Why do we lack of character, despite performing salat?
A Brief Description of the Question:
My question is why do we lack character when we have with us a forceful mechanism of social control to ward off evil. We often recite Worship Allah (2:21) so that you may ward off evil.تقون لعلكم There is not a word to this effect in the liturgy of our saum-o-salat and frame work of other rituals. I have yet to see a supplication attached to any form of worship seeking abstention from indecency and evil. We only seek forgiveness for the crimes we commit. How then we expect to develop the quality of escaping indecency and evil when we neither wish nor intend and never pray for it.?
The Answer:
Some narrations (hadiths) concerning the issue are as follows:
“The screams of the people of Hell result from delaying their good deeds and procrastination.” (Hafiz Iraqi said that he did not find the source of that hadith. See “Takhriju ahadisil ihya, together with ihya” 3/117).
“The screams of the people of Hell result from delaying their good deeds and procrastination.” (Hafiz Iraqi said that he did not find the source of that hadith. See “Takhriju ahadisil ihya, together with ihya” 3/117).
“Do not be someone who boast, become arrogant and cause mischief; and do not trade except for the trade of good things. Doubtlessly, they are those who delay their deeds and procrastinate.” (Musnad, 1/129; This hadith is sound. See Majmau’z-Zawaid, 5/172).
Procrastination, which is one of the diseases of modern man, has become an important problem for a believer who is in an effort of struggling against his/her soul (nafs).
Thus, a simple task becomes a grave matter that gets more and more difficult to overcome day by day. Just as what is related in the book of “Mathnawi” of Hazrat Mawlana:
“A man plants some thorns at a roadside. At first, those thorns appear as if they are harmless. However, when they start to disturb people who pass by in the course of time, complaints start to increase. However, the man pretends not to have heard them. Then, a saint slave of Allah comes to that man and tells him to remove those thorns.
“A man plants some thorns at a roadside. At first, those thorns appear as if they are harmless. However, when they start to disturb people who pass by in the course of time, complaints start to increase. However, the man pretends not to have heard them. Then, a saint slave of Allah comes to that man and tells him to remove those thorns.
Thereupon, the man says: “There are a great many days, father. If not today, it will be tomorrow; definitely one day I will remove those thorns.” Thereupon, the friend of Allah tells the man this: ‘Every time you say tomorrow, you delay it. However, you should know that, day by day these thorns grow up, become stronger, but you become weaker. Thorns become young, but you become old...’”
So, our deeds are the same as that man’s. The sins that we insist on committing are similar to the thorns of that man. Unless we firmly grip the rope of “repentance”, sins settle much more insistently in our lives...
We always delay our tasks... And what a pity that, we do not realize that what we delay is our own life! There are so many mothers and fathers who delay their children’s religious education to the next summer... So many young girls delay covering herself to after finishing school... So many young boys delay starting prayers (salat) to another Friday...?
Those who delay reading a guide book or a belief book, or learning to read the Qur’an, those who delay attending religious talks which are the doors of mercy of Allah to another week...
O my soul! Delay whatever Satan (Shaytan) commands you to do in order to detain you from your way! But, do not delay good deeds, charities, learning and assuming te ethics of The Prophet (pbuh), following someone who follows Allah and do not delay repenting for your rooted sins!..
“Every day is a new day for an intelligent person.” Life is the time we live in. It is in every day. However, we learn it very late. We always say tomorrow. The child says, “when I get older”; the youth says “when I get married”. And the time passes by. In this respect, Our Prophet’s saying “those who say that I will do tomorrow get perished” is what a meaningful reality. One day will come, but the tomorrow of that day will not appear... The day is in the moment we live...
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