Make Obedience Your Lifestyle

By Imam Abdullah El-Amin, MMNS

Note:   This is a refreshed and updated reprint.

ALLAH, the Most High, says that those who practice regular prayer and pay charity regularly, will be the ones that are successful.  The key word here is regular.  Anything you do regularly eventually becomes a habit and way of life.  This is one of the magnificent qualities of human beings; that we are able to change ourselves and do most anything – just by thinking it, and then doing it.  Because of this fact, obedience to ALLAH should be at the top of our priority list.

Morality, or adherence to ALLAH’S laws, is the safest and most direct way to enhance your humanity and lift yourself to the highest level of human existence.  We live in a world today that is so technologically advanced that Satan has a free and direct line to our spirits.  The internet, movies, TV, and music industries give Satan the leeway to express himself uninhibited through the so-called “freedom of the press.”  He (Satan) uses this technology to influence us negatively.
But we can use this technology for our purposes as well.  In this area I don’t think we have done a good job at all.  We still don’t use technology to determine our holidays, which means we have two or three days of observance each time Eid rolls around.  It was probably the same as in the time of Islam’s origin, but the difference is people 300 miles away didn’t know it.  Today people around the world know instantly what everyone else is doing.  Technology is made to be utilized.  We should use it for good. And if we make obeying ALLAH our priority, Satan has much less chance of influencing us.

Some things should be made a habit automatically, such as non-imbibing of intoxicants, not engaging in adultery, fornication or homosexuality.  These things are the fastest way to destroy a person, family, and community.  The wonderful news is ALLAH makes it easy to resist that temptation.  ALLAH knows those negative temptations will enter our mind.  It’s only natural.

So He gives us instruction in the Qur’an that if we think to do a bad deed, and refrain from doing it, ALLAH gives us credit for having done one good deed – because we have done a good deed.  We have consciously restrained ourselves.  Then, as further incentive to do good, ALLAH says if we think a good deed and do it, He gives us credit for having done ten good deeds. Now isn’t that a wonderful investment?  Can you imagine being a good employee at your job and the boss gives you ten paychecks every week for having done well?  Well ALLAH promises this and more.

Next, our Merciful Creator tells us if we slip up and think to do a bad deed, and actually do it, He only holds us responsible for doing one bad deed.  So we must, if we’re smart, try to make obeying ALLAH our way of life.  We should practice doing good each and every chance we get.  After all, we don’t know how many good deeds we need to make it to Jannah.  So if consciously doing good deeds is our dominate behavior, ALLAH guarantees our success.  Think about it.

As Salaam alaikum
Al Hajj Imam Abdullah El-Amin

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