Sulaiman > Recent Status Updates

They argue that God has commanded us to be thankful for wealth and patient in poverty, and that prosperity is essentially better than adversity.

To this I reply that "when God commanded us to be thankful for prosperity He made thankfulness the means of increasing our prosperity ; but when He commanded us to be patient in adversity He made patience the means of drawing nigh unto Himself."

It is more easy for human nature to walk on fire than to follow the road of knowledge, and an ignorant heart will more readily cross the Bridge (Sirat) a thousand times than learn a single piece of knowledge ; and the wicked man would rather pitch his tent in Hell than put one item of knowledge into practice. Accordingly you must learn knowledge and seek perfection therein.

Meaning of Tawfiq

"When a man is obedient to God he receives from God increased strength."
In short, all human action and inaction is the act and creation of God : therefore the strength whereby a man renders obedience to God is called tawfiq

"When a man recognizes that his welfare does not depend on his own effort and foresight, but that every good and evil that happens to him is decreed by God, who knows best what is salutary for him, he cannot do otherwise than surrender himself to Destiny and implore God to deliver him wickedness of his own soul."

"no blessing arises from anything in which selfish interest has a part."

as the sea was returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of being swal- lowed up by the sea being forgotten, and the current of my former desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made in my distress.

O disciple, included in what God's Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) advised his community, is his statement, 'An indication of the withdrawal of God the Exalted from the worshipper is his busying himself with what does not concern him, and if an hour of a man's life slips by in other than that for which he was created in the way of worship, then it is proper that his affliction be protracted.....

It was a queer mixture of awe and romance, the alternation of his hatred for his own town and the love for the world to which he looked out. Men get used to a place, become familiar with it, and then comes a stage when the fascination of the unknown, the exotic, dominates them.

"They were all so lushly, expensively, smothered in syrup, that he knew they certainly could not be cheap, certainly not for him, because the shopkeepers always deceived the sweepers and the poor people, charging them much bigger prices, as if to compensate themselves for the pollution they courted by dealing with the outcastes."

".....I do not at all see in the bestseller status of my book an achievement and accomplishment on my part but rather an expression of the misery of our time: if hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of a meaning to life, it must be a question that burns under their fingernails."

Indeed there is nothing more harmful to a true faqir than his hope in people, for hope in people is a sword which cuts off man from God.

And the awe of God is incumbent upon you, my brother, for the awe of God is the key to God's love. God Most High has said, 'God loves those who stand in awe of Him'K.3:76; 9:4,
And the awe of God is incumbent upon you, my brother, for the awe of God is the key to the companionship of God Most High with His servant. God Most High has said,'God is with those who stand in awe of Him and those who are good-doer' K.16:128

The judge Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Arsabandi was the chief Imam in Marw; the Sultan held him in the highest regard.
Fakhr al-Din frequently said, "I have reached this rank only by serving my teacher, for I have served my teacher, Imam Abu Zayd al-Dabüst. I both waited on him and prepared his food for thirty years, but I never ate anything thereof."

Imam Sadid al-Din al-Shiräzi, used to say:
"Our elders stated that whoever wishes his son to become learned will have to cultivate traveling scholars, esteem them, venerate them, as well as offer them remuneration." If one's son does not become learned, then one's grandson will."

[exert patience] with one discipline in order not to be distracted by another before the first is completed.... For all these changes disturb one's affairs, preoccupy the heart, lose time, and injure the teacher.

"For, I find the truth to be that an opening won't come to one, but one must go to it—so I have been."

"O youth! You are like a person travelling in the desert while possessing priceless jewels that he intends to sell in the land of reward, so beware of falling into the trap of your treacherous desire so you do not end up selling what you have for less than of what it is worth. Otherwise, when you reach your destination and see those who made great profits,..."

"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions (division) among such must come, and must be met as they come....."

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of our earth, overlying our hard harts.”