The Currency Of Sincerity — On the Decoupling of Expression and Reality
Introduction
I heard ash-shaykh Sulaymān ar-Ruḥaylī note that some use the expression “I love you for the sake of Allāh” loosely, having no reason warranting such love. He called this a mistake.
Indeed, it is a mistake.
Love for the sake of Allāh is not created by saying the words. Words merely describe a reality that already exists.
The sheikh mentioned that this reality must be rooted in the beloved’s righteousness, his adherence to the Sunnah, and his defense of the truth.
This is evident in the statement itself: “I love you for the sake of Allah” means I love you because you obey Allah; obeying Allah means aligning with the truth.
Saying the words merely expresses that, as a way to inform the other person.
If that reality does not exist, and the expression is made anyway, then what will it stand on? What will it be anchored to?
The language will drift away from reality, like a ship drifting away from the harbor. The sailors assumed the ship floating next to the harbor was enough.
The sheikh felt the need to make this remark because it has become so common. It is a problem that has plagued our social relationships.
The Manifestation of This Inflation
This dilution has spread across words, words that once carried immense gravity, but the plague exposed them to over-circulation until their value faded away.
You could smell a faint hint of what it was supposed to indicate, but not really.
Someone could praise you, but it wouldn’t validate what was praised, and so you wonder, why? Is it me? Am I greedy? Do I need them to say more?
It feels like someone holding their hand to shake yours, but then slapping it without that firm hold and shake. There was contact, but the point of shaking hands was to physically trigger a sense of trust and safety. It signals: “I could have physical contact with this person and it wouldn’t harm me”. That hand slap does not offer that.
Likewise, someone could claim to love you, and you’d be surprised, and even weirded out. You barely know them, and you have no shared history, yet they break the boundaries between strangers with such a heavy statement…
It feels intrusive because it forces undeserved intimacy and an implicit obligation to fulfill it.
You could also be a brother to anyone. Just say the words. “Oh! Come on! You are my brother!“.
You can spend language freely and not worry about providing actual value. The shiny wrapper is enough.
Save the vocabulary; purchasing power is not our concern.
That’s how we got into this situation where we’re dealing with expressions decoupled from their substance; expressions that are no longer testimonies, just decor.
“Why?” you might ask; “why would we do this?”
Because we like immediate results.
We can’t wait or make the effort to realize those realities, and so we reach for the highest and heaviest language available to simulate them.
Think of how it is easier to get a flavored syrup instead of real fruits.
Intimacy, for example, is forged through trial or time, and both are expensive.
You might think, “Why not be a little bit patient so we could get the real substance?”, and that is very reasonable for someone with a sense of delayed gratification.
From this angle, it makes sense why we attempt to substitute the labor of building the results with the immediate gratification of declaring them.
Yes, we get satisfaction by merely stating that, and realizing this should make it easier to understand a lot of behavior that might seem out of place.
And, as you guessed, the inevitable result of this over-printing is the opposite of the sought deep connection: we instead get a profound, unvoiced skepticism.
“I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not feeling it, and that makes me feel uncomfortable”, said our subconscious.
Can we blame anyone who hesitates to trust such language?
The Precision of the Righteous Predecessors
You guessed it: this language inflation is the complete opposite of the methodology of early generations.
Let’s look at, for example, the encounter between Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī and Muʿāth bnu Jabal:
Abū Idrīs said to Muʿāth: “Wallāhi, I love you for the sake of Allāh”.
Muʿāth did not return the words, and instead, he asked: “For Allāh’s sake?”
That’s an investigation.
Abū Idrīs answered: “For Allāh’s sake”.
Muʿāth asked a second time: “For Allāh’s sake?”
Abū Idrīs repeated: “For Allāh’s sake”.
Muʿāth asked a third time: “For Allāh’s sake?”
Abū Idrīs answered: “For Allāh’s sake”.
And look, even Abū Idrīs did not object, nor did he take that as a rejection; he simply answered the great Companion.
Only then did Muʿāth take hold of his garment, pull him close, and say: “Rejoice—for I heard the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ say: Allāh tabāraka wa taʿālā said: ‘My love is due to those who love one another in Me, who sit together in Me, who visit one another in Me, and who give to one another in Me’”.
He asked him three times before offering him the acceptance and the glad tidings.
If you do that today, you will be seen as cold and lacking manners. How dare you not offer the immediate gratification?
But Muʿāth understood that “I love you for the sake of Allāh” is not a social greeting, but a testimony, and he knew that a testimony requires the one declaring it to know what it takes.
