22. FALSE PIETY
I see many people who are cautious from (urinal) drops of impurity; yet do not mind backbiting others! They give a lot of charity, yet do not mind indulging in usury! They pray at night but delay praying the obligatory prayer (salah)! Many are the examples of the demeanour of this type of people who preserve the branches and neglect the fundamentals.
I investigated the reason for this and found two such causes: Firstly: habit, and secondly: the influence of desires that deactivate the senses of people whenever it overpowers a person. The example of this is the case of the brothers of Prophet Yusuf (‘alayhi as-salam) who upon hearing the caller say,
“You are thieves.” [Yusuf (12): 70]
Replied,
“You know that well that we did not come to commit mischief in this land, nor are we thieves.” [Yusuf {12): 73]
In the Exegesis (tafsir) books on the Qur’an, it states that when the brothers of Prophet Yusuf (‘alayhi as-salam) entered Egypt; they gagged their camels to ensure the camels not to eat from the grass of Egypt because it was not theirs. Their response to the accusation was as if they tried to say, you saw what we did with our camels so how do you expect us to steal?!
Yet, they forgot the difference between showing piety (warn) with a bite that might be eaten by their camels and that would be beyond their power and control; and their act of throwing Prophet Yusuf (‘alayhi as-salam) in the well to be sold afterwards at a very cheap price!
There are some people who only comply with the minor issues and in matters that are inexpensive and simple or that they know for a fact such compliance will not affect their clothing and food. There are others who accept usury and then say, ‘how my enemy could see me now after I sold my house and changed my riding animals and clothes’.
There are some people who are very cautious with their purity (tahara) therefore they use a lot of water in ablution (wudu), but never avoid backbiting (ghiba)! There are other people who resort to wrong interpretations to gain things all the while knowing that they are not permissible! I even knew of a man who is considered from the good people and worshippers who received some money from another man to build a Masjid. However, he took the money for himself. He asked for forgiveness on his death bed.
There are some people who refrain from sins because they are used to not committing them. Yet, when they are exposed to a sin, they become unable to control themselves and commit so many. There are examples that make you wonder and surprised but that is too lengthy topic to mention here.
We all know that there were many Jews who used to perform abundant religious rituals before the spark of Islam, and yet did not accept Islam when it came, although they knew it was the truth
All this was because they could not resist their desire (sarh al-hawa) of keeping their leadership positions. The case of Caesar is similar as he recognised Allah’s Messenger, but was unable to resist his desire to abandon his kingdom.
Beware! beware of abandoning the fundamentals, and of neglecting the control over your desires, because once the cattle of desire is let loose it will graze the plantation of piety.
The example of desire is like a chained leopard that if it is leashed well, it will be easy to control. Perhaps when its overwhelming desires (shahwat) be provoked sometimes thus it becomes too strong to the point of breaking the chain and becoming loose. However, whilst some people leash their desires using a chain, some others do so with a flimsy string!
An intelligent person (‘aqil) should beware of the devils of desire (shaydtin al-bawa), and be aware of all that his enemies feed on to be strong and all that which brings him strength.
(Source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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