[Internet Repost]

This article dives deep into the psychology of how our ego—the Nafs—disguises itself as moral superiority and harsh judgment within our faith life. It serves as a reminder for believers to practice constant self-reflection during prayer (dua), fasting, and inviting others to good, helping us return to the core of a faith that actually fosters humility and gentleness.





True faith won't turn you into a harsh person; it will only make you more gentle.



Production | Mr. Yexing Author | Mr. Yexing

You might feel like you’re doing everything right in your faith—following the scriptures, practicing diligently, reading, fasting, giving to charity, and even guiding others. You feel like you're on the straight path. But you might not realize there’s something subtle creeping into your intentions: your own ego. It doesn’t tell you to quit believing; instead, it puts on a mask of piety, letting you satisfy your own needs while you think you're performing acts of worship. It might push you to pick paths that prove you’re right, to focus on others' flaws when making judgments, or to crave validation when you speak. The scariest part is that you’ll mistake all of this for the demands of the faith, completely missing the fact that you’re actually just feeding your own ego.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: The best among you are those with the best character (Tirmidhi). But the ego won’t pull you off the right path; it will just make you feel like you're serving the truth even when you're going astray. You fight to the bitter end in a debate because you think you’re defending the truth; you refuse to back down in your criticisms because you think you’re protecting the faith. But have you ever asked yourself: Am I doing this for the pleasure of Allah, or to prove I’m right? Am I defending the faith, or just making myself look more rigid? You can only reach those hidden motives when you’re willing to pause and face yourself.

When you judge others based on your own understanding, you might feel like you’re simply 'enjoining good and forbidding evil.' But have you thought about whether you’re pushing your views because you’re certain they’re correct, or because you’re just used to needing your opinions to be accepted? The ego won’t tell you, 'I want validation.' It’ll tell you, 'I have to uphold the truth.' It won’t say, 'I want to be in control.' It’ll say, 'The faith requires me to do this.' When you find yourself in constant, unresolvable conflict with others, always believing you’re the right one, take a moment to ask: Is this impulse to force someone to change or admit they’re wrong actually about the integrity of the faith, or is it about your own satisfaction? When you can’t tell the difference, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re following.

The ego’s greatest trick is disguising itself as the faith. It makes you hold others to the strictest standards while going easy on yourself. It makes you obsessed with pointing out everyone else's mistakes but rarely forces you to look at whether you’re actually practicing what you preach. It makes you care more about the outward rituals of faith while ignoring the subtle reactions that truly test your spiritual state—like how you treat people who aren't useful to you, how you respond to criticism, or the choices you make when nobody is watching. Those unedited moments often reveal the true direction of your heart.

So, how do you tell the difference? A practical test is this: when you’re standing your ground on something, do you feel a sense of peace or a sense of tension? If your stance makes you aggressive, constantly wanting to correct, argue, or blame, it might not be your faith driving you—it might be your ego using the name of faith to express itself. True faith won’t make you meaner; it will only make you more gentle. It won’t keep you focused on other people's sins; it will make you more aware of your own shortcomings. It won’t make you rush to prove you’re right; it will make you willing to admit when you might be wrong.

If you find it hard to accept criticism, hard to admit you misunderstood something, or hard to concede to those with different opinions, you might need to stop and ask if you’re defending the faith or just your own ego. Because the true faith won’t be damaged by you admitting you’re wrong. But your ego will only get stronger every time you refuse to own up to a mistake. Once you start being able to tell those two apart, you’re finally on the path toward the truth, rather than just spinning your wheels in an imaginary version of the truth that you built yourself and stained with your own desires.

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[Internet Repost]

By looking at the vivid scenes of early morning college entrance exams in a small town, we can dive deep into the similarities and differences between the Chinese traditional concept of 'doing your best and leaving the rest to fate' (Jin Renshi, Ting Tianming) and the Islamic practice of 'tie your camel first, then trust in Allah' (Tawakkul). The goal is to show that hard work is our human duty, while faith is what brings peace to our hearts when the outcome is out of our hands.





