1331 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “al-ḥayāʾ (modesty) is part of faith.” Agreed upon. (1)

Lexical notes:
– al-ḥayāʾ: Linguistically, it is the change of countenance and sense of embarrassment that overtakes a person for fear of being blamed. In the Sharʿī usage it is a moral quality that impels one to avoid what is vile and restrains one from neglecting the rights of those who are entitled to them.

Lessons derived from the ḥadīth:
1 – Modesty is a noble trait that drives a person to shun the reprehensible and keeps him from falling short in fulfilling others’ rights, lest he be censured for committing evil or for neglecting what is obligatory. Although modesty is instinctive, it still requires cultivation and development to reach perfection.

2 – Its being part of faith means that, through his modesty, a person abandons sins and carries out his obligations. The same is true of faith in Allah: when the heart is filled with it, it restrains its owner from sin and urges him toward duties. Thus modesty occupies the same position as faith with respect to its effect and benefit.

3 – Modesty does not prevent one from seeking understanding of the religion or from asking about matters that must be asked. The “modesty” that keeps a person from condemning wrongdoing and the like is not the Sharʿī modesty that constitutes a branch of faith; rather, it is weakness, humiliation, and disgrace, and its possessor is not praiseworthy.

4 – As mentioned earlier, modesty is both innate and acquired. Al-Qurṭubī said: The Prophet ﷺ combined within himself both kinds of modesty—the inborn and the cultivated.