wanting the same blessing another has without wishing it removed from them.

ghība

Backbiting: saying something true about an absent person that they would dislike.

ḥasad

Envy: wishing that another's blessing would be taken from them.

ḥasan

Good: an acceptable grade of hadith, below ṣaḥīḥ.

ḥayāʾ

Modesty, shyness, a sense of shame and self-respect.

ḥilm

Forbearance: staying measured under provocation.

iḥsān

Doing well and doing good; in the Hadith of Jibrīl, worshipping God as if you see Him.

muḥāsaba

Self-examination, taking account of oneself.

muḥsin (pl. muḥsinūn)

One who practises iḥsān; "good-doer" in Khattab's translation.

ṣabr

Patience, steadfastness, endurance.

ṣaḥīḥ

Sound: the highest grade of hadith.

shukr

Gratitude.

takhrīj

Tracing and grading the hadith cited in a book.

taqwā

Mindfulness of God; guarding oneself against what displeases Him.

tazkiya

Purification of the soul (91:9).

uswa

Example, model (33:21).

This is a research article, not a fatwa. It sets out what the Qur'an and the hadith say about character and how scholars have organised that teaching, with the grading of each report. For personal questions, especially about anger, family conflict or a habit you are struggling with, please speak to a qualified scholar you trust, and where it fits, to a doctor or counsellor as well.

Sources

Qur'an quotations are Mustafa Khattab's The Clear Quran as shown on quran.com, with his ˹ ˺ brackets kept and his dashes given as commas; where his English word takes a side on a term this article discusses, the Arabic follows in square brackets. Hadith links go to sunnah.com. Reports in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ are accepted as authentic across Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade sunnah.com shows and who gave it. Shia reports are from thaqalayn.net with the gradings it shows from al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī.

