The danger behind the logic of persisting on a mistake by saying ''I can correct my attitude later anyhow''

The weighing that Day will be the truth. As for those whose scales are heavy, they are the successful. As for those whose scales are light, they are the ones who have lost their own selves because they wrongfully rejected Our Signs. (Surat Al-A‘raf, 8-9)

As it is revealed in the verses above, Allah will question everyone in the Day of Judgment and reward or punish people with the Garden or Hell respectively according to the deeds they have performed. Those who have performed good deeds in the life of this world will be rewarded with the Garden ‘as their scales are heavy.’ The scales of those who have not performed good deeds in order to win Allah’s approval will be light and they will be punished with Hell. Therefore, people who want to avoid the punishment in Hell and who put an effort for this have to think about their mistakes, which they did not pay attention while thinking ‘I can recover it afterwards’, and have to abandon immediately any attitude that is not in accordance with the Qur’an.

This is the morality, which Allah commanded in the Qur’an for believers to live. The verse, “…do not knowingly persist in what they were doing.” (Surah Al ‘Imran, 135) points out that when a believer notices his or her mistake, he or she shows a morality to recover that mistake. However, nevertheless some people do not use their conscience when they notice that they have made a mistake and they do not hurry to change this situation. Under the influence of their inner selves and satan, they justify their action of ‘delaying for a while’. They keep on making these mistakes sometimes because of pride and egocentrism, sometimes because they worry about what other people will say or sometimes because they are in an emotional and pessimistic state of mind.

But this is a situation seen in the morality lived by the ignorant. Such people who do not think about Allah and the Hereafter cannot get out of this state because they try to solve things with the methods of the ignorant when they make a mistake. In addition, accepting one’s mistake immediately or trying to recover the mistake made are characteristics seen as ugly by these people. The difference of believers from such people is that the believers have given up this point of view. For someone who has faith, instead of these, acting in the opposite direction as soon as a mistake is realized and leaving the wrong action sharply when called for what is right is an important sign of faith. This, insha’Allah, is an open sign that the person has fear of Allah, has faith in Allah and the Hereafter.  

Therefore, when a believer makes a mistake, he or she sees this as an opportunity to show the morality of a Muslim and abandons this mistake as a manifestation of his or her love and devotion to our Lord. The logic behind saying “I can correct my mistake later anyhow” is not an attitude in correspondence with the morality of a believer and fear of Allah that he or she must have.

In addition to this, it should not be forgotten that each and every one of these behaviors that are not correspondent with the Qur’an will be hidden in Allah’s and will be in front of him or her in the Day of Judgment. Let’s think about a person who lives one day of his or her 60-year life in an attitude not in correspondence with the Qur’an. This person would have spent one day of his or her life without pleasing Allah. He or she can of course ask for forgiveness and act according to the Qur’an and win Allah’s gratification. Because for every person there is an opportunity to ask for forgiveness, to reconcile for his or her mistakes, to reach the morality of the Prophets and to earn a morality that deserves the highest degrees of the Garden. But again, that ‘one day’ in which he or she did not correct his or her mistake will be absent from the goods the person will be rewarded with in the Hereafter. A person who lives many of his or her days in ignorance would have left the opportunity of performing that many days of good deeds aside and would have entered into a great loss.

In fact, every moment of a person in the life of this world is very precious. Human life passes very quickly. Every moment, a sudden disease or an accident or death with no reason can prevent the person to perform good deeds for the next day or to reconcile the mistake of the yesterday. No one has a “later time” to be able to say “I can correct this later anyhow” or to live for sure. So the person should be in a hurry, by taking into consideration this weakness, to abandon these mistakes and to perform good deeds in order to win Allah’s approval.

What needs to be done is to live with a complete submission to and trust in Allah and destiny, to aim for Allah’s gratification in every condition and to turn away from delusions, sorrow and empty deeds. Abandoning bad moral characteristics such as pride, arrogance, egocentrism, stubbornness and not-caring is to evaluate the mistake made not by the moral values of the ignorant but with the morality of the Qur’an.

Satan tries to stall people with empty illusions. He tries to make believers forget to think about Allah, the Qur’an and the Hereafter. “Nothing will happen, I can correct my mistake later anyhow” is a logic which is one of satan’s games. Believers must be very careful for satan’s games; listen to every word that his conscience tells him or her and live the Qur’an in order to win Allah’s approval.