"Deeds are only in accord with their intentions. And every person has only what he intended."
Muhammad, Hadith (quoted, Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1394)
The passage above is one of the most famous of the ahadith, the sayings of the Prophet. Part of this would be the far less inelegant, you own what you do. Personal accountability in this life and the next is a huge part of Islam. Even beyond the notion that you, and you alone, are responsible for your actions, there is the related notion that you don't get credit for acts that somehow turned out much better than you intended; so no incident spiritual bounce for a less than sincerely motivated act.
For some reason when I was mulling over this hadith earlier today I found myself thinking about Christianity, or at least the in someways inexplicable Christianity (what I often refer to as alt-Christianity when I'm ranting on Twitter) that some folks practice today. Again, this is not an attack on Christianity, because, as I freely admit, all religions, including my own, are stupid in their own way, but rather a reflection on how some people practice it. Anyway, I was thinking that the same thing that, arguably, made Christianity the most popular religion in the world - the concept of Jesus dying for the sins of countless billions - is also the thing that had the potential to allow some folks to dissociate themselves from their actions? If you combine that concept with the notion of an independent, malevolent Satan (not present at all in Judaism, and, truthfully, little more than bed-time story superstition in Islam) you can, if you are by nature lazy in your faith anyway, make the quick jump to a belief that your personal actions can't count that much against you.
Am I any better? No, of course not. That's not the point of the observation. I'm as shamefully lazy with my faith as anyone else, doubtless more so. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I pick and choose what I think is important about the faith: so, while in my mind it is undeniably more important that I focus on treating everyone I meet with kindness and compassion as part of returning the worse with the better than learning Arabic or going on the hajj, it also means that I've made a very human, idiosyncratic and, let's be honest, arrogant decision that I really know what's best.
Muhammad, Hadith (quoted, Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1394)
The passage above is one of the most famous of the ahadith, the sayings of the Prophet. Part of this would be the far less inelegant, you own what you do. Personal accountability in this life and the next is a huge part of Islam. Even beyond the notion that you, and you alone, are responsible for your actions, there is the related notion that you don't get credit for acts that somehow turned out much better than you intended; so no incident spiritual bounce for a less than sincerely motivated act.
For some reason when I was mulling over this hadith earlier today I found myself thinking about Christianity, or at least the in someways inexplicable Christianity (what I often refer to as alt-Christianity when I'm ranting on Twitter) that some folks practice today. Again, this is not an attack on Christianity, because, as I freely admit, all religions, including my own, are stupid in their own way, but rather a reflection on how some people practice it. Anyway, I was thinking that the same thing that, arguably, made Christianity the most popular religion in the world - the concept of Jesus dying for the sins of countless billions - is also the thing that had the potential to allow some folks to dissociate themselves from their actions? If you combine that concept with the notion of an independent, malevolent Satan (not present at all in Judaism, and, truthfully, little more than bed-time story superstition in Islam) you can, if you are by nature lazy in your faith anyway, make the quick jump to a belief that your personal actions can't count that much against you.
Am I any better? No, of course not. That's not the point of the observation. I'm as shamefully lazy with my faith as anyone else, doubtless more so. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I pick and choose what I think is important about the faith: so, while in my mind it is undeniably more important that I focus on treating everyone I meet with kindness and compassion as part of returning the worse with the better than learning Arabic or going on the hajj, it also means that I've made a very human, idiosyncratic and, let's be honest, arrogant decision that I really know what's best.
No comments:
Post a Comment