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Sincerity cannot coexist in a heart that contains the
love of praise and commendation and the yearning to
possess that which is owned by the people save in the
manner that fire and water or a lizard and fish may
coexist.
If your soul directs you to seek sincerity then first
turn your attention towards your yearning and slaughter
it with the knife of renunciation. Then turn your
attention towards praise and commendation and forsake it
with the asceticism of those who loved the world for the
sake of the Hereafter. When your slaughtering of your
yearning and the renunciation of praise and commendation
becomes firm then attaining sincerity will become easy
for you.
If it is asked: what may facilitate the act of
slaughtering one's yearning and renouncing the love of
praise and commendation?
I would reply: as for slaughtering your yearning then
this is made easy by you having certain knowledge that
there is nothing that one would desire except that its
treasures are in the Hand of Allah alone and none has
power over it save Him. There is no one who may bestow
these things to a servant except for Allah.
As for renouncing the love of praise and commendation
then this is made easy by your knowing that there is no
one who can praise you such that it would benefit you, or
censure and vilify you such that it would harm you save
Allah alone. This is what occurs in the hadeeth in which
the Arab said to the Prophet (SAW), "my being praised is
adornment and my being vilified is disgrace," to which
the Prophet (SAW) said, "that is (for) Allaah." [Reported
by at-Tirmithi [no. 3266] with a saheeh isnaad from
Baraa`a bin Aazib (RA).]
So renounce the praise of one whose praise cannot
beautify you and the vilification of one whose censure
cannot disgrace you! Instead desire the praise of the One
whose commendation contains perfect beauty and the One
whose censure contains total disgrace. This cannot be
attained except after patience and certainty for when
there is no patience and certainty then you are like one
who wished to traverse an ocean without a vessel to carry
him!
Allah said, "Be patient! Indeed the Promise of Allaah is
true and let not those who are devoid of certainty
discourage you from conveying (the message)." [al-Rum
(30):60]
Allah also said. "We have made from amongst them leaders,
guiding under Our Command when they were patient and
believed in Our Signs with certainty." [al-Sajdah
(32):24] |