Ihsân is not only about working hard

Black colour represents the movement of my mouse over a period of 12 hours. The big black circles are the times when I left for prayer and design tutorial at uni. Hard work eh?

 1. I had an opportunity to give a short talk during our weekly Tuesday Talks (Kuliah Selasa) this week, alhamdulillah. The topic of discussion was Membiasakan Diri Bekerja Keras ('Get use to work hard' would be a direct translation of that). One of the things that I talked about was the concept of ihsân.

2. Preparing for a talk is an amazing experience because with each reading, I'll discover something new. That is the case when I do some readings about ihsân prior to Tuesday's talk.

3. Ihsân (احسان) is an Arabic word to portray perfection & excellence. When it is translated to Malay language, it has been interpreted as membuat kebaikan (doing good) or bekerja keras (working hard).

4. There is a better explanation on the word ihsân in our Islamic studies textbooks, which is actually taken from a hadeeth narrated by Imam Muslim. Ihsân means

"menyembah Allah seolah-olah engkau melihatNya. Sekalipun engkau tidak melihatNya, maka sesungguhnya Dia melihatmu"

"to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you". 

The problem is, I reckon majority of students do not get what it really means. They will just memorize it for the exam's sake. Years passed by, the word ihsân becomes a childhood memory.

5. For some who still remember the word ihsân, at least myself, will just define it as doing good. Well, doing good, is good. It is just a shame that we see ihsân as just doing good work, when it is a lot more than that. As the word suggest, our work should reflect excellence, perfection, displaying the best form of professionalism by all syariah-compliant means.

6. That is why when the angel Jebreel asked our prophet Muhammad SAW regarding ihsân, Rasulullah said "It is to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you".

7. How do we do our work when our boss is watching us? We'll try to avoid any mistakes, making sure that every single work is perfect so that we will not get scolded by our boss. It is almost the same feeling when we are talking about ihsân, just amplified millionfold because the one who is watching us right now is The One who created us and everything else that we can think of.

8. Syeikh Yusuf al-Qardawi gave an inspiring khutba (lecture) on this matter.

9. In the lecture he mentioned a hadeeth:

"Verily Allah has prescribed proficiency in all things." Quoting a speech-text from here,

"When somebody truly understands the concept of Ihsaan, they are never ordinary people. They live their lives on a different level. We are the people of Ihsaan, the Muhsineen."

10. This is only one of the concepts in Islam. It is just one of the many ways of thinking in life. It is not a new paradigm, but unfortunately the knowledge got lost somewhere down the track of history. The ummah has simply forsaken it. Try practicing ihsân, for a start.