Details & Precaution

When we think about becoming better Muslims, improving ourselves, personal development, we always think of big, clearly black and white, must or must not do kind of things- cutting out the music, praying 5 times a day, not back-biting, the list goes on...but what I think we don't pay enough attention to are the details of a lot of the  things that we already do.

I used to have the mentality that people who focused on religious details beyond the requirement of their respective Maraje's fatwas were OTT or had some sort of OCD and that they just worried too much, but lately I have come to realise that actually, these details add up and have immensely significant bearings on our lives. Every minute action has a profound effect. The accuracy in our daily prayers, our choice of words when we speak, the subtlest implications in our conversations- these things have consequences. 

Just as an example of what I'm trying to say- most of us know the story of Yousif (a.s) so I won't explain the details here, but towards the end of his saga, when Yousif (a.s) was going to be reunited with his father Ya'qoub (a.s), he was waiting for his family's arrival on his horse. As he saw his family approach from the distance, it crossed his mind that perhaps he should dismount his horse out of respect for his father, but he decided that they were still too far and that he would wait until they were a little closer until he got off the back of his horse. 

When his family finally got closer, Yousif (a.s) got off his horse, greeted his family and even made his father Ya'qoub (a.s) sit on his own throne out of respect. Despite all this, Jibra'eel descended from the heavens and told Yousif (a.s) to open his hands, and Yousif (a.s), being the obedient prophet that he was, did so. As soon his he opened his hands, he saw a beam of light leave his hands and ascend towards the heavens. When he asked Jibra'eel what had just happened, he was told that because he had not shown enough respect towards his father, that light, which was the light of the prophecy of his lineage, had been taken away from him and that his lineage would no longer be a lineage of prophets. (This light was instead given to his brother Lawi or Levy, who had suggested to his other brothers to sell Yousif (a.s) to the traders instead of killing him, many years before.)

Yousif (a.s) hadn't actually sinned, he hadn't even done anything that you and I would notice to be disrespectful and yet he was stripped of a great honour because of those few moments of hesitation about getting off his horse. And this was Yousif (a.s). What about people like me and you? Yes, prophets of God obviously have a lot more required of them, but this incident demonstrates clearly how such subtleties have such major implications in our lives. 

What kind of negative effects must music, Haram food, lying, back-biting, cheating have on our lives? What sort of calamities are we inviting towards ourselves with the sins we commit? In fact, let's not even go that far. What are we doing to ourselves when we rush through our prayers, or when we accept food which we're doubtful about, or when we make that slightly mocking expression when mentioning an absent person's name in a conversation? We need to take precaution. The sad thing is that nowadays, we actually do the opposite and try and find loopholes for everything. We look for justifications, left, right and centre when the Ahlulbayt (a.s) have advised us otherwise:

On the authority of Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, the grandson of the Messenger of Allah, and who is dearest to him, who said: I committed to memory from the Messenger of Allah, (the following words): "Leave that about which you are in doubt for that about which you are in no doubt."

The thing we need to understand is that a lot of the time, it's not Allah wanting to punish us for our deeds, but just the natural consequences of our actions that catch up with us. As Imam Ali (a.s) says, we should fear nothing but our own deeds. If I sip on poison, Allah isn't punishing me with death directly- it's just how the system works. And that goes for everything- the smallest details of our actions are part of the system- not just the black and white, right or wrong, Halal and Haram obvious ones. Everything in between has consequences too.