Leaving recommended practices to perceive one's own shortcomings
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it permissible for a person to leave some of the recommended practices (mustahabbat) so that he always sees the shortcoming in himself?
Answer:
No, no, this is not permissible. One does not leave a righteous deed just to say, "I am shortcoming." You are shortcoming. Even if you worked day and night, you are shortcoming in the right of Allah the Exalted. Shortcoming is inevitable. Also, a deed may not be accepted; there may be something in it that causes it to be rejected, such as shirk (associating partners with Allah) or riya' (showing off in worship). So do not be pleased with your deeds. Rather, Allah accepts from the righteous. Do you guarantee for yourself that you are among the righteous? But you hope in Allah the Exalted? Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it permissible for a person to leave some of the recommended practices (mustahabbat) so that he always sees the shortcoming in himself?
Answer:
No, no, this is not permissible. One does not leave a righteous deed just to say, "I am shortcoming." You are shortcoming. Even if you worked day and night, you are shortcoming in the right of Allah the Exalted. Shortcoming is inevitable. Also, a deed may not be accepted; there may be something in it that causes it to be rejected, such as shirk (associating partners with Allah) or riya' (showing off in worship). So do not be pleased with your deeds. Rather, Allah accepts from the righteous. Do you guarantee for yourself that you are among the righteous? But you hope in Allah the Exalted? Yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل وفي محاسبة النفس عدة مصالح — islamhouse.com (53:36)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.