any obstruction in the road—a stone, a shard of glass, a thorn, or anything else—then remove it, for that too is part of faith. Even your car: if you leave it standing in the middle of the roadway and make the passage narrow for people, you have placed harm in their path, and taking it away counts as an act of faith. Now, if clearing harm from the road is an expression of faith, placing harm on the road is sheer loss—may Allah protect us—and a sign of deficient faith.

For this reason a person must have a living, modest heart that feels what others feel. You see some people nowadays parking a car anywhere—lengthwise, crosswise—without the slightest concern for whether the space is cramped or spacious. Such behavior is not among the qualities of a believer. The believer’s heart is alive and sensitive to people’s needs; he loves for them what he loves for himself. How could you, for example, stop your car across the road and pay no attention to obstructing others? Sometimes people block the street by parking at the door of a large mosque when the road is already narrow; when worshippers leave after Friday prayer they are hemmed in, and this is wrong.

Removing harm from the road is a charity. Therefore a person should take the initiative to clear the roadway. If he is unable to do so—because the obstacle is a large rock, a heap of sand, or the like—he should inform the responsible authorities, such as the municipality, because it