“Are you sure about what you just said?!”
That’s the precision of the early generations.
And, like everyone, we managed to reverse this part of the methodology successfully. We speak the words, then assume the substance somehow is auto-generated.
We then act surprised when real circumstances expose this naivety.
The fragmentation of our social circles should not be a mystery, then.
Verbal Softness
This social fragmentation becomes an obvious problem, because when language no longer guarantees reality, trust vanishes.
But people still need a way to judge who is safe and who is virtuous, and as always, we find the quickest way to achieve that.
The shortcut we made here is that we distorted adab and allowed the new version to settle into our consciousness. A version that reduces character entirely to a style of communication: the wrapper.
The warmer you sound, the more adab you have.
“Why is that so bad?” You might ask. “Don’t we all like those traits?”
We do, but again, there is substance, and there are signs of that substance.
Here, the softness of speech is not the substance, because a person could speak gently while being passive-aggressive, manipulative, or outright unjust.
On the other hand, a person could speak plainly while possessing excellent character.
This means it is possible to separate adab from surface-level niceties.
Now let’s connect the two facts:
We stripped language from substance.
We made language the measure of adab.
Can you see where this is going?
This distortion leads to a distortion elsewhere:
An entire category of sincere people gets misread and wronged.
An entire category of insincere people gets passed off as virtuous.
Injustice wrapped in social niceties successfully achieved.
Temperament & Character
Do I mean we could attach substance back to language, and then use warmth as a measure of adab?
Nope, that’s still wrong.
Many people unconsciously treat their preferred temperament as the standard, and yes, that is because it is easier than thinking about it.
That results in misjudging those with a different temperament; instead of thinking they are just different, they conclude they are deficient.
And that’s how someone reserved becomes a case study and something to be fixed.
To fix this flawed worldview, we first need to make two concepts distinct:
Temperament: which describes how a person naturally expresses himself.
Character: which describes whether he is truthful, sincere, trustworthy, fair, loyal, and so on.
These two overlap, but they are not the same.
Notice how a cheerful person could be toxic, obnoxious, and disturbing, and notice how a reserved person can have excellent character, be a source of relief, clarity, and calmness.
The perfect example of how temperament varies is the society of the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ; they were famously not a single temperamental type:
ʿUmar bnu al-Khaṭṭāb was known for his directness, his sharpness, and his formidable presence.
Abū Bakr was quieter and softer.
ʿUthmān was famously shy.
Abū Tharr was frank in his disposition.
Each was distinct, but the Prophet ﷺ did not instruct any of them to converge on a single emotional style.
Selective Expression
Once warmth is mistaken for the substance of adab, it follows naturally that visibility becomes the sole metric of character. If it is noticeable, you are mannered; if it dips, you lack manners.
To be considered virtuous within this framework, one must remain in a state of constant performance.
You can imagine how exhausting that is. You can also imagine how it is easy to resort to hollow personas to keep up with this.
Now, let’s look at another example where the early generations demonstrated immense social intelligence, awareness, and real bonding.
ʿUmar bnu al-Khaṭṭāb once sought entry to see the Prophet ﷺ. He asked a servant to seek permission for him. The servant went in, spoke to the Prophet ﷺ, and returned to inform ʿUmar that the Prophet ﷺ had remained silent.
He got no answer. Sit with that for a few moments. The Prophet ﷺ was asked, and he said nothing.
Imagine someone doing that today.
Continuing:
ʿUmar did not interpret this silence as an insult or a personal rejection; he simply withdrew and sat near the pulpit.
How was he able to accept that? He understood the implicit message: “Excuse me, ʿUmar, but I’m not feeling like socializing, as I have things on my mind”.
Let’s continue:
Driven by concern, ʿUmar returned a second time, only for the exact same silence to occur. He sat down again.
He then tried once more, and finally, he was granted permission.
Upon entering, ʿUmar found the Prophet ﷺ lying on a bare reed mat that left deep impressions on his side, leaning against a leather pillow stuffed with harsh palm fiber.
ʿUmar greeted him and then asked whether he, ﷺ, had divorced his wives. The Prophet ﷺ raised his eyes and answered with a single word: “No”.
Really? Three attempts, and then a single word? How come?
Their bond was doing the heavy lifting, completely independent of verbal validation. They didn’t need words.
ʿUmar was turned away twice without receiving it as a slight or a sign of fractured brotherhood.
And then, when he finally received that one-word response, he still did not treat the brevity as a problem. Instead, he read the state of the room, calibrated his approach with light conversation and jokes to ease the tension, and waited for the warmth to emerge naturally and unforced.
