A muslim got to do what a muslim got to do

Ahmad was walking down on one of the main streets in a busy city when he saw a very beautiful lady in front of him. Not only that the lady was very beautiful, she also did not cover her aurah very well. This created an unpleasant yet tempting display directly in front of Ahmad’s view. As he’s a male, it is usual for an evil thought to automatically appear in his mind, persuading him to take a closer look at the lady. Obviously, we know that shaitan and nafs are the ones responsible for the establishment of evil thoughts in humans.

However, the sunnatullah set in, as Ahmad’s conscience soon also appeared in his mind. The appearance of his conscience, plus his understanding of the good and bad from the Quran and Sunnah, made him to pause his current evil intention and ponder for a while.

Ahmad realized that he was in just yet another battle of the mind.

This is the key event of the story. This is a battle not visible to the physical eyes, but is vivid enough in the “eyes” of a pure soul; the kind of soul present within people who have great faith in Allah. Good news, we can always be one of these people, it’s always our choice to be so.

Back to the story.

Now it’s up to Ahmad whether to follow the evil thoughts or to follow what Allah wants him -in fact, all of us- to do; doing good and avoiding evil! Ahmad chose to follow his conscience, a more challenging choice but obviously the wiser one. He knew that to take a closer look at the lady is a sin, and of course this is not what Allah wants him and every human to do. Moreover, he understood that this life is only a test and his actions will be judged accordingly in the akhirah.

This Islamically rational thinking process, in addition to his determination and willpower, made Ahmad to take the right action which was to walk away from the scene as quickly as possible.

Alhamdulillah, a few minutes later the evil thought disappeared. It was brought down by his rightful conscience and strong willpower guided by the help from Allah. Indeed, Allah will help those who help themselves.

Thus, the good defeated the bad, in such a battle of the mind, that always occur within all human beings whether they realize it or not.

The case scenario depicted above is just a to illustrate what our minds go through everyday. I believe all of us have our very own mind battles.

The mind battle I’m referring to is not about intelligence or examinations. I’m highlighting the mind battle between good and evil. This is not about IQ, but this is about EQ and SQ; or rather some experts refer it as ESQ since EQ and SQ often go together.

Whether it’s about getting up early to perform Fajr (or subuh) prayer in the masjid, or trying to control our anger when someone irritates us, or in whatever situations that demand us to choose between doing good or bad, we are actually in such a battle. Failure to realize the existence of this battle occurring within ourselves may make us to take the wrong path and the evil side will win.

Therefore always remember that you will and are always be in this battle as long as you live. You are responsible to choose and take the right action -the good action. Understand and learn carefully what is good and what is evil according to Islam, not simply to decide based on our rational understanding of morality, as our rationality is not free from error. History tells us that human understanding of moral value can easily be manipulated; we’ve had enough of nazism, zionism, sekularism and many other “diseased” philosophy. That is why the best guidance of what is good or bad always come from Allah, our Creator, and in fact as muslims we all know that the judgment of good and bad in the Akhirah will be based on the revelations of Allah (Quran and Sunnah), not based on human laws and thinking.

I’ll give one example of how our conscience can easily be manipulated. Some people think gossiping is acceptable as they say “we are just talking about true stories, not making up false stories”. If only they read surah Al-Hujurat, or learn the Akhlaq of the Prophet and His companions, they will know that gossiping is always a sin. The same dangerous rationality also runs in those who think that the wearing of hijab (or tudung) in muslim females is “not compulsary” and “useless if the ones wearing them do not have a pure heart”. So it is clear now that to develop an Islamic and a purely healthy conscience, we need to learn Islam carefully as a whole.

May this humble reminder benefits all of us.