Nawawi Hadith 34: Hand, Tongue, Heart

Part One: Three Levels, One Obligation

Brothers,

Today’s khutbah is based on the 34th hadith in Imam Nawawi’s 40 Hadith:

On the authority of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, 'Whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand. If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart, and that is the weakest of faith.' (Muslim)

This hadith is related by Imam Muslim, and it stands as one of the clearest statements in all of Islam on the believer’s duty toward wrong when he encounters it. Notice that the Prophet ﷺ does not present this as an option among many. He presents it as a graded ladder. Every believer stands somewhere on this ladder. No believer is permitted to step entirely off it.

Part 1: Faith Is Not Only What You Believe, It Is What You Do About What You See

The Prophet ﷺ measures faith here not by what a man recites with his tongue in private, but by his reaction to evil in front of him. Allah describes this community by exactly this quality.

You are the best nation produced ˹as an example˺ for mankind. You enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah. (Aal-i-Imraan, 3:110)

Being “the best nation” is not a title given automatically. It is earned through action: enjoining right, forbidding wrong, and believing. Remove the middle piece, and the description no longer applies.

Part 2: The First Level, the Hand

The highest level of response is to change the evil directly, by hand, meaning by one’s own capacity and position to actually stop it. This level belongs to those who hold real authority to act: a father in his home, a person in a position of responsibility over what is happening in front of him, someone with the standing to physically halt what is occurring without causing a worse harm in the process.

The believers, men and women, are allies of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. (At-Tawba, 9:71)

This partnership described in the verse is mutual. It is not one class of Muslims watching over another. Every believer, within the scope of his own authority and ability, carries this responsibility toward the wrong he witnesses.

Part 3: The Second Level, the Tongue

Where a believer lacks the standing or the ability to physically stop a wrong, the next level is his voice: to speak against it, to advise, to warn, to refuse to stay silent even when he cannot act with his hand.

On the authority of Tamim al-Dari (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet ﷺ said: 'The deen is naseehah (sincere advice).' We said, 'To whom?' He said, 'To Allah, to His Book, to His Messenger, to the leaders of the Muslims, and to their common folk.' (Muslim)

Sincere advice, given with wisdom and at the right time, is not weakness. It is the second rung of this ladder, available to nearly everyone in nearly every situation.

Part 4: The Third Level, the Heart

If a believer can neither act nor speak, whether from lack of ability, lack of safety, or lack of standing, the final level remains, and it can never be removed from any believer under any circumstance: to hate the evil in his heart, to refuse to accept it as normal, to refuse to participate in it even silently.

The Prophet ﷺ called this “the weakest of faith,” not because it is optional, but because it is the floor beneath which faith cannot fall. A man who sees wrong and feels nothing, who is neither disturbed nor troubled, has a serious problem in his heart, regardless of what his hand or tongue ever do.

Part 5: The Parable of the Ship

The Prophet ﷺ gave us a parable that shows why this obligation exists, why silence in the face of wrong is never truly neutral:

The example of the one who upholds Allah's limits and the one who transgresses them is like people who drew lots for seats on a ship. Some of them got the upper deck, and some the lower. Those in the lower deck, when they needed water, had to pass by the people above them, so they said, 'Let us make a hole in our share of the ship and not harm those above us.' If the people above left them to do what they wanted, all of them would be destroyed. But if they stopped them, they would all be saved. (Bukhari)

This parable answers a question every believer eventually asks: why is this evil my problem? Because the ship does not sink selectively. A hole made by one man drowns every passenger aboard, whether he is on the deck causing it or the deck ignorant of it.

Those who disbelieved among the Children of Israel were cursed by the tongue of Dawud and of Isa, son of Maryam. That was because they disobeyed and used to transgress. They did not forbid one another from the wrongdoing they committed. How evil was that which they used to do. (Al-Maaida, 5:78-79)

The curse in this verse did not fall only on those who committed the wrong. It fell on a community that watched it happen and said nothing.

Part Two: Living This Ladder Where You Stand

Brothers,

Part 6: Know Which Level Is Yours

Not every man stands on the same rung at every moment. A father has authority over his household that a stranger does not. A man with a position of responsibility has scope a bystander does not. This hadith does not ask you to seize a level that is not yours. It asks you to fully occupy the level that is.

Changing evil by hand is obligatory upon those who possess the ability and authority to do so without causing a greater harm. Where that is not possible, the obligation moves to the tongue, and where even that is not possible, it settles finally upon the heart, from which it can never be lifted. (Imam al-Nawawi, Sharh Sahih Muslim)

This is critical: the hand level is never a license for a private individual to take matters into his own hands through force wherever he sees fit. A response by hand that produces a worse outcome, more harm, more chaos, more injustice, is not what the Prophet ﷺ intended. Recall the previous hadith of this collection: there is to be no harm and no reciprocating harm. This hadith and that one stand together, not in tension.

Part 7: The Hand You Actually Have Inside These Walls

Brothers, in this environment, your scope for the “hand” level looks different than it did in the free world, and that matters greatly. You are not in a position of authority here. Taking wrong into your own hands physically, in this setting, almost always produces more harm than the wrong itself, a fight, a write-up, additional time, a cycle of retaliation this collection has already warned you against. That is not the “hand” this hadith calls for.

Your hand, here, looks like this: refusing to participate when wrong is happening around you. Removing yourself from a situation rather than joining it. Reporting serious wrongdoing through the legitimate channels available to you, staff, chaplain, the proper process, which is itself a form of acting with whatever authority is actually available to you in this place. Do not confuse restraint here with the “weakest of faith.” Restraint that avoids a greater harm while still refusing to accept the wrong is wisdom, not cowardice.

Your tongue remains fully available to you regardless of your position: speak to a brother sliding toward wrong, quietly, privately, with concern rather than condemnation. Many men here have been turned back from a bad decision by one brother who cared enough to say something before it happened, not after.

And your heart is always, always available to you, no matter how confined your circumstances become. No wall built by anyone can reach into your heart and force it to accept evil as normal. Guard that last line. It is the one line no authority on earth can take from you.

This is, in the end, the mercy hidden inside a hadith that sounds at first like a demand. The Prophet ﷺ did not leave any believer without a level to stand on, regardless of his strength, his position, or his freedom. Whatever has been taken from you here, your movement, your choices, your voice in many rooms, this final level was never on the list of things that can be confiscated.

Part 8: The Danger of a Comfortable Heart

The greatest danger of this hadith is not failing at the hand or the tongue. It is failing at the heart, growing so used to wrong around you that it no longer disturbs you at all. Ibn Mas’ud, a companion of the Prophet ﷺ, described the difference between a believer and a heedless man in exactly these terms:

The believer sees his sins as though he were sitting beneath a mountain, fearing it might fall on him, while the wicked man sees his sins like a fly that lands on his nose. (Ibn Mas'ud, Bukhari)

Do not let the wrong around you become a fly you barely notice. Let it remain a mountain, even when you can do nothing but disapprove of it in your heart.

O Allah, give us the courage to change wrong with our hand where we truly have the standing to do so.

O Allah, give us the wisdom to speak against wrong where our hand cannot reach.

O Allah, never let our hearts grow comfortable with what displeases You, even when our hand and tongue are silenced.

O Allah, protect us from mistaking recklessness for the level of the hand.

O Allah, protect us from mistaking silence for the level of the heart.

O Allah, make us people who refuse to normalize what is wrong around us.

O Allah, keep our faith from ever falling beneath its weakest floor.

O Allah, grant this place brothers who correct each other with mercy, not with harm.