تَبَارَكَ الَّذِى بِيَدِهِ الْمُلْكُ وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلّ شَىْء قَدِيرٌ
الَّذِى خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ وَالْحَيَوةَ لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ أَيُّكُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلاً وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْغَفُورُ
Al Mulk 67:1. Blessed be He in Whose Hand is the dominion; and He is Able to do all things.) (2. Who has created death and life that He may test you which of you is best in deed. And He is the Almighty, the Oft-Forgiving.
Ihsan is one of the most important concepts in our religion. In a famous hadits, known as the hadits of Jibreel, in which the Archangel appeared in a form of a man in front of Rasulullah shalallahu 'alayhi wassalam (saw) and his sahabahs radhiallahu 'anhum (ra) to teach about our religion; Jibreel 'alayhis salaam (as) asked prophet Muhammad (saw) about three concepts: Islam, Eeman dan Ihsan. When he (saw) was asked about Ihsan, the Prophet (saw) replied as narrated by 'Umar ibn Khattab (ra):
Qaala: anta” budallaha ka annaka taraahu, fa illam takun taraahu, fa innahu yaraaka
Ihsan: “it’s to worship Allah as you are seeing Him and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you.”
I have heard and memorised this hadits for a long time. But the meaning of this did not sink in until I came across an explanation by a famous scholar. He explained this concept of Ihsan by giving an example where you are working for someone. While you are doing your job you see your boss is watching you or if you know that he is watching you (through camera for example where you can not see him), any person who wants to keeps his job or wants to win promotion would do his best. He would do his job in a best possible manner to ensure he would get the possible results.
If we apply this example in performing Allah's commands, think about our position as His slaves and Allah is our Master. If we are trying hard to impress our boss while he is watching, we must try harder in performing our duties to Allah, our Master, because He is Ever-Watching us!
This is the Prophet’s definition of the term “Ihsan”, and it signifies that a person, who is characterized with Ihsan, does everything perfectly as he sees his MASTER watching him.
The concept of Ihsan means that a Muslim is a responsible person and a person of quality where he does things in a very good manner, in a complete sense, in a nice and tasteful way and is never satisfied with anything other than a quality job in all that he/she does, motivated by realizing that Allah prescribed Ihsan to everything and to all deeds.
“Allah, Most High, says:
بَلَى مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ
فَلَهُ أَجْرُهُ عِندَ رَبِّهِ وَلاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
“Nay, whoever submits his whole self to Allah and is a doer of (Ihsan) good he will get his reward with his Lord; on such shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” (Al-Baqarah: 112).
And,
إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإْحْسَانِ وَإِيتَآءِ ذِى الْقُرْبَى
وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ وَالْبَغْى يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ
“Allah commands justice, (Ihsan) the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, that you may receive admonition.” (An-Nahl: 90).
If we look back and study the life of our beloved Prophet (saw), we can see how the Prophet perform ihsan in all things he did. In term of the content of the message: PERFECTION (it is described that nothing that can bring us close to the jannah, but the Prophet told us; and nothing that bring us close to the hell that He (saw) warned us against.) In term of the delivery of that message: second to none! BEST.
Take a look at any episode of the Prophet's life, you will find prophet Muhammad strove to do his best in whatever he did. Take a look at the Hijrah, migration from Makkah to Madinah. Despite the fact that Allah guaranteed his safety and promised him victory, prophet Muhammad (saw) did the following:
- He planned his trip: and the manner he planned this was so secretly to the extent that he visited Abu Bakr (ra) in disguise at noon when people were taking shelter in their house from the heat of desert sun.
- He arranged a guide for the trip, told Abdullah the son of Abu Bakr to spy on the movement of the Quraysh and Salma the daughter of Abu Bakr to bring food to their hiding.
- Prophet Muhammad and Abu Bakr exited Makkah from the South despite Madinah was located to the north of Madinah.
- Prophet Muhammad ordered Ali bin Abu Thalib to sleep on his bed to trick the Makkans.
- Prophet Muhammad could have just jumped on to his camel back and rode to Madinah because Allah already guaranteed his safety. But that was not the way the Prophet approached problems. He made a very thorough and calculated plan and preparation and carried out the plan in the best possible ways.
The Prophet (saw) said,
Innallaha katabal ihsaana ‘ala kulli shay in: fa idzaa qataltum, fa ahsinul qitlahu. Wa idzaa dzabahtum fa ahsinudz dzibhah. Wal yuhidda ahadukum shafratah, wal yurih dzabiyhatahu. (rawahu Muslim)
“Allah has prescribed that you do everything in an excellent and nice manner. Thus, if you kill, kill well; if you slaughter, slaughter well. Let each one of you sharpen his blade and let him spare suffering to the animal he slaughters” (Muslim, Hadith No.3615).
Allah commands to do our best in worshipping HIM or in doing íbadah. This is not only limited to the core íbadah like shalat, fasting or hajj, but also the supplemantary ibadah like in the way we are dealing with our family, our neighbours, our community, our environment, at workplace and so on.
Most of the time, our attitude when doing religious work for our community is very different to the examples given by our role model, prophet Muhammad (saw). Compared to the approach taken by the Prophet when migrated to Madinah above, our approach in doing Islamic work for this ummah is very casual, lack of plan and lack of vision; and when it is done it done half-heartedly.
We assume that since what we are doing is an Islamic work that is blessed by Allah, it will take care by itself or Allah will take care of it. This is in contrary to the examples given the Prophet (saw) in carrying out Islamic work. He (saw) applied ihsan, he strove to pursue excellence by giving his best in every work he did for Allah and His religion.
We have to change our approach in doing our duties to Allah. Our correct understanding of Ihsan must drive us to pursue perfection. The problem we face as a nation is huge. Every muslim are required to give their best, to perform ihsan, if we want to solve our problem.
Finally, Just do ihsan, because Allah loves those who perform ihsan: “But do ihsan; for Allah loves those who do ihsan.” (Al-Baqarah: 195)”.