What a beautiful exchange.
Prophetic adab, therefore, is not constant emotional warmth broadcast. That’s just unreasonable and shows a lack of depth.
Instead, the standard is selective, considered, and grounded expression.
It’s all about what’s actually there, in reality, not what is stated.
Distance, Closeness, And the Early Generations
Al-imām al-Khaṭṭābī, in his book al-ʿUzlah (Seclusion), narrates a series of accounts that are a delight to anyone wishing to recalibrate their assumption about what closeness between brothers should look like.
For example, Shabīb bnu Shaybah said: “Among my brothers are those who visit me only once a year — these are the ones I take and count upon in life and death. And among them are those who visit me every day, who kiss me and whom I kiss — and if I could replace my kiss with a bite, I would bite them”.
A full year of physical absence, and yet they remained true brothers. In contrast: daily meetings, but no bond.
The frequency of contact meant nothing for the weight of the bond.
ʿAbdu ar-Raḥmān bnu Mahdī and Yaḥyā bnu Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān were known for their deep bond, yet a year would pass without a single face-to-face meeting between them. When one of them was asked about this, he said: “When hearts are close, physical distance does no harm”.
And the poet says:
* I saw two intimate friends parting in virtue
* when hearts had settled upon sincere affection.
* Only the one suspicious of his own love
* keeps visiting constantly.
Bishr bnu al-Ḥārith said: “The most beloved of my brothers to me is the one who neither sees me nor do I see him”.
And when Sufyān ath-Thawrī was asked to point out a man whose companionship was worth seeking, he replied: “That is something that cannot be found”.
Compare that with the instant love and brotherhood we have today.
Were these men cold or indifferent?
Of course not; they just understood that the reality of a deep bond is in the heart and manifests in concrete action when it truly matters. It is not about the superficial frequency of visits, check-ins, or verbal declarations.
The poet said:
* My brother is not the one who befriends me with his tongue
* but the one who stands with me in calamities.* Whose wealth is mine when I am destitute,
* and mine is his when time presses hard upon him.* Do not praise a companion during ease
* for brothers often turn away when disasters come.
Emotional Seriousness
Since we consider words to be free and costless, we find it easy to speak freely and abundantly.
In contrast, those scarce with words are that way because they sense their weight.
Concepts like praise, love, and loyalty are serious to them; they carry immense gravity, and so, naturally, these individuals don’t spend high-value words on small realities.
And since we live in times where deep realities are scarce, their output simply matches that.
It’s as if they accepted reality, and the highly expressive type did not.
What Brotherhood Actually Requires
As already mentioned, today we have instant “brotherhood”, and we use that word loosely, completely detached from its weight, because there is none, and so it is fragile.
We can feel that, and we know that promises no longer mean anything, so we need contracts, and a lot of bureaucracy.
To be a brother today, you get into a contract, but you don’t sign it, and you’re not aware of it.
It dictates that you perform constantly so that your “brotherhood” is visible enough and the other person feels reassured.
If that warmth ever dips, and even for reasons completely unrelated to the bond itself, then you’ve breached the contract, and you will be summoned to someone’s moral courtroom, and you will be subject to “rectification”.
What is brotherhood, then?
Brotherhood is simply the result of shared history, and that takes time and real-life tests.
How warm someone’s words are means nothing if the bond itself has yet to develop.
The Penalty of Prematurity
مَنْ تَعَجَّلَ شَيْئًا قَبْلَ أَوَانِهِ عُوقِبَ بِحِرْمَانِهِ.
Whoever rushes a thing before its proper time is punished by being deprived of it.
Today, we continually violate this principle by seeking instant intimacy.
That’s like expecting the fruit right after planting the seed.
The fruit here requires a slow accumulation of shared memories and events, where each party gets to witness how the other acts and reacts.
When we bypass this process, we lose the proofs of reliability, and instead get a performative wrapper.
Instead of the tranquility of settled evidence, we now need an exhausting loop of mutual reassurance.
It is now clear that selectiveness aligns perfectly with the slow progression of growth.
Conclusion
Words are not realities; they are merely signs pointing toward them.
That’s a rule of thumb: when understood, it is easy to allow silence to settle.
This phenomenon is merely one manifestation of the shallowness of the times we live in, where knowing the vocabulary is mistaken for mastering the framework.
In a time when language has lost its value, those who spend their words carefully are a reference to how far down the rabbit hole we are.
هذا، والله أعلم
وصلى الله على نبينا محمد