A method of the self
Imam al-Kazim
Kitab al-Zuhd
لَيْسَ مِنَّا مَنْ لَمْ يُحَاسِبْ نَفْسَهُ فِي كُلِّ يَوْمٍ
“He is not of us who does not hold himself to account every single day.”
The method
Imam al-Kazim teaches that a person who does not call themselves to account each day is not of us. The accounting is short and specific — not a general feeling about the day, but what actually happened and what it revealed.
Their practice
Choose your most common anger trigger. Prepare a three-step response: leave or pause, perform a brief refuge or ablution, then return with one truthful sentence and one proportionate boundary. Record what anger wanted and what principle required.
Sit with these
- What does my anger correctly reveal, and what does it falsely permit?
- Can I oppose a wrong without becoming unjust in return?
Key texts: Al-Kafi · Kitab al-Irshad
Their life and the shared path →How the app helps you keep it
You can follow this method for forty days. It adds 1 step to your day, each one tickable, with the reasoning behind it a tap away:
- Call yourself to account — evening
Each evening you write what happened and which defence held, so the forty days end in a record of your own pattern rather than a row of ticks. A slip is noted and never resets the count.
Source
Transmitted teaching — daily self-accounting, from Kitab al-Zuhd
Kitab al-Zuhd — Imam Musa al-Kazim (a)