When human effort reaches its limit, where do we place our hearts?

Hard work is our basic human duty; trust is what anchors our soul. When your best efforts are exhausted, here is where you find peace.

When the kids in the village headed out for their exams, the sun hadn't even fully risen yet.

June in a small town has a distinct, humid vibe. The chalk dust from late-night study sessions still hangs in the air, and the school gates are plastered with banners promising success, though the parents have pretty much heard it all before.

I was doing some field research in a small town in Northwest China, and on the day of the Gaokao (college entrance exam), I hung out with the crowd. There were Han Chinese parents and Hui Muslim parents alike, all standing by with water and good-luck snacks. Some whispered, 'Jin Renshi, Ting Tianming'—do your best and let fate decide—a phrase spoken with a mix of exhaustion and self-comfort.

A Hui Muslim man standing nearby, wearing a white prayer cap, heard this, nodded, and added, 'That’s right, for the big things, we put our trust in Allah.'

It sounded harmonious, like they were saying the exact same thing. Both sides were keeping a distance from the 'results' to avoid being too stressed. But as I stood there by the school gate, it hit me: when these two ideas are put together, they actually carry very different meanings.

In recent years, people online have loved using phrases like this for self-soothing. They’ll scroll through motivational 'you can conquer the heavens' posts while simultaneously sharing 'chill/let it be' content, acting as if posting it is enough to wipe away all their anxiety. The real problem arises when you’re facing a 'make or break' moment: you have to answer the simple question of who you entrust the rest of the journey to once you’ve done everything you possibly could.

Some people give it to 'Fate,' others give it to 'Allah.' It sounds like just an abstract term versus a concrete noun, but behind them stand two completely different worldviews.

If you try to explain this as a dry theory, it’s easy to get lost. I’d rather start from that scene at the school gate and break it down piece by piece.

As the sun climbed higher, some Hui Muslim parents simply laid out a plastic mat in the shade, pulling out food they’d brought from home: spicy latiao (spicy wheat gluten strips), youxiang (fried unleavened flatbread), and slow-cooked shouzhua yangrou (hand-grabbed lamb). It felt like a picnic. The Han parents nearby didn't stand on ceremony; they joined in to eat, exchanging polite small talk while their hearts were clearly still inside the exam hall with their kids.

Someone sighed, saying the competition is brutal and the kids have it tough. They said they'd done all they could, with endless tutoring and pressure, ending with, 'Yeah, just have to do our best and leave the rest to fate.'

The Hui man shook his head and replied, 'Don't just talk about fate. Allah doesn't like lazy people; you have to be well-fed and keep working to have any hope.' He laughed after saying it, as if he’d just shared a lighthearted joke.

Honestly, at that moment, I realized that 'doing your best and leaving it to fate' and 'entrusting the big things to Allah' really aren't the same flavor of motivation.

On the surface, both are restrained; neither supports the 'boss' mentality that you must get exactly what you want. Neither encourages that obsessive, win-at-all-costs mindset.

Think about it—who hasn't hit a wall in life? Sickness, job loss, failed investments, or a kid missing a cutoff score. Often, you’re exhausted, yet the result is still out of your reach. If your brain is only filled with the idea that 'my fate is in my own hands, not heaven's,' it’s easy to break down.

That’s why both 'leaving it to fate' and 'trusting in Allah' serve as a mental step back. It lets your heart release the shackles of 'I must have this,' acknowledging that human effort has its limits.

In that sense, they are alike. Neither encourages the arrogance of thinking humans control every outcome, but neither encourages you to just give up and rot, either.

In TV dramas, when characters face life-or-death situations, they often say, 'Life and death are fated; wealth and honor are in heaven.' Once the camera pans out, the person seems at peace. There’s a line in 'Farewell My Concubine': 'A person must fulfill themselves.' It’s about acting, but also about life—you have to finish the performance, and only after you’ve given it your all do you have the standing to accept what fate brings.

