BismIllah wa as salaamu alaykum.
Yet again, I was in tears after a thought struck me today. It came during the Jumu'ah prayer and just developed from that point forward. How many small things does it take to end up with something big? How many little indiscretions, little mistakes, or omissions can we make before it ends up being a serious issue to answer for on Yawm id-Deen (the Day of Judgement)?
We are told to follow the Quran and the Sunnah. We are told to love the Prophet Muhammad (sal Allahu alayhi wa salaam) more than we love our own selves and families. We are told to emulate the example of the Prophet (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam), to take what he gives us and leave the rest.
We are told that if we don't have something good to say, "ismut" - we cannot say anything at all. How many times do we forget or simply ignore that command? How many times do we forget to remind our children to step into the bathroom with their left foot, step out with their right foot, and say the appropriate dua'? How many times do we forget ourselves? How many times do we dhikr after the fard prayer so quickly that we paid no attention to what we were saying? How many times have we let something, or someone, get in the way of us dhikring at all?
How many times do we stand up or walk around eating or drinking. Many of us can quote the ahadith about the etiquettes of eating, about sitting when we eat or drink, about eating with our right hand, about taking the piece of food nearest to us, and filling just 1/3 of our stomach with food, etc. We relate these etiquettes to our children and remind them to say "bismIllah" before they eat, but then we relax...we forget as we pass them something with our left hand. We don't pay attention to them eating with their left hand. We don't check if they said bism'Illah. We don't tell them to sit down to eat and drink. We forget to be the model for them and follow those guidelines ourselves. Everyone eats until they are full.
How many atoms does it take to make a bomb - around 53,000 in reality, but in just one day we commit so many small errors, omissions, or sins that they can easily add up to a bomb before we even know it. Some people think I'm very fastidious about these things, and in general I try to cover all the bases, but I find myself constantly missing something or other. Alhamdul'Illah, we err and we seek forgiveness...but when the errors, omissions, and sins are from our own laziness or carelessness, then I wonder to myself how many will it take before we have something huge on our left-hand side account to answer for?
Audhu b'Illahi min asshaytaan irrajeem!
Subhaan Allah! I just read "The Traps of Iblees" by Ibn Qayyim Al Jawziyyah (a translation into English) and this one paragraph was what this whole post was about.
ReplyDelete"If Iblees is unable to snare Al-'Abd at this degree he moves him to the FOURTH CLASS, or the MINOR SINS. These sins may ruin a person if they accumulate. That is why Ar-Rasool sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam said, Be aware of the minor sins, because the simile of the minor sin is like the people who went to a desert. Then he sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam mentioned a Hadeeth the meaning of which is that every one of them brought a stick of wood until they had kindled a huge fire (just as the minor sins add up little by little until they become a major sin). The person continues taking the matter of minor sins easily until he considers them inconsequential. Therefore, a person who commits major sins but fears their effect is in a better condition than he is."