“Your Islam is good when you greet those you know and those you do not know.”
Saheeh Bukhari 28
Full Hadith
“حَدَّثَنَا قُتَيْبَةُ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا اللَّيْثُ، عَنْ يَزِيدَ بْنِ أَبِي حَبِيبٍ، عَنْ أَبِي الْخَيْرِ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَمْرٍو، أَنَّ رَجُلاً، سَأَلَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم أَىُّ الإِسْلاَمِ خَيْرٌ قَالَ “ تُطْعِمُ الطَّعَامَ، وَتَقْرَأُ السَّلاَمَ عَلَى مَنْ عَرَفْتَ وَمَنْ لَمْ تَعْرِفْ ”.
Abdullah ibn Amr narrated:
A person asked Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) . “What (sort of) deeds in or (what qualities of) Islam are good?” He replied, “To feed (the poor) and greet those whom you know and those whom you don’t know.”
(Hadith Saheeh Bukhari 28)
Lessons
The main objective of this Hadith is to signify the importance of greeting one another. There is another Hadith with similar meaning, saying that the one who greets another Muslim first gets more reward than the one who replies.
Another important note to take is that we should greet the people we know and those we don’t know. One of the reasons of doing so is that it emits any hatred or jealousy between the two, since when someone makes Salam, they are giving a Dua to the other.
