"I Am Able to Do It"

And then he says: wa tajahhaza Rasūlu Allāhi wa al-muslimūna maʿahu, fa-ṭafiqtu aghdū li-kay atajahhaza maʿahum, fa-arjiʿu wa lam aqḍi shayʾā, fa-aqūlu fī nafsī: ana qādirun ʿalayh. He said: the Messenger of Allah and the Muslims began making their preparations, and I began going out early in order to prepare, but I would come back without having accomplished anything. He had the intention to prepare, but he would not do anything. Procrastination — a human habit, something usual: if you do not commit yourself, if you do not discipline yourself to do something, you are not going to do it, and you are going to put off today's work until tomorrow. And that is what Kaʿb ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) was doing. And then he tells us something. He said: fa-aqūlu fī nafsī: ana qādirun ʿalayh — I would tell myself: I am able to do it.

The nafs, the self, can drag you down if you do not discipline it. If you leave your affairs to your whims, and just go with the flow, you are not going to get anything done. And Kaʿb ibn Mālik was speaking to himself and saying: I can do it; and in the end he did not do it. So we need to be very careful of the nafs, because the nafs is lazy, the nafs is afraid, the nafs is weak, the nafs loves the dunyā; and if you do not force it, and discipline it, and tame it to follow the orders of Allah (ʿazza wa jall), it will wander off with you and lead you astray. You have to be very careful: your nafs can be your worst enemy if you do not pay attention.

Fa-lam yazal yatamādā bī ḥattā ishtadda bi-al-nāsi al-jidd, fa-aṣbaḥa Rasūlu Allāhi wa al-muslimūna maʿahu wa lam aqḍi min jahāzī shayʾā. He said: and time was passing, and people were deep in their preparations; and then suddenly, the next morning, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Muslims were ready — that is it; they were set to go — wa lam aqḍi min jahāzī shayʾā, and I had done nothing to prepare myself. He was at the first stage; he had done nothing; and the Muslims were ready to leave that morning. Fa-qultu: atajahhazu baʿdahu bi-yawmin aw yawmayni thumma alḥaquhum — I said: I am going to prepare, to get ready, within a day or two, and then I am going to catch up with them. Fa-ghadawtu baʿda an faṣalū li-atajahhaza, fa-rajaʿtu wa lam aqḍi shayʾā — they left, and I decided to get myself ready, and I did not; I did nothing. Fa-lam yazal bī ḥattā asraʿū wa tafāraṭa al-ghazw — and that remained the case until the army had gone and it was over.

And here — if you think that you can hurry a thing along, so you procrastinate, and then you think that you can gather it all together and rush it — many times what happens is that you end up doing nothing, because the matter piles up and piles up until it becomes too much to manage; and when you look at the amount of work you have to do, you just end up giving up. So it is a trick of the self to tell you to procrastinate; and then it is another trick of the self when it tells you: that is it; it is too late. And you end up giving up.

This is also another indication, because here Kaʿb ibn Mālik is speaking in the context of going out fī sabīl Allāh. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that this will continue until the Day of Judgement: there will be an enemy that is fought at every point in time, according to the aḥādīth of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), the aḥādīth of al-ṭāʾifah al-manṣūrah. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that they will be fighting until the end of time, until the Dajjāl comes out; they will be fighting fī sabīl Allāh. They were fighting fī sabīl Allāh yesterday, they are fighting fī sabīl Allāh today, and they will be fighting fī sabīl Allāh tomorrow.

And then he says: wa hamamtu an artaḥila fa-udrikahum, wa laytanī faʿalt — and I was still thinking of setting out and catching up with them, and I wish that I had. Kaʿb ibn Mālik wishes that he had, and one day you will wish that you had — if not in the dunyā, then in the Ākhirah — when you see the great rewards given to these special people upon whom Allah (ʿazza wa jall) has bestowed His favour, and whom He guided to the straight path, and showed the best of deeds, the peak and pinnacle of Islam: you will wish that you had. Kaʿb ibn Mālik is saying: laytanī — I wish, I wish that I had. Fa-lam yuqaddar lī dhālik — it was not destined for me to do so.

Fa-kuntu idhā kharajtu fī al-nāsi baʿda khurūji Rasūli Allāhi fa-ṭuftu fīhim, aḥzananī annī lā arā illā rajulan maghmūṣan ʿalayhi al-nifāqu aw rajulan mimman ʿadhara Allāhu min al-ḍuʿafāʾ. When the army had left and he was left behind in Madīnah, he would go out and walk around, go to the marketplaces. He said: whenever I went out and mixed with people after the departure of the Messenger of Allah, it grieved me that the only men I saw were men suspected of hypocrisy, or those excused by the Messenger of Allah because they were in poor health. So these are the ones who stay behind: the munāfiqūn and the ones who are excused.