The word · The heart
الصُّحْبَة
Suhbah
Companionship: the people you sit with, treated in the sources as a cause of what you become.
Also written · Suhba · Sohbet · Suhbat · Sohbat · Jalis · Companionship · Good company · Bad company · Choosing friends · Friends · Who you sit with
The meaning
What Suhbah means in Islam
The Prophet peace be upon him compared a good companion to a seller of musk and a bad one to a blacksmith's bellows, in Bukhari and Muslim, and said a person follows the way of his close friend, in Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi. Writers on the heart therefore treat the choice of company as an act with consequences rather than an accident. In Sufi usage suhbah also names the particular bond between a student and a teacher.
Evidence · Sunnah · Established in the authentic Sunnah
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- NasihahSincere advice: wanting good for someone and telling them, privately and without an audience.النَّصِيحَة
- AdabGood manner in a specific situation: the right way to sit, speak, eat, enter, and ask.الأَدَب
- AkhlaqCharacter: the settled dispositions a person acts from before they have time to think.الأَخْلَاق
- TariqahA Sufi order: a lineage with a shaykh, a set litany, and a method for training students.الطَّرِيقَة
More from The heart
- 'AfwPardon: dropping a wrong you are owed, without the other person having to earn it.العَفْو
- GhibahMentioning something about a person, behind their back, that they would dislike hearing.الغِيبَة
- Kaba'irMajor sins: the ones the texts single out with a punishment, a curse, or a warning of the Fire.الكَبَائِر
- MuraqabahLiving with the awareness that Allah sees you, at the moment you are acting.المُرَاقَبَة
- SabrHolding yourself steady under what is hard, without complaint to creation and without giving up.الصَّبْر
- TafakkurDeliberate reflection on creation and on your own life, treated as an act of worship.التَّفَكُّر