1. Muslim 8a: the Hadith of Jibrīl, narrated by ʿUmar. sunnah.com/muslim:8a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
2. al-Bukhārī 50: the same scene, narrated by Abū Hurayra. sunnah.com/bukhari:50. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
3. al-Nawawī, al-Arbaʿūn no. 2: the Hadith of Jibrīl as the second of the Forty. sunnah.com/nawawi40:2. Al-Nawawī cites it from Muslim.
4. Qur'an 16:90 ("justice, grace [iḥsān]"), tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/16/90
5. Qur'an 2:195 ("do good … Allah certainly loves the good-doers"), tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/2/195
6. Muslim 1955a: "Allah has enjoined goodness [iḥsān] to everything". sunnah.com/muslim:1955a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
7. al-Bukhārī 6502: drawing near through the obligations, then the voluntary acts. sunnah.com/bukhari:6502. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
8. Qur'an 2:177, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/2/177
9. Qur'an 68:4, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/68/4
10. Qur'an 68:2, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/68/2
11. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm on 68:4 (abridged English translation on quran.com), citing Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid and others for "a great religion" and ʿĀʾisha for "his character was the Qur'an": quran.com/68:4/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir
12. Muslim 746a: ʿĀʾisha: "The character of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the Qur'an". sunnah.com/muslim:746a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
13. Qur'an 33:21, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/33/21
14. al-Bukhārī 6038: Anas: ten years without "uff". sunnah.com/bukhari:6038. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
15. Muslim 2328. sunnah.com/muslim:2328. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
16. al-Bukhārī 3560: he never took revenge for his own sake. sunnah.com/bukhari:3560. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
17. Mālik, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ Book 47, Hadith 8: "I was sent to perfect good character", reported by Mālik as something that "reached him" (balāgh), without a chain. sunnah.com/malik/47/8. sunnah.com shows no grade.
18. al-Bukhārī, al-Adab al-mufrad 273 (Book 14, Hadith 273), from Abū Hurayra, "I was sent to perfect righteous character": sunnah.com/adab/14 (the report is on that chapter page). sunnah.com shows no grade.
19. Gradings collected on al-Durar al-Saniyya for "innamā buʿithtu li-utammima ṣāliḥ al-akhlāq" (Aḥmad 8952; al-Bukhārī, al-Adab al-mufrad 273; al-Ḥākim; al-Bayhaqī): al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak (no. 4273 in the numbering al-Durar shows), "ṣaḥīḥ by Muslim's criteria"; al-Albānī, al-Silsila al-ṣaḥīḥa no. 45 (ṣaḥīḥ; headed with the wording makārim al-akhlāq, with ṣāliḥ noted as another narration), Ṣaḥīḥ al-Adab al-mufrad 207 (ṣaḥīḥ) and Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ 2349 (ṣaḥīḥ); Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, notes on the Musnad of Aḥmad, 8952 (ṣaḥīḥ); Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Tamhīd 24/333 (ṣaḥīḥ); al-Haythamī, Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid 9/18 ("its men are the men of the Ṣaḥīḥ"); Ibn Rajab, Laṭāʾif al-maʿārif 305, noting that Mālik gives it as a balāgh: dorar.net (search), accessed 13 and 14 October 2026.
20. al-Tirmidhī 2002: "Nothing is heavier on the believer's Scale … than good character". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2002. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
21. al-Tirmidhī 2003: good character and the rank of the one who fasts and prays. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2003. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
22. al-Tirmidhī 2004: "Taqwa of Allah, and good character". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2004. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
23. Abū Dāwūd 4682: "The most perfect believer in respect of faith is he who is best of them in manners". sunnah.com/abudawud:4682. Graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
24. al-Tirmidhī 1162. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1162. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
25. Abū Dāwūd 4798. sunnah.com/abudawud:4798. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
26. al-Tirmidhī 2018. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2018. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
27. al-Bukhārī 6035: "The best among you are the best in character". sunnah.com/bukhari:6035. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
28. Muslim 2553a: virtue (birr) and vice. sunnah.com/muslim:2553a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
29. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, Kitāb al-īmān wa-l-kufr, ch. 49 "Excellence in Moral Behaviors": thaqalayn.net/chapter/2/1/49. Hadith 1 (Imam al-Bāqir) graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī; hadith 2 (the Scale) weak "on the well-known view" per al-Majlisī; hadith 18 (Imam al-Ṣādiq) "ḥasan like ṣaḥīḥ" per al-Majlisī; gradings as shown on thaqalayn.
30. Fazlur Rahman, "Aḵlāq", Encyclopaedia Iranica I/7 (1984, updated 2018): iranicaonline.org
31. Qur'an 91:7–10, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/91/7-10
32. Muslim 2564c: "Allah does not look to your faces and your wealth but … to your heart and to your deeds". sunnah.com/muslim:2564c. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
33. Arifa Shamim, "Ethics of al-Ghazali", Iqbal Review (October 1974), on his definition of khuluq and his reply to those who say character cannot change: allamaiqbal.com
34. al-Ghazālī, On Disciplining the Soul and On Breaking the Two Desires (Books 22 and 23 of the Iḥyāʾ), tr. T. J. Winter (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society; 1995, reissued 2016): its.org.uk
35. Qur'an 9:119, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/9/119
36. Qur'an 33:70, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/33/70
37. al-Bukhārī 6094: truthfulness leads to righteousness. sunnah.com/bukhari:6094. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
38. Muslim 2607a. sunnah.com/muslim:2607a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
39. Qur'an 17:34 ("Honour ˹your˺ pledges"), tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/17/34
40. al-Bukhārī 33: the three signs of a hypocrite. sunnah.com/bukhari:33. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
41. al-Bukhārī 34: the four characteristics. sunnah.com/bukhari:34. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
42. Qur'an 61:2–3, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/61/2-3
43. al-Bukhārī 2079: honest buyer and seller. sunnah.com/bukhari:2079. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
44. Muslim 102: the wet grain hidden under the dry. sunnah.com/muslim:102. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
45. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, Kitāb al-īmān wa-l-kufr, ch. 51 "Truthfulness and Trust": thaqalayn.net/chapter/2/1/51. Hadith 1 graded ḥasan by al-Majlisī and ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī; hadith 2 ("do not allow their prayers or fasts mislead you") muwaththaq per al-Majlisī and ṣaḥīḥ per al-Behbūdī.
46. al-Bukhārī 6116: "Do not become angry". sunnah.com/bukhari:6116. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
47. Qur'an 3:134, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/3/134
48. al-Bukhārī 6114: "the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger". sunnah.com/bukhari:6114. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
49. al-Bukhārī 6115: seeking refuge from Satan in anger. sunnah.com/bukhari:6115. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
50. Abū Dāwūd 4782: sit down, then lie down. sunnah.com/abudawud:4782. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
51. Abū Dāwūd 4777: suppressing anger when able to act on it. sunnah.com/abudawud:4777. Graded ḥasan by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
52. Muslim 18a: to al-Ashajj of ʿAbd al-Qays: two qualities Allah loves (ḥilm and anāh). sunnah.com/muslim:18a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
53. Qur'an 41:34, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/41/34
54. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, chapter list of Kitāb al-īmān wa-l-kufr (ch. 47 Patience, 48 Gratitude, 49 Excellence in Moral Behaviors, 51 Truthfulness and Trust, 52 Bashfulness, 54 Suppressing one's Anger, 55 Forbearance, 59 Humbleness, 121 Anger, 122 Envy, 148 Backbiting): thaqalayn.net/book/2
55. al-Bukhārī 6474. sunnah.com/bukhari:6474. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
56. al-Bukhārī 6018: "talk what is good or keep quiet". sunnah.com/bukhari:6018. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
57. al-Bukhārī 10. sunnah.com/bukhari:10. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
58. al-Bukhārī 6477: a careless word. sunnah.com/bukhari:6477. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
59. al-Tirmidhī 2616: Muʿādh: "Restrain this". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2616. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
60. Qur'an 23:1–3, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/23/1-3
61. Qur'an 17:53, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/17/53
62. Qur'an 49:12, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/49/12
63. Qur'an 49:11, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/49/11
64. Muslim 2589: backbiting (ghība) and slander (buhtān) defined. sunnah.com/muslim:2589. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
65. al-Tirmidhī 2317: "leaving what does not concern him". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2317. Graded ḍaʿīf by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com. Al-Nawawī included it as no. 12 of his Forty and called it ḥasan: sunnah.com/nawawi40:12.
66. Qur'an 2:153–157, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/2/153-157
67. Qur'an 39:10, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/39/10
68. al-Bukhārī 1283: "patience is at the first stroke of a calamity". sunnah.com/bukhari:1283. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
69. al-Bukhārī 1469: "Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience". sunnah.com/bukhari:1469. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
70. Qur'an 14:7, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/14/7
71. Muslim 2999: "Strange are the ways of a believer". sunnah.com/muslim:2999. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
72. al-Bukhārī 4836: "Shouldn't I be a thankful slave". sunnah.com/bukhari:4836. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
73. Abū Dāwūd 4811: "He who does not thank the people is not thankful to Allah". sunnah.com/abudawud:4811. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com. Also al-Tirmidhī 1954, graded ṣaḥīḥ by the Darussalam editors: sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1954.
74. Muslim 2734a: praise over a morsel and a drink. sunnah.com/muslim:2734a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
75. The forty books of al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, listed by quarter (the Quarter of Perils, books 21–30, and the Quarter of Deliverance, books 31–40): ghazali.org
76. Qur'an 25:63, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/25/63
77. Qur'an 31:18–19, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/31/18-19
78. Qur'an 17:37, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/17/37
79. Muslim 2865d: "you should be humble". sunnah.com/muslim:2865d. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
80. Muslim 2588. sunnah.com/muslim:2588. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
81. Muslim 91a: pride defined. sunnah.com/muslim:91a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
82. Qur'an 49:13, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/49/13
83. al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (compiler), Nahj al-balāgha, Sermon 193 (Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ numbering), the sermon to Hammām describing the God-fearing: al-islam.org
84. Qur'an 21:107, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/21/107
85. Qur'an 3:159, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/3/159
86. al-Bukhārī 6013. sunnah.com/bukhari:6013. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
87. al-Bukhārī 5997: kissing al-Ḥasan. sunnah.com/bukhari:5997. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
88. al-Tirmidhī 1924: "The merciful are shown mercy by al-Raḥmān". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1924. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
89. al-Bukhārī 6011: the believers as one body. sunnah.com/bukhari:6011. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
90. Muslim 2593: "Allah is kind and He loves kindness". sunnah.com/muslim:2593. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
