(This is my article. It is not directly related to the theme of this blog, but I am posting it to keep all my wirting it in one single blog)
In Urdu , and most of the Hindi speaking belt, Ihsaan broadly is understood as 'doing a favour'. In reality it is just a part of Ihsaan.
Islam assigns a very significant place for Ihsaan, which in Arabic means 'beautification', 'perfection' or 'excellence'. The gist of Ihsaan as per the Hadith of Jibrael (as) is attaining a deeper and higher level of Eiman (faith , belief in Allah and unseen) until we feel the presence of our Lord while worshiping Him. This is the highest level of excellence in Eiman, and is best of Ihsaan surely. But Ihsaan transcends this definition, so for example, in the wordly affairs, Ihsaan is paying that extra on top of agreed wages to a labourer. Yet another example will be, not only forgiving your relative or friend for a mistake or shortcoming, but also going beyond it to actually make them feel comfortable and even doing something generous or charitable for them. The aspect of Ihsaan mostly ignored is that of 'perfection', perfection in every walk of life. Be it our job, our behaviour / treatment / etiquette with fellow humans or animals, bringing up children, our ways while undertaking mundane or significant tasks, even our hobbies and things as simple as driving, dressing up for occassions, preparing for speech, researching something, performing a DIY job, and even washing up your car. Allah says in the Quran that He 'loves' the 'Muhsineen' - those who practise Ihsaan, consistently. We Muslims have simply forgotten this pivotal principle of our Deen, and we generally live our lives simply pushing ourselves ,somehow, on the daily basis, with no due regards to the Ihsaan. One of the worst enemies of spirit of living by Ihsaan is laziness. 99% of us regard things we do as trivial, coincidental, insignificant or as if they were forced upon us, even our jobs after a certain period. The result of such attitude is lack of willingness to take that extra effort to push our game a bit higher. Perfection is seldom our aim, when we go do some job for living, say a plumber or a carpenter, we cut corner and would skip the finer finish even if we are capable of achieving it, thus not only robbing customer of their right but also losing an opportunity to attain Ihsaan. Perfection is not only desireable in Islam, but also is central to our faith - it invites love of Allah, and there are two benefits broadly- which are, gaining satisfaction of achieving perfection and secondly, achieving the glory and success in the world inviting respect from people in our lives and around us. When the Muslims were fully aware of the importance of living by Ihsaan, and lived by it, the history tells us that they were the vanguards of every fine thing - be it in science, architecture, warfare, administration,arts, literature or any other walk of life. Allah gave them Izzah and glory in the world, and the non Muslims idealised them and learned from them. And when we collectively forsook Ihsaan, Zalalah became our destiny in all wordly matters. This calls us to start re-thinking about our lives putting Ihsaan at the centre - it is not impossible to attain the same Izzah again as individuals and as world community.
