SERMON 113
About this world and its people
I warn you of the world for
it is the abode of the unsteady. It is not a house for foraging. It has
decorated itself with deception and deceives with its decoration. It is a
house which is low before Allah. So He has mixed its lawful with its
unlawful, its good with its evil, its life with its death, and its
sweetness with its bitterness.
Allah has not kept it clear
for His lovers, nor has He been niggardly with it towards His foes. Its
good is sparing. Its evil is ready at hand. Its collection would dwindle
away.
Its authority would be
snatched away. Its habitation would face desolation. What is the good in a
house which falls down like fallen construction or in an age which expires
as the provision exhausts, or in time which passes like walking?
Include whatever Allah has
made obligatory on you in your demands. Ask from Him fulfilment of what He
has asked you to do. Make your ears hear the call of death before you are
called by death.
Surely the hearts of the
abstemious weep in this world even though they may (apparently) laugh, and
their grief increases even though they may appear happy. Their hatred for
themselves is much even though they may be envied for the subsistence they
are allowed. Remembrance of death has disappeared from your hearts while
false hopes are present in you.
So this world has mastered
you more than the next world, and the immediate end (of this world) has
removed you away from the remote one (of the next life). You are brethren
in the religion of Allah. Dirty natures and bad conscience have separated
you. Consequently you do not bear burdens of each other nor advise each
other, nor spend on each other, nor love each other.
What is your condition? You
feel satisfied with what little you have secured from this world while
much of the next world of which you have been deprived does not grieve
you. The little of this world which you lose pains you so much so that it
becomes apparent in your faces, and in the lack of your endurance over
whatever is taken away from you; as though this world is your permanent
abode, and as though its wealth would stay with you for good.
Nothing prevents anyone
among you to disclose to his comrade the shortcomings he is afraid of,
except the fear that the comrade would also disclose to him similar
defects. You have decided together on leaving the next world and loving
this world. Your religion has become just licking with the tongue. It is
like the work of one who has finished his job and secured satisfaction of
his master.
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