SERMON 114
About abstemiousness, fear of Allah and
importance of providing for the next life
Praise be to Him Who makes praise followed by bounty and bounty with
gratefulness. We praise Him on His bounties as on His trials. We seek His
help against these hearts which are slow to obey what they have been
commended but quick towards what they have been desisted from.
We
seek His forgiveness from that which His knowledge covers and His document
preserves - knowledge which does not leave anything and a document which
does not omit anything. We believe in Him like the belief of one who has
seen the unknown and has attained the promised rewards - belief, the
purity whereof keeps off from belief in partners of Allah, and whose
conviction removes doubt.
We
stand witness that there is no god but Allah, the One, Who has no partner
for Him, and that Muhammad is His slave and His Prophet, Allah may bless
him and his descendants.
These
two testimonies heighten the utterance and raise the act. The scale
wherein they would be placed would not be light while the scale from which
they are removed would not become heavy.
Enjoining people to Piety
O'
creatures of Allah! I advise you to have fear of Allah which is the
provision (for the next world) and with it is (your) return. The provision
would take you (to your destination) and the return would be successful.
The best one, who is able to make people listen has called towards it and
the best listener has listened to it. So the caller has proclaimed and the
listener has listened and preserved.
O'
creations of Allah! certainly fear of Allah has saved the lovers of Allah
from unlawful items and gave His dread to their hearts till their nights
are passed in wakefulness and their noons in thirst. So they achieve
comfort through trouble and copious watering through thirst.
They
regarded death to be near and therefore hastened towards (good) actions.
They rejected their desires and so they kept death in their sight.
Then,
this world is a place of destruction, tribulations, changes and lessons.
As for destruction, the time has its bow pressed (to readiness) and its
dart does not go amiss, its wound does not heal; it afflicts the living
with death, the healthy with ailment and the safe with distress.
It is
an eater who is not satisfied and a drinker whose thirst is never
quenched. As for tribulation, a man collects what he does not eat and
builds wherein he does not live. Then he goes out to Allah without
carrying the wealth or shifting the building.
As
for its changes, you see a pitiable man becoming enviable and an enviable
man becoming pitiable. This is because the wealth has gone and misfortune
has come to him.
As
for its lessons, a man reaches near (realisation of) his desires when
(suddenly) the approach of his death cuts them; then neither the desire is
achieved nor the desirer spared. Glory to Allah, how deceitful are its
pleasures, how thirst-rousing its quenching and how sunny its shade.
That
which approaches (i.e. death) cannot be sent back, he who goes away does
not return. Glory to Allah, how near is the living to the dead because he
will meet him soon and how far is the dead from the living because he has
gone away from him.
Certainly nothing is viler than evil except its punishment, and nothing is
better than good except its reward. In this world everything that is heard
is better than what is seen, while of everything of the next world that is
seen is better than what is heard.
So
you should satisfy yourself by hearing rather than seeing and by the news
of the unknown. You should know that what is little in this world but much
in the next is better than what is much in this world but little in the
next. In how many cases little is profitable while much causes loss.
Certainly that which you have been commanded to do is wider than what you
have been refrained from, and what has been made lawful for you is more
than what has been prohibited. Then give up what is less for what is much,
and what is limited for what is vast.
Allah
has guaranteed your livelihood and has commanded you to act. Therefore,
the pursuit of that which has been guaranteed to you should not get
preference over that whose performance has been enjoined upon you.
But
by Allah, most certainly the position is that doubt has overtaken and
certainty has been shattered and it seems as if what has been guaranteed
to you is obligatory on you and what was made obligatory on you has been
taken away from you. So, hasten towards (good) actions and dread the
suddenness of death, because the return of age cannot be hoped for, as the
return of livelihood can be hoped for.
Whatever is missed from livelihood today may be hoped tomorrow with
increase, but whatever is lost from the age yesterday, its return cannot
be expected today.
Hope
can be only for that which is to come, while about that which is passed
there is only disappointment. So "fear Allah as He ought to be feared and
do not die until you are (true) Muslim." (Qur'an , 3:102)
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