Once, a group of people came to Madinah, looking very poor and without sufficient clothing. In fact, they had taken sheets and cut holes in them for their necks and pulled them over and tied them around their waists. These people were from the tribe of Mudar, and when the prophet (SAW) their condition and how poor and hungry they were, migrating for the sake of Islam; he started encouraging people to give charity so that money could reach these people and they could be looked after. So, people started giving whatever bit they had. They started giving coins or clothing, and things were slowly coming in. One sahabi comes and brings a whole bag of money and gives it as charity. When people saw him donating so generously, a lot of people started donating, and they started giving more and more and more, and it was so much that it was enough for the whole tribe. The prophet (SAW) noticed that one sahabi became the catalyst for everyone to start spending so generously. He became the cause, the trigger. So, the prophet (SAW) said, “Anyone who sets a good example and practice in Islam gets his own reward and the reward of all of those that follow them.” For example, in this case, this person donated, so he gave a good amount and got the reward for that; and, everyone who saw them and donated will get their own reward, but he will also get the reward. In other words, Allah (SWT) matches the reward of every single person who follows and gives it to him as well. So, if that person, for example, got 1000 hasanat, Allah (SWT) matches it and gives it to him as well. To whom? The one who sets the example for it. Then the next one comes along and gets 2000 hasanat. The donator receives it and so does the one who set the example. The one who sets the example gets his reward and the reward of all of the people, and because he motivated others, he gets the reward, and the rewards of even millions or billions of hasanat because Allah (SWT) gives without any account. If he had done his own act by himself, he would have gotten a reward for it; but the one who becomes a motivation for others gets all of the rewards that they got, and that is an amount that they could not have possibly gotten by himself.
On the other hand, he also said, “Anyone who sets a bad example for others gets his own sin, but because he becomes an example for others to do the same, they get the sins of anyone who follows him.” This person is accumulating the sins of all of the people who are committing this same sin. Who could possibly carry the burden of other people’s sins? We cannot even carry the burden of our own sins. It is frightening enough to think that we will have to stand in front of Allah (SWT) to account for all of our sins and answer for all of our mistakes; how could we possibly answer the mistakes of so many people? What this means is definite punishment because there is no way we can account for this. Imagine a person does a few good deeds by themselves, but they set a bad example, and so many people follow this example that the sins that accumulated wash away and crush the good deeds that they had. That is why the prophet (SAW) has told us, “Anyone who commits murder in the world, the son of Adam, Qabil, the first murderer of the world, gets his share of that sin.” Why? Because he set the example for murder. Because of him, murder is also an extreme for any problems that mankind has and he set that example for us, and because of this, he gets a share of every single murder until the Day of Judgement.
So, as we move around and come and go, we have many opportunities to set a good example; sometimes even by the way we are walking; where we are walking and how we are walking. When we choose to come to the Musallah, how early or late, how we choose to walk in, how we choose to leave, what we do when we assemble, what we do when we step outside; there are always people that are watching us who will learn something from us. Now, the choice is ours – whether we become a source of them learning something good or learning something bad. Those of us who have been here for a longer period of time, we will either set a good example for them and they will learn good habits, or we will set a bad example and we will have to carry the burden of not only what we have done, but also what they have done as well. And if they pass it on to someone else that comes along, they will have to carry that burden, but we will still ultimately be responsible. It is a chain reaction. We have to think about being a good example so that when people look at us, people will learn something good, like the generous sahabi who inspired everyone to give for the sake of Allah (SWT). May Allah (SWT) make us like that so that whatever we are doing, we are inspiring someone to do something good, so that on the Day of Judgement, we come with our good deeds and also the good deeds of so many other people.
