In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
The life of the salaf between speech and action.
Preserving time.
It is narrated that al-Awza'i, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
There is not a single hour of the hours of this world
but that it will be presented to the servant on the Day of Resurrection,
day by day,
and hour by hour.
So, no hour passes him in which he did not remember Allah
but that his soul will be torn apart by regrets over it.
How then, if hour upon hour passes him by,
and day upon day?
Fudayl ibn al-Raqqashi, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Do not let the multitude of people distract you from your own self,
for the matter will be settled with you, not them.
And beware of spending your day wandering here and there,
for it is being recorded against you.
Abu Sulayman al-Darani, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Everything that distracts you from Allah, the Almighty and Majestic—whether family, wealth, or children—
is a calamity for you.
It was said to al-Mu'afa ibn 'Imran, may Allah have mercy on him:
What is your opinion of a man who composes and recites poetry?
He replied: It is your life, so spend it on whatever you wish.
Yahya ibn Mu'adh, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
The greatest misfortune for a wise person in a day
is that it passes him by without a gift from his Lord coming to him in it,
meaning a new piece of wisdom.
Condemning envy.
Mu'awiyah, may Allah be pleased with him, said:
I can please all people,
except the one who envies the blessings I have,
for nothing will satisfy him but their disappearance.
It was said to al-Hasan al-Basri, may Allah have mercy on him:
Does a believer envy?
He replied: Have you forgotten the brothers of Yusuf?
But keep it hidden in your chest,
for it will not harm you as long as you do not act upon it with your hand or tongue.
Some have said:
Envy is the first sin by which Allah was disobeyed in the heavens,
meaning Iblis’s envy of Adam.
And it is the first sin by which Allah was disobeyed on earth,
meaning the son of Adam’s envy of his brother until he killed him.
Fudayl ibn 'Iyad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Emulation (ghibta) is from faith,
while envy is from hypocrisy.
The believer emulates but does not envy,
and the hypocrite envies but does not emulate.
Justice and condemning injustice.
'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, bought a horse from a man,
on the condition that he would inspect it.
He took the horse and rode it, but it became injured.
He said to the owner of the horse: Take your horse back.
The man replied: No.
'Umar said: Then appoint a judge between you and me.
The man said: Shurayh.
'Umar asked: And who is Shurayh?
He replied: Shurayh al-'Iraqi.
'Umar said: Then go to him, and he recounted the story to him.
Shurayh said: O Commander of the Faithful,
return it as you took it, or keep it as you bought it.
'Umar said: Is there any judgment other than this?
Go to Kufa.
It was the first day he had ever known him.
He said to Muhammad ibn Maslamah, may Allah be pleased with them both:
How do you see me, O Muhammad?
He replied: By Allah, I see you as I love,
and as anyone who wishes you well would love.
I see you strong in collecting wealth, yet chaste regarding it,
and just in distributing it.
If you were to deviate, we would straighten you,
just as an arrow is straightened in the tool for straightening arrows.
'Umar said: Praise be to Allah who has placed me among a people
who, if I deviate, straighten me.
'Uthman ibn 'Affan, may Allah be pleased with him, entered
upon a servant of his who was feeding his camel,
and he saw something in the fodder that he disliked.
He took his servant by the ear and twisted it.
Then he felt remorse and said to him:
Take my ear and twist it.
The servant refused.
But he did not let him be until he took his ear.
'Uthman began saying to him:
Pull, pull!
Until he thought he had exacted from him as much as he had exacted from him.
'Uthman said:
Woe to me for the retribution of this world before the retribution of the Hereafter.
Abu al-Darda', may Allah be pleased with him, said:
The person I most hate to treat unjustly
is the one who has no helper against me except Allah, the Almighty and Majestic.
Ibn 'Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both, said:
If a mountain were to act unjustly toward another mountain,
the aggressor would be crushed.
Ibn Sirin, may Allah have mercy on him, heard a man invoking against someone who had wronged him,
and he said: Stop, O man.
Do not let your oppressor profit at your expense.
