Commentary
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—relates from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Charity is due from every Muslim.” We have already encountered a similar, indeed broader, wording from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “A charity is due from every salāma of the people each day the sun rises.” The word salāma refers to the joints of the body. This shows that Allah requires from us a daily charity, but that charity can take many different forms: a tasbīḥah (saying “subḥān Allāh”), a takbīrah (“Allāhu akbar”), a tahlīlah (“lā ilāha illā Allāh”), enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, or aiding someone in dire need. In short, the avenues of goodness are many.

Yet the nafs that commands to evil keeps a person from those good deeds. Whenever he resolves to do one act of virtue, it diverts him to something else; and when he turns to that, it distracts him yet again, until his time slips away and he gains nothing from it.

Therefore a person should take the initiative and hasten to every opportunity for good. Whenever a door of goodness is opened before him, let him rush to enter it, in keeping with the Almighty’s words: “So compete with one another in doing good” (al-Māʾidah 48). If an opportunity presents itself the first time and he fails to seize it, it is likely that Allah will withhold it from him. The Prophet ﷺ said, “People will continue to hold back until Allah holds them back.”

In short, the intelligent, resolute believer must seize every path to righteousness and strive with the utmost diligence to take from