Ahlul Bayt (AS) International News Agency - ABNA: I checked my phone. The Snapp driver had arrived a few minutes earlier, and I was still struggling to find him. The alley was crowded, cars were parked one after another, and the license plate I was looking for was lost somewhere among all those vehicles. It took me a full minute to finally spot him. A middle-aged driver with a calm, patient face sat behind the steering wheel, waiting.
I got in hurriedly and apologized for being late. Right then, I remembered that the Snapp app has a feature for exactly this situation: if a passenger is late and keeps the driver waiting, they can pay an extra amount as compensation for that delay. Something like a few thousand tomans, not more. But it was a right that belonged to the driver. I brought it up with him. He glanced at me and said with a smile, "No, ma'am, there's no need. It's fine. Just getting in is enough." But I insisted. Something deep inside me wouldn't settle. I said, "No, this is your right. I kept you waiting, and I need to make up for it."
He tried to decline again. I said no again. Finally, he agreed, and I paid that small amount. The driver then started talking, saying how often they confirm a ride and reach the pickup point, only to have the passenger cancel a few minutes later without any explanation, leaving you stranded after coming all that way, forced to wait until another passenger turns up. I thought to myself: how many things seem negligible in our eyes, but for the other person on the receiving end, they carry great weight. When we can fulfill others' rights by paying a trivial amount, why wouldn't we, and instead put ourselves in debt?
Perhaps to many people, this scene seems trivial. A few thousand tomans aren't worth all that insistence and argument. But for me, the issue was something else. At that moment, a verse from the Quran was circling in my mind: "فَمَنْ یَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا یَرَهُ" — "So whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it."
Yes, that was precisely the crux of the matter. We tend to think that "evil" must be something grand: blatant oppression, corruption, major sins. But this verse says something else. It says the weight of a single atom. And not just any atom— the equivalent of one atom. Something so small it might be overlooked. Something we might say "never mind" to and let pass.
And that's exactly the nature of "Huquq al-Nas" (people's rights). Sometimes it hides in these tiny things. In that one minute of keeping a driver waiting, in that single bite you take from someone else's plate without permission, in that one careless word that breaks someone's heart. All of this is "evil." It might seem small in our eyes, but God's scale is different from ours. He sees these atoms, one by one. And "seeing" isn't just passive observation. God isn't like us, glancing at something and moving on. "Seeing" means recording, embedding its effect into your life, showing it to you in this world and the next. Every atom of good, every atom of evil—none of it gets lost.
When I look at our daily behaviors, my heart sinks. I see how people ignore these atoms. A few days ago at a fruit stand, I saw a woman picking up tomatoes one by one and pressing them with her fingernail. Testing whether they were firm. She'd put back the one with her nail mark and test the next. In the end, she bought no tomatoes and left. The next day, those same tomatoes would start rotting right where her nail had pressed. The seller would take a loss, the next customer would receive damaged goods, and that woman wouldn't even remember what she'd done. One atom of evil. The weight of a single atom.
Or the driver who double-parks and blocks the road. Or the pedestrian who recklessly crosses in the middle of the street. Or the half-eaten piece of bread thrown into the trash. These are all those same atoms. Those small things people disregard. They say, "It's no big deal," "No one will notice," "What difference does it make?" But who said no one notices? God notices. God sees.
And this "seeing" that God mentions in the verse means these atoms don't vanish. They remain. They accumulate. Atom by atom, they build a mountain of bad habits. Not just in the afterlife—even in this world, their effects appear. A society that doesn't take small lies, minor violations of others' rights, or petty unethical behavior seriously will gradually find big lies normal. Corruption starts with these atoms.
Let me return to that evening, inside the Snapp car. When I made the payment, the driver thanked me again. Maybe he thought I was being overly fussy. But inside, I felt a strange sense of peace. I didn't say "never mind," because it did matter. I said, give him his due, even if he himself said it was fine. Because that right wasn't just his—it was also about my own conscience. About my relationship with the God who sees even that atom.
In the end, we will all see the outcome of our actions. And that day, that trivial amount carried a weight for me far greater than a few thousand tomans. It was the price of a reminder: that in life, nothing is too small. No right is so insignificant that it can be ignored. No atom is so light that it carries no weight on God's scale.
And you know, how wonderful it is that sometimes we start with the atoms. With those same small things. It's true that we don't always have many scruples, true that many people don't take these matters seriously, but as the verse itself says, "فَمَنْ یَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَیْرًا یَرَهُ" — "So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it." There's the other side of the story, too. Every atom of good is also seen. And perhaps our salvation lies in those same atoms of good that we could do daily but fail to.
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