My eye has never set on anything, nor has my tongue articulated a word, nor has my hand struck anything, nor have my feet started moving, except that I first examined whether it was an action of obedience or disobedience: if it was obedience, I proceeded; but if it was disobedience, I refrained.

—Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī

(Read on pgs 52-53, Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, The Key to Paradise. Daar us-Sunnah Publishers. Birmingham: 2007.)