'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, may Allah have mercy on him, wrote to one of his governors:
To proceed:
If your power over people invites you to treat them unjustly,
then remember Allah’s power over you,
and the passing of what you do to them,
and the remaining of what they do to you.
Whenever he, may Allah have mercy on him, wanted to punish a man,
he would imprison him for three days,
then punish him,
fearing that he might act in haste while still angry.
Some of the wise said:
Security is the most pleasant life,
and justice is the strongest army.
Fudayl ibn 'Iyad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
By Allah, it is not lawful for you to harm even a dog or a pig without right,
so how can you harm a Muslim?
Muslim ibn Yasar, may Allah have mercy on him, heard a man invoking against another man,
and he said:
Leave the oppressor to his oppression,
for it will reach him faster than your invocation against him,
unless he repents through a good deed,
though it is unlikely he will do so.
A man came to Ahmad ibn Hanbal, may Allah have mercy on him, and said to him:
Should we write hadiths from Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Tusi?
He replied:
If you do not write from Muhammad ibn Mansur,
then who would you write from?
He repeated this several times.
The man said to him:
But he speaks ill of you.
Ahmad replied:
A righteous man who has been tested regarding us;
what are we to do?
A poet said:
By Allah, injustice is a calamity,
and the wrongdoer is always the one who is truly oppressed.
To the Judge of the Day of Judgment we shall go,
and before Allah, the adversaries will gather.
You will know in the Hereafter when we meet,
tomorrow before the King, who is the true oppressor.
Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, used to practice fairness and say:
There is nothing less common among people than this,
so I wanted to persist in it.
Al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
How wretched is the provision for the Hereafter:
aggression against the servants of Allah.
The snares of Satan and his whispers,
and being cautious of him.
'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, said:
The believer’s devil is emaciated.
And he, may Allah be pleased with him, said:
The example of minor sins
is like a group of people who stopped at a place where there was no firewood,
and they had meat with them.
They kept picking up sticks until they gathered enough to cook their meat.
Salman al-Farisi, may Allah be pleased with him, said about the marketplace:
Do not be the first of its people to enter,
nor the last of them to leave,
for it is where Satan lays his eggs and hatches his brood.
Mutarrif ibn al-Shikhkhir, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
If a man saw prey,
and the prey did not see him stalking it,
is it not likely that he will catch it?
They said: Yes.
He said: Well, Satan sees us,
while we do not see him,
so he strikes at us.
He also said, may Allah have mercy on him:
I found the servant caught between his Lord, the Almighty, and Satan;
if He saves him, he is successful,
and if He leaves him to Satan, he will take him away.
Some of the salaf said:
I found procrastination to be one of the armies of Iblis,
which has destroyed many of Allah’s creation.
Al-Hasan ibn Salih, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Satan opens ninety-nine doors of good for the servant,
desiring by them one door of evil.
Abu Hazim, may Allah have mercy on him, entered the mosque,
and Satan whispered to him:
You have broken your ablution.
He replied:
Has your advice reached such a point?
Some of the salaf said:
If Satan looks at you and sees you constant in the obedience of Allah,
he will despair and abandon you.
But if you are sometimes like this and sometimes like that, he will covet you.
Abu Sulayman al-Darani, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Whispers only come to a heart that is inhabited.
Have you seen a thief come to a ruin to dig into it?
He enters through whichever door he wishes.
A man complained to him about whispers, and he said:
If you want them to stop,
then whenever you feel them, rejoice.
For if you rejoice at them,
they will stop,
because there is nothing more hateful to Satan than the joy of a believer.
But if you become distressed by them, he will increase them.
Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
I saw Ahmad ibn Hanbal, may Allah have mercy on him, praying,
and he gestured with his hand like this,
pointing with his fingers.
When he finished the prayer, I said:
O Abu 'Abdullah,
What did you say in your prayer?
He replied,
I was in a state of ritual purity,
then Iblis came and said,
"You are not in a state of ritual purity."
So I said, "I have two just witnesses [to the contrary]."
Some have said,
"Indeed, Satan is satisfied with a person
if he can move him from one act of obedience to another,
in order to undermine his resolve through that."
The life of the pious,
between speech and action.