Jihad Against The Ego

"kalu macam tu tak payah la", X said angrily.

"wah, cepatnya merajuk, macam mana la nak kawin perangai macam tu?", I responded bluntly.

"tak yah kawin pon takpe", X said egoisticly.

"hm..bagus la, orang tak nak kawin bukan umat Muhammad", I said.

"takpela, tak jadi pon takpe", X continued her ego.

"elok la tu, kalu bukan umat muhammad, maka ahli neraka", I had to say.

"fine", She said ending the argument.

I had nothing else to say, but deeply I was so disappointed in what I just heard.

It's funny how people would go to a certain extend just to win an argument, even for saying the things like above, they truly know it's wrong but for the sake of their ego they can't lose and say many things so that people would lose to them and without realising they have shown a huge ego in themselves. And when there is an ego in us we all know very well where it's from.

It doesn't matter if you are a Islamic person, you talk about Islam, and you know alot too, but if there's ego in you then all those things means nothing to Allah. You are part of Satan's misleading theatre, he (satan) make you feel that it's for the best, what you say is the perfect answer to everything you do, no one can really break through you because no one is better than you, and that is what an ego can do to a person, regardless that you are Islamic or not.

The Prophet said in the Farewell Pilgrimage:

"... The mujahid is he who makes jihad against himself (jahada nafsah) for the sake of obeying Allah."

(Tirmidhi, Ahmad, Tabarani, Ibn Majah, al-Hakim, and Quda`i)

This hadith was declared by Al-Haythami in his Majma`al-zawa'id as the following:

"The strong one is not the one who overcomes people, the strong one is he who overcomes his ego (ghalaba nafsah)"

Fighting against the ego is a must for us muslims, it's actually bigger than just fighting because it's a jihad, if we really want to get close to Allah we have to throw away our egos. We can't let it control our hearts. The most important step is to detect it first (muhasabah diri). It should be a long hard struggle until our ego had been disciplined and our heart illumined, and when we had conquered our ego and subdued it and achieved complete mastery over it, then that is what we want, because it shows that we know we are powerless compared to Allah the Almighty. Hopefully our ego would be no more which is always trying to mislead and prevent us walking in the right path.

So, lets stop for a moment. Think really hard and detect our egos. Should we do something about it or should we walk with it in the path to Jahanam? Paradise is only for people that are humble to Allah, extraordinary (Islamic values) to be exact, and Allah does not allow egoistic people to taste the pleasure of Paradise. Allah is One. No one is greater than Him. We should always remember that, and not even Satan could convinced us otherwise.

Wallahua'lam.