Taqwa (God-consciousness)

Taqwa (piety), in Ibn Rajab's commentary on the counsel "Fear God wherever you are," is for the servant to place between himself and what he fears and dreads a shield that protects him from it. The piety of the servant toward his Lord is that he places a shield between himself and what he dreads of His wrath, His displeasure, and His punishment, and it is the doing of His obedience and the avoidance of His disobedience. ¹

Piety is attributed to the name of God, so that it becomes a guard against His displeasure and anger, which is the greatest thing to guard against. It is attributed to His punishment, as with the Fire, and to His time, as with the Day of Resurrection. Full piety includes doing the obligations and abandoning the forbidden and the doubtful. Its highest degree is including the doing of the recommended acts and the abandoning of the disliked. ²

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz said: "The piety of God is not fasting by day or standing in prayer by night, but abandoning what God has forbidden and performing what He has obligated." Talq ibn Habib said: "That you act in obedience to God by a light from God, hoping for His reward; and abandon His disobedience by a light from God, fearing His punishment." Abu al-Darda' said: "The completion of piety is that the servant guard against the weight of an atom, until he leaves some of what is lawful as a barrier between himself and the unlawful." Al-Thawri said: "They were only called the pious because they guarded against what is not guarded against." Ibn Mas'ud explained "God's piety as is due to Him": that He be obeyed and not disobeyed, remembered and not forgotten, and thanked and not disbelieved. ³

Piety is God's charge to the first and the last, and the charge of His Messenger to his community. He used to enjoin it on the commander of a secret expedition. He said to Abu Dhar: "I charge you with the piety of God, for it is the head of the whole matter." Among what most admits people to Paradise is the piety of God and good character. ⁴

It is connected with scrupulousness.

The Sheikh says taqwa is hard and is best known by example, and recounts that Umar asked a man about it, and the man answered that he lifts his garment and walks among thorns (needs_source). ^{5 6 7} He applies the image to gatherings of backbiting: on entering one, a person must lift his heart, body and tongue from taking part, and he says he left a room where children were watching a film (his view). ^{8 9} He cites a prayer attributed to a scholar, asking God to break the leg that walks away from gatherings of remembrance, and holds that the prayer asks God to close the doors of wrongdoing (needs_source). ^{10 11} He says the first principle of taqwa is humility, and that a Muslim does not look down on anyone (see the entry on humility). ¹²

The Sheikh says that the key to paradise is patience and gratitude, then notes in the verse (Qur'an 78:31) that the pious have a place of triumph that is the result of this taqwa in the hereafter, and that the word here carries the sense of a place ¹³. He observes that the wording of the verse points to a place and not merely to success, because in this world a person is two things, a place and its occupant, and when his heart yearns for the house of God it yearns for the place from which he draws his charge of faith ¹⁴. He says that the reward is guaranteed by God, so what is asked of the servant is taqwa, and that the verse is a clear map for whoever wants to be among the pious ¹⁵.

The Sheikh warns that a person should not think that the visible causes before him are what settle matters, but should knock at the door of God, who has only to will a thing for it to be ¹⁶. He then mentions the fourth point of taqwa, which is that the servant seeks forgiveness every time he sins ¹⁶.

The Sheikh holds that it is remarkable that the Companions who were given glad tidings of paradise grew more fearful of God after the tidings reached them from the truthful and infallible one ^{17 18}. He says that whoever deals with a great person, such as a distinguished scholar or a virtuous head of state, comes to revere him more the better he knows his character, and learns when he becomes angry ¹⁸.