Tradition

لَيْسَ مِنّا مَنْ لَمْ يُحاسِبْ نَفْسَهُ كُلَّ يَوْم

Imam al-Kazim (‘a) is narrated to have said: “He who does not account (his actions) each day is not from us.”1

Brief Commentary

The only possible way to prevent harm to ourselves and work towards further progress is to sit down each day and account for all of what we have done and said. Growth is not possible except through such detailed accounting and this includes both the young, as well as the old. It is actually surprising that people spend so much time accounting for their financial state, and they spend so much time looking after their physical well-being, and yet, when it comes to their moral and spiritual accounting, they are completely negligent. It is possible for someone to spend virtually no time accounting for their spiritual state during the span of their entire lifetime. This is an extremely frightening state of being.

On the other hand, a responsible and aware Muslim is one who lives by the words of Imam al-Kazim (‘a) in the aforementioned tradition. He always accounts for the actions and deeds of every single day. If he has done something good, he attempts to further it in scope, and if he has done something bad, he asks God to forgive him for his lapse. Over a lifetime, such accounting will increase the good that one does and decrease the evil at an exponential level.

• 1. From the book Aqwal al-A’immah, vol. 1, p. 214.