Be servants of Allah, as brothers

Where this hadith comes from

It is narrated by Abu Hurayrah (ra) and collected by Imam Muslim (no. 2564), graded sahih. An-Nawawi placed it among his forty because it gathers, in a few lines, the heart-diseases that fracture a community and the single cure for all of them: that we are servants of one Lord, and brothers.

Its weight in the tradition shows in how far it travels: the same Prophetic words (do not envy, do not hate, do not turn away, be servants of Allah as brothers) are woven by Ibn Kathir directly into his commentary on Surah al-Hujurat, the chapter that legislates the manners of the believing community. The hadith and the sura are reading each other.

The key words

What it means, line by line

He begins with a chain of prohibitions, each a disease of the heart before it is an act: envy (resenting another's good), inflating prices to harm a buyer, hatred, turning away, and undercutting a brother's sale. Then the cure, set against all of them at once: be servants of Allah, brothers. One Master, so His servants are kin, not rivals.

He defines that brotherhood by what it refuses: a Muslim does not wrong his brother, does not abandon him, does not lie to him, does not despise him. Then he points to his chest three times: taqwa is here. Real piety is the state of the heart, not the look. And it is enough evil for a person to hold his brother in contempt.

He closes by declaring three things sacred and inviolable between believers: blood, wealth, and honour. We accept the first two easily; he places honour beside them. So the verse that forbids the very acts that grow from contempt, mockery, suspicion, and backbiting, sits exactly here:

The diseases that divide

Look at what the Prophet ﷺ forbids: envy, hatred, turning away, undercutting. These are heart-diseases first and social diseases second. They begin quietly, inside, and then leak out into how we treat each other, until a community that should feel like one body feels like rivals in a marketplace.

Against all of them he sets a single cure: be brothers, servants of one Lord. The frame is everything. If we are servants of the same Allah, then another believer's good is not my loss, and tearing him down does not raise me. The brotherhood reframes the whole relationship from competition to kinship.

Taqwa is in the heart

Then the Prophet ﷺ points to his chest, three times: taqwa is here. He is locating real piety not in appearances but in the heart, the same heart that either harbours these diseases or is cleansed of them. You can look religious and still be eaten by envy and contempt. Allah looks past the look, to the chest.

And he gives a sharp diagnostic line: it is enough evil for a person to despise his fellow Muslim. To hold another believer in contempt is not a small flaw; it is, on its own, enough wrong to weigh against you. The Qur'an forbids the very acts that grow from such contempt, mockery and backbiting:

The sanctity of a Muslim

The Prophet ﷺ ends with a line that should make us handle one another with care: the whole of a Muslim is sacred to another Muslim, his blood, his wealth, and his honour. Three things declared inviolable. We readily accept that we may not shed a believer's blood or steal his wealth, but the Prophet ﷺ places his honour in the very same sacred category.

That means backbiting, mockery, exposing faults, and casual contempt are not minor social slips; they are violations of something Allah made sacred, as real in their way as theft. To guard a believer's reputation as you would guard his life and property is to honour what this hadith makes holy.