Description of One Who Truly Fears Allah

Mansûr bin ‘Ammar narrates: I went out at the end of one night, mistakenly thinking that the morning had begun. Seeing that it was still dark, I sat down beside a small door [of a house]. While I was sitting there, I heard the voice of a young man crying; he was saying: “By Your Might, and by Your Majesty, with my sin I did not intend to oppose You. When I disobeyed You, I was not ignorant of Your punishment, nor was I seeking it out. And I did not take lightly the fact that You are All-Seeing. It is just that my soul enticed me, and my wretchedness overcame me; also, I became deluded into feeling safe by the fact that You cover me with your screen [protecting me from the sight of others when I sin]. I disobeyed You through my ignorance, and I went against Your [commands] through my own fault. Now who will save me from Your punishment? And if Your rope has been cut from my [hand], then whose rope can I cling to? Alas for the days I have spent disobeying my Lord! O, woe unto me! How often do I repent, yet how often do I then return to sinning! Is not the time near when I will be shy of my Lord [i.e., shy of disobeying Him]?”

After I heard his words, I said: “I seek refuge in Allâh from the accursed Shaytân [Devil]. In the Name of Allâh, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:

‘O you who believe! Ward off from yourselves and your families a Fire [Hell] whose fuel is men and stones, over which are [appointed] angels stern [and] severe.’ [At-Tahrîm 66:6].”

I heard a muffled, yet terrified sounding voice; [but since it was not my business to barge into the house] I got up and went on my way. When I returned in the morning, I passed by the same house, and there was a dead body being led out of the house; in the midst of that scene, an old woman kept on coming and going. I asked her: “Who is the dead person?”

“Go away from me,” she said. “Do you want to renew for me my sadness?”

“I am a stranger here,” I said.

“This dead person is my son,” she said. “Last night, a man – may Allâh not reward him well – recited a Verse in which the Hell-fire is mentioned. My son, having heard him, continued to cry and shake with terror until he died.”

That is indeed the description of one who truly fears Allah.

Source: Glimpses at the Lives of the Righteous People