Haya - True Modesty

So to begin, what does haya mean? What is modesty or shamefulness or shyness? Haya, the Arabic word haya encompasses three different English concepts, right? There's modesty, there's shyness, and the third one is shame, right? Modesty, shyness, and shame.

Modesty is where you avoid things that are vulgar and you avoid things that are dishonorable.

Shyness is where you feel a sense of self-awareness and awkwardness when it comes to certain topics or interacting with the opposite gender.

And shame is where you feel guilty about your sins.

Now, modern society is trying to strip away all three of these characteristics from people, and they have succeeded in the West.

And they do it by demonizing these concepts, that modesty is seen as part of misogyny, and shyness is seen as something that prevents you from getting ahead in life, and shame is seen as a type of religious manipulation to manipulate people into obeying principles.

And so they try to get people to give up this concept because if you lose your modesty, your shyness, and your shame, if you lose your haya, you become capable of every sin.

There is nothing that stands between a person and every kind of sin if they don't have haya.

And you may say, what about taqwa? Taqwa and haya are interconnected.

There is no taqwa without haya.

There is no piety that is devoid of guilt and shame.

It's like built into it.

Part of taqwa is that you feel bad about your sins and you don't want people to know about them, right? Haya is built into taqwa.

So to begin, what does haya mean? What is modesty or shamefulness or shyness? Haya, the Arabic word haya encompasses three different English concepts, right? There's modesty, there's shyness, and the third one is shame, right? Modesty, shyness, and shame.

Modesty is where you avoid things that are vulgar and you avoid things that are dishonorable.

Shyness is where you feel a sense of self-awareness and awkwardness when it comes to certain topics or interacting with the opposite gender.

And shame is where you feel guilty about your sins.

Now, modern society is trying to strip away all three of these characteristics from people, and they have succeeded in the West.

And they do it by demonizing these concepts, that modesty is seen as part of misogyny, and shyness is seen as something that prevents you from getting ahead in life, and shame is seen as a type of religious manipulation to manipulate people into obeying principles.

And so they try to get people to give up this concept because if you lose your modesty, your shyness, and your shame, if you lose your haya, you become capable of every sin.

There is nothing that stands between a person and every kind of sin if they don't have haya.

And you may say, what about taqwa? Taqwa and haya are interconnected.

There is no taqwa without haya.

There is no piety that is devoid of guilt and shame.

It's like built into it.

Part of taqwa is that you feel bad about your sins and you don't want people to know about them, right? Haya is built into taqwa.