The Hui elder’s phrase, 'trusting in Allah for the big things,' is spoken with peace. It’s not a motivational slogan; it’s more like a daily operational protocol. It’s like how we habitually say 'eat it while it’s hot' before a meal—you aren’t saying it for others, you’re saying it for yourself.

But the 'similarity' ends right there. If you go any deeper, the paths diverge.

In a Chinese context, 'Jin Renshi, Ting Tianming' has a clear Confucian foundation, with the weight placed firmly on the 'human' side.

When reading the 'Analects,' you’ll find Confucius often talked about 'the benevolent finding peace in benevolence, the wise finding benefit in benevolence.' He cares most about whether a person has fulfilled their moral duty. Whether a child is filial, an official is responsible, or a friend is trustworthy—these are all 'human duties.'

'Leaving it to fate' is actually placed at the end, like a curtain falling after the play. Mencius also said, 'Fulfill your heart and know your nature; if you know your nature, you know heaven.' He demands that people push their hearts to the limit and do what they can; only when you reach that boundary do you naturally know where the 'heavenly' part begins.

This logic hits pretty close to what we call having a clear conscience. In your professional life, if you give everything you’ve got and a project still flops, you can say the timing wasn't right or it just wasn't meant to be, but you can't use fate as an excuse to slack off early.

To put it simply, the subject of that sentence is 'I'—it’s about the person. Fate is more like a final summary, a way to find peace with yourself when looking back. You fulfill your part first, then you accept the world as it is.

The starting point for 'putting your trust in Allah' (tawakkul) is a bit different.

It’s rooted in Islamic faith. There’s an Arabic term for this, which basically means 'putting your trust in Allah,' referring to the state where a person, after exhausting every possible effort, leaves the final outcome to the One who is believed to have created and controls everything.

This kind of trust isn’t about dumping your responsibilities onto someone else; it’s a declaration of a relationship. I do the work because Allah enabled me to do it, so whether it works out or not isn't something that’s charged to my account.

When some people hear 'trusting in Allah,' they immediately picture someone just lying around. They wonder if this is just 'giving up' wrapped in religious language—like throwing everything at an unseen force to make life easier for themselves.

If it were really like that, the world would’ve gone to pieces a long time ago.

In the traditional Islamic schools (Jingtang Jiaoyu - the system of traditional Islamic education in China) I’ve encountered, the Imams (religious leaders) don't go easy on the younger generation. They expect them to memorize scripture, keep the mosque (masjid) clean, be honest in business, and keep their promises. All of that counts as the 'work humans are supposed to do.'

A young guy once told me, 'Around here, we don't like to call laziness trusting in Allah. Allah isn't here to do your job for you.'

See, the trust found in faith actually writes 'effort' into the contract. If you don't put in the work and fail to fulfill your duties, how can you talk about trusting in Allah?

If a person doesn't work hard and fails their duty, they have no business talking about trust.

This is somewhat similar to 'do your best and leave the rest to fate,' but it takes a turn and raises the perspective just a notch higher.

Confucianism focuses on having a 'clear conscience'—if you’ve handled your business well and can stand tall within yourself, you can sit back peacefully and watch how the cards of fate are dealt.

Trusting in Allah is more like having a 'clear conscience before Allah.' You are a servant entrusted with a task; your diligence, self-discipline, and integrity are the work you submit to the Creator. When the final result comes, whether it's good or bad, the burden doesn't rest entirely on you.

There’s a subtle but crucial psychological difference here: whether you’re center-stage, or whether a higher power is the center of everything.

The concept of 'Heaven' (Tian) in the Chinese language is pretty vague. It can mean natural laws, historical trends, or just random circumstances beyond your control—it carries a sense of fatalism. But rarely do people talk to 'Heaven' in their daily lives; no one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I put my trust in Heaven,' as it sounds like something straight out of a TV drama script.

