Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi says: “Supplication and worship is togetherness with Allah. For those who are with Allah, both life and death are agreeable. But for one in whose heart Allah is absent, even the water of life is fire.”
The deliriums of minds made infirm by unsound philosophies will not save the servant at their last breath, in the grave, at the Resurrection, on the Day of Reckoning, in the Balance, on the path of Sirat. The love, submission and obedience to Allah and His Beloved, however, will be the only spiritual capital for eternal happiness.
Bilal ibn Sa’d, from the generation of the Successors, may Allah have mercy on him, says: “A friend who increases your piety and devotion is better than a friend who places a gold coin in your palm at every encounter.”
Those who lead a person both to the straight path and astray are generally those who keep their company and with whom one has established familiarity. A Prophetic Tradition states: “A person is upon the religion of their friend; so, let each one of you consider whom they take as their friend.” (Abu Dawud, Adab, 16/4833)
Dhu al-Nun al-Misri says: “One must be a friend to Allah and a foe to their carnal self, not a friend to their carnal self and a foe to Allah.”
Those who do not know the wisdom of the soul’s existence, the purpose for its being given to the human being, and its guiles and stratagems, cannot properly perceive their servanthood to their Lord. It is because of this that it has been said, “One who knows their own self, knows their Lord.”
Neglect of religious training brings with it the scourge of materialism, or the pursuit of worldly self-interest. And this is one of the fundamentals and cornerstones of irreligion. Materialism is not a philosophy, but an intellectual wretchedness. It is not wisdom, but a disease.
It is certain that a dark night of the worldly life deprived of the light of belief and acts of worship, and spent in all kinds of amusement, madness, oppression, injustice, and carnality, will not bring forth a bright morning of eternity.
Every age that passes in heedlessness of Allah and His Messenger is essentially an age an ignorance. Every age that has not been reformed through Divine revelation and Prophetic wisdom is equally savage.
Wahb ibn Munabbih, may Allah have mercy on him, says: “How strange people are! They weep for the dead, but they do not weep for those whose hearts are dead, whereas the real calamity is the death of the heart.”
Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi says: “You are angered by every difficulty, you bear a grudge against every vulgar person. How then, without rubbing, will your mirror be polished?”
Many people are fair-weather friends. True friendship, however, is as much about sharing one’s suffering in times of difficulty as it is about sharing their joy.
Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi says: “What do you have? What have you acquired? What kind of pearl have you pulled from the ocean floor? This will become apparent the day you die.”
Those who do not have the courage to dive into the vast ocean of sublime suffering for the sake of Allah, should not forget that they may one day drown in a small puddle of water.
Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi says: “If you tremble like grass with every wind, you would not be worth even a single blade of grass, though you may be as grand as the mountains.” If you do not hold fast to the Qur’an and the Sunna, you would have no worth, like those dry leaves tossed this way and that before carnal and Satanic winds.
