Why is it so hard to act upon what we know?

This is one of the biggest problems that I have had myself. Somehow it is easier to listen to dars and Islamic lectures, read up on Islamic articles and even pass them on to others but it seems so much harder to implement those same things into our own lives.

I guess one of the reasons for this is that our intention before listening to a good lecture or talk isn’t to immediately adopt all the good things, that we learn, into our lives but rather our intention is just to listen to something good. This might also be a result of the way we are taught in schools, many a times we are expected to learn so many facts and figures that we cannot apply practically but that we only have to store in our heads e.g. dates of events in history, to quote just one example. We are so used to the idea of hoarding up knowledge, consciously or subconsciously, that we forget that knowledge is actually just a “tool” for “application”.

If we don’t apply what we learn practically then it is as good as not having that knowledge in the first place. There is a narration that a young boy used to go to Hazrat Aisha (R.A.) to learn hadith from her, so she taught him a few the first day. And then the next day he came back to her to learn more, she asked him that have you implemented all the ahadith I told you yesterday and he said no. To that she replied that then why are you increasing God’s arguments against you. Meaning that Allah has given us knowledge for us to benefit from it and the more knowledge we have, the more it should show in our actions and deeds but if we have knowledge and we don’t act upon it then Allah is going to ask us with regards to it.

So the first thing we need to do is that we should make the niyyat of changing our lifestyles and actions in accordance to whatever good we read or hear and we should pray that Allah makes us do “amal” on the knowledge that we already possess. What else is there which stops us from benefitting from all the good that we hear and read? One other reason can be that the hereafter seems very, very far away to most of us, however, for the sahaba the hereafter was right in front of them. And so we procrastinate in doing good deeds because for us there is always so much time, which is obviously never true because time is passing away by the second and it just passed away even while I wrote that.

One more thing is that people have reduced Islam to just a set of rules and instructions, all they want to know is whether this is haraam or that is halal, they don’t care about nafli ibadah or extra rewards, they just want to do the bare minimum. However, sometimes very little actions earn us great rewards for example; in jama’at one should say aameen after the imam has recited fatiha and if the person’s aameen coincides with the aameen of the angels then all his past sins are forgiven. (I believe this is mostly for men but it can probably apply for women too, e.g. during tarawih and eid namaz etc.)

We also need to realize that we NEED extra rewards, we need all that we can get. If you’re a student then you’ll see to what extent some people go just in order to obtain a few extra marks but when it comes to Islam, they only want to do the faraiz. Imagine the sahaba who were actually guaranteed jannah STILL didn’t leave out on any good deeds they could get a hand on. And our own Prophet (S.A.W.) used to pray so much that his legs would swell and when he would be asked as to why he is doing so much when Allah has already forgiven all his sins, he would say “Should I not be a grateful servant then?”

One other reason people don’t act upon knowledge is that some people have TOO MUCH rajah or hope in Allah, in fact there are some people who don’t even do the faraiz but they say that since they have such a “good” heart hence on that basis they’ll enter jannah! They are not even doing the bare minimum and yet they have the guts to say something like that! And although there is absolutely no doubt that Allah is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem but remember that Allah is “oft-forgiving” and “very Merciful”, not “all-forgiving” neither “entirely Merciful”. Meaning that one cannot disobey the very commandments of Allah and then be so blindly arrogant that they can even claim that they’ll enter jannah when Allah Himself has said that, “Enter Islam completely.” Meaning you can’t just do a few good things and leave out the rest especially the faraiz and think that you’ve gotten the ticket to heaven. Allah has made it very easy for us to enter jannah, no doubt about that, but it requires complete obedience and submission from our side.

May Allah accept every effort from our part even if our niyyat wasn't "entirely" to please Him and may Allah correct our niyyat and help us act on whatever good we learn. Aameen.