91. Muslim 2594a. sunnah.com/muslim:2594a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
92. al-Bukhārī 6024: ʿĀʾisha and the greeting "al-sāmu ʿalaykum". sunnah.com/bukhari:6024. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
93. al-Bukhārī 2363: the man who watered a thirsty dog. sunnah.com/bukhari:2363. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
94. Qur'an 113:5, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/113/5
95. Qur'an 4:54, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/4/54
96. al-Bukhārī 6064: suspicion, spying, envy. sunnah.com/bukhari:6064. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
97. al-Bukhārī 6065. sunnah.com/bukhari:6065. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
98. al-Bukhārī 13. sunnah.com/bukhari:13. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
99. al-Bukhārī 73: the two people one may wish to be like. sunnah.com/bukhari:73. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
100. Muslim 2563a. sunnah.com/muslim:2563a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
101. Abū Dāwūd 4903: "envy devours good deeds just as fire devours fuel". sunnah.com/abudawud:4903. Graded ḍaʿīf by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
102. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, Kitāb al-īmān wa-l-kufr, ch. 122 "Envy": thaqalayn.net/chapter/2/1/122. Hadith 1 (from Imam al-Bāqir, "envy consumes belief … just as fire consumes firewood"): graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī (Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl) and by al-Behbūdī (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī), as shown on thaqalayn; hadith 2 (from Imam al-Ṣādiq): majhūl per al-Majlisī, ṣaḥīḥ per al-Behbūdī.
103. al-Bukhārī 24: "Leave him as Haya' is a part of faith". sunnah.com/bukhari:24. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
104. al-Bukhārī 9: faith has more than sixty branches. sunnah.com/bukhari:9. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
105. al-Bukhārī 6117: "Haya' … does not bring anything except good". sunnah.com/bukhari:6117. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
106. al-Tirmidhī 2027. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2027. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
107. Qur'an 24:30, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/24/30
108. Qur'an 7:26, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/7/26
109. Qur'an 4:135, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/4/135
110. Qur'an 5:8, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/5/8
111. Qur'an 6:152, tr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran: quran.com/6/152
112. Muslim 2577a: "I have forbidden oppression for Myself". sunnah.com/muslim:2577a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
113. al-Bukhārī 2447: "Oppression will be a darkness on the Day of Resurrection". sunnah.com/bukhari:2447. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
114. al-Bukhārī 6788: the Makhzūmī woman. sunnah.com/bukhari:6788. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
115. Muslim 1827: the just on thrones of light. sunnah.com/muslim:1827. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
116. "Imam al-Ghazali and Hadith Sciences", ghazali.org, on al-ʿIrāqī's al-Mughnī ʿan ḥaml al-asfār and al-Zabīdī's Itḥāf al-sāda al-muttaqīn: ghazali.org/on-hadith
117. Islam Question & Answer (Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid), answer 27328, "The book Ihya' 'Uloom al-Deen" (30 April 2002), quoting Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā: islamqa.info/en/answers/27328
118. G. M. Wickens, "Aḵlāq-e nāṣerī", Encyclopaedia Iranica I/7 (1984, updated 2018), p. 725, on al-Ṭūsī's work as based, particularly in its First Discourse, on Miskawayh's Tahdhīb al-akhlāq: iranicaonline.org/articles/aklaq-e-naseri
119. C. E. Bosworth, "Meskawayh, Abu ʿAli Aḥmad", Encyclopaedia Iranica (2002): iranicaonline.org
120. Islam Question & Answer, answer 148316 (Arabic, 21 January 2011), on Madārij al-sālikīn as Ibn al-Qayyim's commentary on al-Harawī's Manāzil al-sāʾirīn: islamqa.info/ar/answers/148316
121. Ibn al-Qayyim, Madārij al-sālikīn, ed. Muḥammad al-Muʿtaṣim billāh al-Baghdādī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 3rd edn, 1996), vol. 2, p. 289 (start of the station of character, manzilat al-khuluq) and p. 294 (the section opening "al-dīn kulluhu khuluq", and the four pillars, al-ṣabr wa-l-ʿiffa wa-l-shajāʿa wa-l-ʿadl), page numbers as in the print edition: shamela.ws/book/8370/788. The same passages are quoted in "Aṣl ḥusn al-khuluq wa-sūʾ al-khuluq", islamweb.net/ar/article/215218.
122. al-Māwardī (972–1058), Adab al-dunyā wa-l-dīn, chapter outline (reason and desire, knowledge, religion, worldly life, the self): librivox.org (Arabic audio edition with summary)
123. Hamid Algar, "Fayż-e Kāšānī", Encyclopaedia Iranica IX/5 (1999, updated 2013), on al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ as a Shiʿi recension of the Iḥyāʾ: iranicaonline.org/articles/fayz-e-kasani
124. Muslim 771a: the opening supplication of the night prayer, "guide me in the best of conduct". sunnah.com/muslim:771a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
125. al-Tirmidhī 1987: "follow an evil deed with a good one … and treat the people with good behavior". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1987. Graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors, as shown on sunnah.com.
126. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n.d.), Kitāb riyāḍat al-nafs (Book 22, beginning at vol. 3, p. 48): vol. 3, p. 53, the definition of khuluq as "a firmly rooted state of the soul from which actions issue easily, without need of thought or deliberation"; vol. 3, pp. 55–56, his reply that if character could not change, counsel and discipline would be pointless, and that a falcon, a dog and a horse can all be trained: shamela.ws/book/9472/799 and /802 (page numbers as in the print edition).
127. "al-Māwardī", Encyclopaedia Britannica (Britannica Editors), on his Ordinances of Government as an influential statement of Muslim political theory: britannica.com/biography/al-Mawardi
128. Yusuf Weltch, "Was Sufism Recommended by the Prophet?", SeekersGuidance (30 October 2021), quoting Aḥmad Zarrūq that the foundation of Sufism is the station of iḥsān: islamqa.org (SeekersGuidance). As quoted there; not checked against Zarrūq's own text.
129. Islam Question & Answer, answer 20375, "Sufi tareeqahs and the ruling on joining them" (1 June 2009), quoting Ibn Taymiyya and the Standing Committee (al-Lajna al-Dāʾima): islamqa.info/en/answers/20375