In the lives of Hui Muslims, 'Allah' has a name. You can call upon Him directly. This relationship is woven into the rhythm of the five daily prayers (dua). He has a clear nature and attributes that are emphasized over and over, like mercy, justice, and all-knowing wisdom. This kind of 'entrusting' isn't about kicking a ball into empty air; it's handing it over to a Will that is believed to be alive and present.

That might sound a bit abstract, so let me describe a scene from real life.

In a village in Ningxia, I met a family whose child had been diagnosed with a serious illness. They needed to get to a big city for surgery. The whole family scraped money together, borrowed from relatives, and the village helped out. After half a month of chaos, they finally managed to get the surgery fees together.

Right before they left, the grandfather was in the yard, smoothing out the child’s clothes, muttering over and over, 'We’ve done everything we could.'

'Let's go. We're leaving the rest to Allah.'

If you want to say there’s a hint of 'leave it to fate' in that, you’d be right—both acknowledge the limits of human power. But the way the grandfather said it felt more like he was handing a report to someone he could actually reach. It wasn't just him talking to himself; it was filled with a mix of prayer and trust.

If you took the same situation and had a traditional Confucian elder there, he might say, 'We’ve done all we can, now let’s see what fate has in store.' The tone there is about settling one's heart and no longer forcing an outcome.

That phrase about trusting in Allah feels a bit more like, 'I’ve placed this in Your hands.' There’s a relationship between the person and that higher Will—sometimes even a sense of, 'Please don't forget to look after this,' like a child seeking help. That kind of emotion is something cultivated through long-term religious life.

With all that said, some friends might ask: is there really any point in splitting hairs like this? For regular people, is it really necessary to pick between 'fate' and 'Allah' while trying to get through life?

Honestly, for most regular people, these two expressions actually coexist; some people might even use both in the same day. Someone might say 'leave it to fate' as they head out for work in the morning, and then, after finishing a call with their kids living far away, quietly mutter, 'I’ll just put my trust in Allah regarding the big stuff.' It turns out the human heart doesn't mind having a few extra layers of security.

But from a cultural perspective, this subtle difference is actually pretty charming—it shows that when faced with the same universal human dilemma, we don't exactly give the same answer.

And what’s that dilemma? That human beings are limited.

We’re all just out here grinding through life in these fragile bodies—working, saving money, supporting our families, dealing with health issues, and saying goodbye to loved ones. Every single step feels like you’re a little pony tied to a cart, pulling with all your might. But there are so many make-or-break moments where pulling harder just isn’t going to fix things.

A farmer can till his fields perfectly, water them, sow the seeds, and add fertilizer, but whether the weather cooperates is out of his hands. A student might study by candlelight until they’re totally zoned out, only for a random, weird question on the final exam to throw off their score. A doctor can give their absolute all to save a patient, but sometimes, a human life just fades away.

In those moments, if you only tell yourself, 'I just need to work harder,' you’ll quickly fall into a hole of self-blame and resentment—either beating yourself up for not being strong enough, or getting angry that the world isn’t fair.

'Doing your part and letting fate decide' (Jin ren shi, ting tian ming) and 'putting your trust in Allah' (taokao zhu) act like two different psychological defense lines, each using its own language to help people keep from losing it.

The former tells you not to obsess over the result; ask yourself if you’ve actually done your part first. If you have, learn to accept it and stop dwelling on the past. The latter tells you that your hard work is a response to Allah, and that handing over the outcome isn't about giving up—it’s about believing there’s a higher standard at play.

If you look at them side-by-side, you’ll notice an interesting common thread: human effort always comes first. Whether it’s 'letting fate decide' or 'trusting in Allah,' neither one encourages you to use 'destiny' or 'the Divine' as a shield before you’ve actually done the work.

When the whole 'giving up/lying flat' trend takes over the internet, people often dig up these two phrases as a quick fix. Some young people love using 'going with the flow' or 'leaving it to fate' to justify their own laziness, even though they know deep down they’re just burnt out and haven't found the strength to deal with that anxiety yet.

