# Modesty Is More Than What You Wear | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

**Author:** Tom Facchine
**Series:** Imam Tom Live
**Published:** 2025-08-27
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/VbKUJPN3-Z0
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/modesty-is-more-than-what-you-wear-snapshots
**Topics:** History, Politics & Practical Theology

## Description
Many claim to believe. They speak of love for their scripture, loyalty to their prophet, and devotion to God. But belief without obedience is hollow. When revelation challenged comfort, it was ignored. The book was honored in words, but neglected in action. This episode exposes the gap between...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Modesty is very important in Islam. Unfortunately, our conception of the content of that modesty is very limited. When we think modesty, you think clothes. Which, it's important. It's part of it.

**[0:16]** Covering body parts, covering them appropriately, loose-fitting clothing, opaque clothing. This is part of modesty, no doubt. But, modesty is much more holistic and goes beyond those things. Modesty is also in your bearing, how you treat other people, how you interact with the creation around you.

**[0:31]** But, it's also in the difference between your private and your public life. And this is the big concern in the era of social media. We have people that technically fulfill the requirements of modest dress in Islam.

**[0:46]** That put their entire lives on social media. There's some dramatic examples of this from the non-Muslim sphere where we would all nod and agree. So, for example, some things go viral when a spouse is publicly complaining about what's really a very private matter that should have been addressed between his or her and him or her.

**[1:07]** But, we don't take the broader lesson there. We look at it and maybe we're sucked in because it's viral and because it's kind of a juicy topic. But, are there ways in which we do the same thing? Are there things that are private that we put out in public?

**[1:23]** Are there things that should be kept in private? Every day after Fajr, Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) would go in an opposite direction of his house and he would go deep into the desert. So, Umar (رضي الله عنه) said, that's it, I'm going to go follow him and find out what he's doing.

**[1:38]** And then he said, I saw him go into this beat up old house. He spent a long time in there. It wasn't like a short amount of time. He spent a long time until after the sun was up, meaning it was getting hot. And it got hot and then Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) left the home and he made his way back to Medina.

**[1:53]** So, Umar (رضي الله عنه) said, I waited until I could no longer see him. And Umar (رضي الله عنه) said, I knocked on the door. Umar (رضي الله عنه) said, who is that visitor that comes to you every single day? The answer, she says, I don't know who he is.

**[2:09]** He never once shared his name with me. She says, he cleans my home. He washes our clothes. He grinds our wheat. He bakes our bread. He cooks our breakfast. And then he leaves. The salaf used to be sure that some of what they did for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was kept private.

**[2:30]** And this gets into another entire conversation about your sincerity and your worship, some of your acts of worship. It's a fine line where you have somebody who's quote unquote an influencer. I don't agree with that term. I don't think those people are influencing. I think they're more influenced than influencing. However, if you're doing anything super public on social media to show other people,

**[2:50]** telling yourself that you're just demonstrating to them to inspire them, should you counterbalance that in your life by doing a ton of stuff that's very, very private that nobody knows about except Allah? So we have to be guarded and we have to be aware and we have to be very careful

**[3:05]** because these things become normalized to us in a very subliminal way, a very implicit way. This is what everybody else is doing. This is how social media works. This is what people are doing on TikTok and Instagram and whatever. And so it seems normal to us too. But as Muslims, I think that we need to be comfortable doing our own thing and going our own way,

**[3:24]** especially when our values dictate it. So we have to be very careful that we are embodying modesty in the fullest sense of the word. And we need to have a frank and honest conversation that there are certain things that should not be public. There are certain things that are private and that even gain importance, perhaps even sanctity when they are kept private.

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