al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, Sulaymān al-Khawwāṣ, Bishr al-Ḥāfī, and others of the same persuasion.
Those who regarded social interaction as superior included: Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, al-Shaʿbī, Ibn Abī Laylā, Shurayḥ, Shurayk, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and many more.
The first group—who recommended seclusion—cited several proofs:
- The words of Abraham, peace be upon him: “I shall withdraw from you and from whatever you invoke apart from Allah, and I will call upon my Lord” (Maryam 48).
- The verse: “So when he had withdrawn from them and from what they worshipped besides Allah, We granted him Isaac and Jacob, and We made each of them a prophet” (Maryam 49).
- The ḥadith recorded by al-Bukhārī (6494) and Muslim (1888) from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: It was asked, “Messenger of Allah, which people are best?” He said, “A man who strives with his life and wealth in Allah’s cause, and a man living in a mountain pass who worships his Lord and leaves people safe from his harm.”
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—may Allah be pleased with him—said, “Take your share of seclusion.”
Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said, “I would love there to be an iron door between me and the people so that no one speaks to me and I speak to no one until I meet Allah, Exalted is He.”
Seclusion affords uninterrupted time for worship, distance from sin, protection from temptation, safety from backbiting, deliverance from the plague of ostentation, and preservation of one’s religion from engaging in what displeases Allah. It removes a person from people’s evils and from the harm many of them inflict; it also shields the heart and the eyes from being distracted by the glitter of worldly life.
Further benefits accrue to the secluded servant: the freedom to devote his hours to what is truly beneficial, or the sheer safety from wrongdoing and transgression.
Those who preferred companionship and mingling argued with the verse: “Hold fast, all of you together, to the rope of Allah and do not be divided…” (Āl ʿImrān 103), and with His saying, “and He knit