For all too many people, how easy it is to talk Islam. 

That is partly because Islam is so beautiful, so wonderful, so easy, so logical, so systematic, and so great.

Islam is so perfect in every way, and so clear in everything it says, that it is easy to talk about it. 

And it is the most natural thing to do: to talk about Islam and do so in the most glowing of terms.

That is because Islam is from God. And, being from God, it cannot be anything but perfect.

But all too often, how hard it is for the same people to do Islam. To practice Islam.

To live Islam the way it ought to be lived. The way Islam deserves to be lived.

That is because we humans, who all the time hanker or pretend to live or do Islam, are beset by so many imperfections. And by so many impurities in our mortal, sinful hearts and minds.

We are prey to flawed motives and questionable intentions. And we are creatures of imperfect characters and deformed personalities.

We are, all too many of us, not the gold that Hadith talks about. But base metal -- all too many of us. And we bring our impurities and imperfections into Islam.

And because our egos -- our Nafs -- are all too often so bloated. So oversize. So untamed.

Where, then, is the surprise if we say one thing and do something else? At times just the opposite of what we say?

The great Tamil sage, Tiruvalluvar, said, about 2000 years ago how the bad influence of those given to disparity between words and deeds would haunt you not only in your waking life, but also in your dreams.

And Allah warned the Believers in the Qur'an in even more stark terms: 

"Believers! 

Why do you say things that you do not do? 

Don't you know what a great sin it is, in the eyes of God, that you should be saying things that you do not practice? 

END