BASICS OF ISLAM : Allah ( God Almighty ) : Muhasaba (Self-Criticism or Self-Interrogation). Part2
Self-criticism resembles a lamp in the heart of a believer, a warner and a well-wishing adviser in his or her conscience.
Every believer uses it to distinguish between what is good and evil, beautiful and ugly, pleasing and displeasing to God. Through the guidance of this well-wishing adviser, the believer surmounts all obstacles, however seemingly insurmountable, and reaches the desired destination.
▪Self-criticism attracts Divine mercy and favor, which enables one to go deeper in belief and servanthood, to succeed in practicing Islam, and to attain nearness to God and eternal happiness.
▪It also prevents one from falling into despair, which will ultimately lead to reliance on personal acts of worship to be saved from Divine punishment in the Hereafter.
(If one despairs (of Divine mercy) concerning his or her eternal life because of his or her sins, relief from Divine punishment is sought. Such a person then remembers and relies on past good deeds. However, this way is utterly inadequate, for only through Divine mercy can one be saved from God’s punishment and enter Paradise.)
As self-criticism opens the door to spiritual peace and tranquility, it also causes one to fear God and His punishment.
In the hearts of those who constantly criticize themselves and call themselves to account for their deeds, this Prophetic warning is always echoed:
If you knew what I know, you would laugh little but weep much.(Bukhari, Kusuf, 2; Muslim, Salat, 112.)
Self-criticism, which gives rise to both peacefulness and fear in one’s heart, continuously inspires anxiety in the hearts of those who are fully aware of the heavy responsibility they feel-the anxiety such as that which is voiced in:
If only I had been a tree cut into pieces. (Tirmidhi, Zuhd, 9.)
Self-criticism causes the believer to always feel the distress and fear expressed in:
The earth seemed constrained to them for all its vastness, and their own souls straitened to them (Tawba 9:118).
Whether you make known what is in your souls or hide it god will bring to account for it (Baqara 2:284)
resounds in every cell of their brains, and they groan with utterances like:
I wish my mother had not given birth to me!(Ibn Sa‘d, Al Tabaqat al-Kubra, vol. 3, p. 360, Beirut: 1980.)
While it is difficult for everyone to achieve this degree of self-criticism, it is also difficult for those who do not do so to be sure that they will be able to live today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today.
▪Those who are crushed between the wheels of time, whose current day is not better than the preceding one, cannot perform their duties pertaining to the afterlife well.
Constant self-criticism and self-reprimand show the perfection of one’s belief.
▪Everyone who has planned his or her life to reach the horizon of a perfect, universal human being is conscious of this life and spends every moment of it struggling with themselves.
▪Such a person demands a password from whatever occurs to his or her heart and mind. Self-control against the temptations of Satan or the excitement of temper are practiced, and words and actions are carefully watched. Self-criticism is constant, even for those acts that seem most sensible and acceptable.
Evening reviews of words and actions said or done during the day are the rule, as are morning resolutions to avoid sins.
A believer knits the “lace of his or her life” with the “threads” of self-criticism and self-accusation.
(In other words, all moments of one’s life are spent in self-criticism and constant awareness of what one says and does.)
So long as a believer shows such loyalty and faithfulness to the Lord and lives in such humility, the doors of heaven will be thrown open and an invitation will be extended:
Come, O faithful one. You have intimacy with Us. This is the station of intimacy. We have found you a faithful one. Every day he or she is honored with a new, heavenly journey in the spirit.
It is God Himself Who swears by such a purified soul in:
Nay, I swear by the self-accusing soul! (Qiyama 75:2).
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