Practice what you preach

In the name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

All praise is due only to Allah who is alone without any partners or associates. We praise Him, we seek His refuge, we thank Him . We seek His forgiveness from the evils of our mind and the evils of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah has guided, cannot be led astray and whosoever is astray due to his actions or inactions cannot find guidance except that of Allah…
May the blessings of Allah continue to be on the Prophet and his ummah.


Allah (swt) mentioned in the Quran (concerning the people of the book);

“(You) Enjoin upon people Al-Birr(righteousness) and you forget (to practice it) yourselves, while you recite the scriptures! Have you then no sense?” Surah 2:44


This verse was mentioning the case of this people. They used to enjoin people to perform righteous acts while they made such acts it forbidden on themselves. Yet, in their scriptures they read about the rewards for performing such acts and the punishment for neglecting them. This surah ends by saying “have you then no sense?”. As an illustration: (I still recall one from a book titled “Where there is no doctor.”) A man smoking a cigarette was pointing to a boy and advising him, ‘don’t smoke, it’s not good for your health. The boy had a worried look on his face wondering…” How many of our cases have been like this. Nowadays it’s common to hear people say ‘do as I say’ and not ‘do as I do’.


Bukhari and Muslim recorded an hadeeth in which the prophet (saw) said:

“A man will be brought on the day of Resurrection be thrown in the fire. His intestines will fall out and he will continue circling pulling them behind him just as a donkey goes around a pole. The people of the fire will go to that man and ask him, ‘What happened to you’ Did you not used to command us to do righteous acts and forbid us from committing evil. He will say, ‘Yes, I used to enjoin righteousness but refrain from performing righteousness and I used to ask you to forbid evil while I myself did it.”


Such will be the case of this person on the day of reckoning – one who does not practice what he preaches. The scholar have therefore condemned commanding others to righteousness while forbidding it on oneself. Some part of them have also been reluctant on giving advice based on the afore-mentioned hadeeth and verse except in cases where there’s a need to do so.


Again Allah (swt) mentioned in the Quran, advising us;

“O you who believe! Why do you say that which you do not do. Most hateful it is to Allah that you say that which you do not do.” Surah 63:2-3


Allah (swt) also said about us in the Quran that we are the best of ummah because: we enjoin what is good and we forbid evil. And in addition to this we believe (the scholars have already mentioned that what speeches and action constitutes faith/belief) in Allah. As a summary, O companions! This is not a call to refrain from what Allah has commanded us. But a call to be the first to perform (or not to perform) what we enjoin/forbid on people.

And Allah is our refuge.