Sometimes a person may be committing major sins and suddenly have God-consciousness (wara’a) in small matters. Such a person is misplacing their attention and priorities. An example of this is a group of people who came to Makkah to ask ibn Umar (ra) if it was permissible to kill a mosquito in the state of ihram. Ibn Umar (ra)’s response was that they came from Iraq, where the grandsons of the Prophet (sas) had been killed, and yet they asked about the blood of a mosquito. He asked them to recheck their priorities. In another case, Bashir ibn al-Harith (ra) was asked if one should divorce his wife if his mom commanded him to do so. Bashir ibn al-Harith (ra) responded that if you are following the command of your mother in every other issue, then follow her in this issue as well. But if you don’t respect your mother and give her full regards in every other issue, or if you don’t treat your mother well, then don’t divorce your wife. This means that it’s not a sign of piety to pay attention to small things while letting the big matters slide.
Imam Ahmed also used to be very strict in these issues. For example, one time he asked someone to buy him some fat, and when it was brought it came on a piece of paper. He didn’t pay for the paper, only for the fat, so he commanded the person to return the piece of paper out of the heightened awareness of Allah (swt). It’s also said that he would never borrow ink from his companions and would always use his own ink.
