يا ابن آدم إنك لا تصيب حقيقة الإيمان حتى لا تعيب الناس بعيب هو فيك، وحتى تبدأ بصلاح ذلك العيب من نفسك فتصلحه، فإذا فعلت ذلك لم تصلح عيباً إلا وجدت عيباً آخر لم تصلحه، فإذا فعلت ذلك كان شغلك في خاصة نفسك، وأحب العباد إلى الله تعالى من كان كذلك.
O son of Adam, you will not reach the reality of faith until you stop blaming people for a fault that is in you, and until you begin with that fault in yourself and fix it. When you do that, you will not fix one fault except that you will find another fault you have not fixed. When you do that, your concern will be with your own self. And the most beloved servants to Allah are those who are like that.
— Sifat al-Safwa, Vol. 2, p. 138
There is a whole spiritual discipline hidden here:
stop building your identity around noticing what is wrong with everyone else.
The self has enough work to keep a person busy for a lifetime. Maybe that is mercy. Allah gives us our own faults to repair so we do not waste our lives becoming experts in other people’s wounds.
