God is the ultimate source of truth and by His criterion we ascertain truth from falsehood, and right from wrong. If He censures a group of people, it is not without good reason. One characteristic that He censures in the penultimate verse in Sūrat al-A’rāf are the heedless.

ولا تكن من الغفلين

“And be not from amongst the heedless”.

Heedlessness is the currency by which the attention-based economy we live in operates. We eat with little to no consideration as to whether the our diet is Tayyib and where it came from, forgetting that our Imāms abstained from eating meat for almost a decade out of fear of eating what is unlawful. We scroll even more heedlessly - hours are sunk into (paradoxically named) social media. But our way of life aims to take us out of the never-ending matrix of heedlessness-maximising algorithms.

Consider what the great jurist Ibn ’Ābidīn lists in his hashiyah as the list of supplications that one can make whist performing ablution:

1. When gargling water: Allāh, turn me towards the recital of the Qurān, your remembrance, gratitude for you, and excellence in your worship.
2. When passing water up the nostrils: Allāh, allow me to smell the fragrances of paradise, and do not make me smell the smells of the fire.
3. When washing the face: Allāh, lighten my face on the when some faces will be lightened and some faces will be darkened.
4. When washing the right hand: Allāh, grant me my book of deeds on my right hand and take my accounts lightly.
5. When washing the left hand: Allāh, don’t give me my book of deeds on my left hand or from my back.
6. When wiping the head: Allāh, grant me shade beneath your throne on the day when there is no shade except the shade of your throne.
7. When wiping the ear: Allāh, make me from amongst those who listen to the speech and then follow it to the best standard.
8. When wiping the neck: Allāh, free my neck (i.e. me) from the fire.
9. When washing the right feet: Allāh, make my feet firm on the path on the day when feet will be shaking.
10. When washing the left feet: Allāh, make my sins forgiven, my efforts rewarded, and my transactions (i.e. good deeds) successful.

The act of ablution takes us less than 2 minutes, but even in something so simple (trivial even), there are many opportunities to re-focus and re-align. There is surely a parallel between the one who purifies himself (mindfully) to meet his Lord in prayer in this life, and the one who (intentionally) purifies his heart to meet his Lord in the next life. May He purify our hearts better than we purify our bodies.