Striving to Guide My Own Self
“Scientific power has overrun the spiritual power; we have guided missile and misguided men.”
Let’s say that I am one, who is righteous, then this is a blessing, and this is from the Bounty of Allaah. But if I am not, then it is my duty to strive to guide myself.
I might be a man who has evil and goodness in me; but one important thing that I should know that no one; not a single human in the history of mankind is born evil. No one is born to be a criminal or a murderer or a conman or a gambler or a womanizer or anyone bad. There are internal and external factors that contribute to the development of any man; if it’s good he becomes righteous and if it’s bad he becomes evil and tyrannical. Whatever the case is, the way that I should see it; I have to strive hard, I have to struggle to guide myself to do what is right and to abandon what is wrong and evil.
I should realize from the outset that guidance comes from Allaah, and that Allaah is the One Who reforms people. One of His blessings to his slave Zakariya was, as He said :
“… and [We] cured his wife for him…” [al-Anbiya’ 21:90].
This curing or reforming may have been physical or religious. Ibn ‘Abbaas said: “She was barren and could not have children, then she had a child.” ‘Ataa’ said: “She was harsh of tongue, and Allaah reformed her.”
What a blessing!....O Allah, you are my lord, you are my benefactor, have mercy on me, have mercy on my soul. O Allah, I invoke your guidance; I appeal to you. O Allah, bestow upon me your guidance that you have given to your servants, so that I could live in this temporary dwelling guided and blessed. Amin.
All I know, if I’m not wrong, there are various means of guiding or reforming one’s self, I just need to start with any one of it. Either that I should be paying attention to correcting my worship of Allaah in all of its aspects or I should be striving to strengthen my imaan; I should be telling myself, giving it an ultimatum; that:
You pray your qiyaam al-layl; read the Qur’an daily; memorize the adhkaar and remember the appropriate times and occasions for saying them; give charity, no matter what the circumstances are; read the hadeeth of Rasulullah; listen to useful Islamic cassettes; do anything that would assist yourself to increase knowledge that would motivate you to increase your ‘amal and strengthen your imaan.
I would tell myself to choose good, religious friends, with whom I can form ties of brotherhood and have good conversations and purposeful visits. I would protect myself from evil and blocking off all avenues for it to reach me, by keeping myself away from bad companions and bad places.
