My brother! The divine bounties received by both you and me, particuarly in our service of the Qur’an, which for a long time past I have seen and written about, are bestowals, and to make them known is to make known a divine bounty. This is why – to make known the divine bounty – I am mentioning the success of both of us in our service. I always knew that it would encourage you to offer thanks and not make you proud .

T h i r d l y :  I observe that the most fortunate person in this worldly life is he who  sees  the  world  as  a  military  guest-house,   and  submits  himself  and  acts accordingly. Seeing it in this way, he may rise swiftly to the rank of winning God’s pleasure, the highest rank. Such a person will not give the price of a lasting diamond for  something  as  valueless  as  glass,  doomed  to  be broken.  He  will pass  his  life uprightly and with pleasure. Yes, matters to do with this world are like pieces of glass that  will  be  broken,  while  the  lasting  matters  of  the  hereafter  are  as  precious  as flawless  diamonds.  The  intense  curiosity,  fervent  love,  terrible  greed,  stubborn desires, and other intense innate human emotions were given to gain the matters of the hereafter. To direct them fervently towards the transitory things of this world is to give  the  price  of  eternal  diamonds  for  doomed  fragments  of  glass.  A  point  has occurred to me in connection with this, so I shall recount it. It is like this:

Passionate love is an ardent sort of love. When it is directed towards transitory objects, it either causes its owner perpetual torment and pain, or, since the ephemeral (mecazî) beloved is not worth the price of such fervent love, it causes the lover to search for an eternal one. Then passing love is transformed into true love.

Man  possesses  thousands  of  emotions,  each  of  which  has  two  degrees,  one worldly (mecazî),  the other,  true.  For  example,  everyone    feels  anxiety  about  the future. A person is intensely anxious about the future, but then sees that he has no guarantee  that  he  will  reach  the  future  he  is  so  anxious  about.  Also,  if  it  is  his livelihood he is worried about, anyway it is promised, and the brief future is not worth such terrible anxiety. So he turns away from the future towards the true future beyond the grave, which is long-lasting and which for the heedless has not been promised.

Man also displays intense ambition for possessions and rank, then he sees that the transient  property  which  has  been  put  temporarily  under  his  supervision,   and calamitous fame and high rank, which are dangerous and lead to hypocrisy, are not worth such intense ambition. He turns away from them towards spiritual rank and degrees in closeness to God, which constitute true rank, and towards provisions for the hereafter, and good works, which are true property. Worldly ambition, which is a bad qualit y, is transformed into true ambition, a lofty quality.

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