But the 'taokao' (trust/reliance) found in faith doesn't let you slide like that—you’ve got to do your part first for that trust to be real. It’s the same with the Confucian side; if you aren’t even serious about your own duties, what’s the point of talking about 'being content with your fate'? You’d just be a laughingstock.

Kafka wrote a pretty cold line in *The Trial*: 'From a certain point of view, acting too early or too late is the same as not acting at all.' That fits here, too. If a person uses 'fate' or 'Allah' as a shield too early, it’s like handing in a blank exam before the test even starts. If you wait too long to let go, you end up in a brutal, exhausting fight against the world that just wrecks you.

The hard part is walking that narrow middle path: not pushing everything onto the heavens, but also not foolishly thinking you can control everything. It’s about finishing the work you can do yourself and calmly admitting that for the parts you can’t control, there’s a larger hand at work.

Chinese people are actually great at walking this narrow path. Look at the book *Ordinary World*: Sun Shaoping works his tail off in the coal mines from dawn till dusk and reads books at night. He didn't have any high-minded slogans back then; he just vaguely knew the work had to get done. As for whether his life would turn around, he didn't have a clue—he just had to leave it to the tides of that big era.

Hui Muslims working their land on the Loess Plateau, with Allah above them and the earth beneath their feet—that’s how they navigate their lives, moving back and forth between those two layers.

I’ve always felt that these two outlooks are like two hands reaching out from different directions, lifting you up together when you’re feeling your most helpless.

'Doing your part and letting fate decide' keeps you from being so hard on yourself, while 'putting your trust in Allah' keeps you from being so afraid of the world. One teaches you to account for things internally; the other teaches you to surrender them externally.

'Doing your part and letting fate decide' helps you stop blaming yourself; 'putting your trust in Allah' helps you stop fearing the world.

Our generation lives in a state of constant information overload. We talk a big game about 'science and rationality,' yet deep down, we’re secretly keeping all sorts of 'metaphysical channels' open—reposting lucky koi fish, praying to gods of wealth, checking horoscopes, and sometimes even making silent wishes, hoping some abstract force will help us carry the load.

At the end of the day, people don't want to just be cold machines. We need someone or something to talk to, to place our trust in. You can call it 'fate,' you can call it 'Allah,' you can call it 'the Dao,' or it can even just be that little voice of conscience inside you that you refuse to compromise on.

The key is this: don’t turn that trust into an excuse for laziness, and don’t turn that comfort into a shield for avoiding reality.

A truly mature stance looks something like this: working your back off in the fields, sweating in the factory, getting yelled at in the office, or caring for sick relatives in the hospital during the day—doing every single task properly—and then, at night, right before you turn off the lights, silently saying those old words to yourself.

Some say, 'Another day of doing my part, the rest is up to fate.' Others say, 'Oh Allah, I’ve done what I could, the rest I place in Your trust.'

See? The words are different, but the feeling in the heart is actually pretty much the same.

We don't need to mash these two expressions into one, and we definitely don't need to pit them against each other just to emphasize their differences. They’re both reminding us of the same simple truth: to live in this world, you need both the guts to face reality and the humility to acknowledge your limits.

To sum it up in a simple way, hustling is just part of doing your human duty, while putting your trust in Allah is how you keep your peace of mind.

Hustling is what we're supposed to do as humans, and placing our trust in Allah is where our souls finally find a home.

At the end of the day, both of these sayings are just how individuals cope when they realize they can't control everything in this crazy world! May we never beat ourselves up to the point of a meltdown when our own efforts fall short, nor get so full of ourselves that we lose control; instead, let's just quietly finish what's in front of us and hand our hearts over to Allah with total peace of mind.

When you look back on it all after that, "putting your trust in Allah for the big things" and "doing your absolute best and leaving the rest to fate" won't just feel like catchy phrases anymore—they'll be the two solid feet that help you stand strong against the winds of this world. view all