The Symbol of Success and Happiness

Good manners with the creatures: This refers to dealing with people based on their different levels in a manner that befits them. Every level has etiquette and there is specific etiquette for various levels. There are manners particularly related to the parents; the father has the manner specific to him; likewise the scholar and the leader. A person should also have good manners towards his relatives; and the etiquette with strangers is not the same with his etiquette with friends, close relatives, and the manners with the visitor are different from the attitude towards family members.

Every situation has its own manners: eating has etiquette, drinking has etiquette, riding, entering and going out of the house has etiquette, travelling, being a resident, and sleeping have etiquettes; urinating, talking, silence and enjoyment have etiquettes. A person’s good manner is the symbol of his success and happiness and paucity of good manners is the symbol of his wretchedness and destruction. Nothing brings the goodness of this life and the Hereafter like good manners and nothing brings about its deprivation like paucity of good manners.

Source: Madaarij As-Saalikeen bayna Manaazil (Iyyaaka Na’bud wa Iyyaaka Nasta‘een)by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah.