HUMAN beings are by nature social creatures. As has often been said, “No man is an island, no man stands alone.” Thus, it is important to all of us not only to have family but also to have friends. In fact, it is well known that during some stages of our lives, especially during the teen years, our friends may be even more important to us than our family. Thus, our friends must be chosen wisely because they play an extremely important role in our lives. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “A person follows the religion of his friend, so be careful whom you befriend.” (Abu Dawood and Al-Tirmidhi) To call someone your ”friend”, let alone ”best friend”, is not an easy thing. A true friend is someone you can trust, who wishes the best for you and who loves to see you succeed as much as he himself wants success. If you have a friend, however, who is a bad Muslim then even if he has good intentions towards you, he is really an enemy not only to you but also to his own self for his actions will lead both of you to the Hellfire. Your friends play a very important role in shaping your character. For example, if you and your friends were playing soccer in the street, and the adhan (announcement of prayer) was called and none of them went to pray, it is quite likely that youtoo will join them in the sin of not praying on time. On the other hand, if they all went to pray, it is unlikely that you will delay your salah. Eventually, you will get used to praying on time even if you were in the middle of a game. Therefore, as you can see, your friends have a big effect on you – an effect which can be good or bad. Another example of the very dangerous and lasting effects of bad friends is smoking. We all know people who seem to be hopelessly addicted to this bad habit. Some of these people may even be our parents or other loved ones. When you ask them why they smoke, they almost always tell you they started when they were young as a result of the influence of their “friends”. Imagine having a friend who smokes. Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “The likeness of a righteous friend and an evil friend, is the likeness of a (musk) perfume seller and a blacksmith. As for the perfume seller, he may either bestow something on you, or you may purchase something from him, or you may benefit from his sweet smell. And as for the blacksmith, he may either burn your clothes, or you may be exposed to his awful smell.” (Sahih Bukhari and Muslim) If you have a friend who smokes, not only might he burn your clothes or get the foul smell of smoke on you, but healso will likely influence you to start smoking like him; and one day you could die of cancer. Another example of the importance of choosing the right friends is at school. Many of us try to be friends with students who are “popular” and “cool”. Unfortunately, many of these students have bad personalities due to the effect of some of the movies they watch, the websites they visit and other activities they do outside of school. On the other hand, students who are good Muslims, who pray all of their prayers, and who have good morals may not be considered “cool”. Which of these two groups, however, would be better friends, the group calling you to Paradise or the group calling you to the Hellfire? In closing, I would like to remind you of the hadith about the man who killed 99 people and then killed the scholar who told him he could not be forgiven. He then asked another scholar what he had to do to repent, and the other scholar said he could be forgiven but that he should move to a certain village where the people were righteous. This story has many lessons in it, not the least of which is the greatness of Allah’s Mercy. The lesson, however, I would like us to note is the extreme importance of the effect on us of the people who are around us. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said, in the Hereafter we shall be with the ones we love. Therefore, if the friends we love are heedless of Allah, we will be with the heedless in the Hereafter. But if we chose righteous people of good character for our friends, we will likely be with them in Paradise. I pray that you and I shall be among the fortunate people who choose good friends who are obedient to Allah and that we are rewarded with Paradise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Osama Yasin is a 13-year-old student at an international school in Riyadh