Selections From The Maktubat of Ahmad Sirhindi
| “ | - May Haqq subhânahu wa ta’âlâ bless you with realization of your religious and worldly wishes! The medicine for protection against the harms of worldly flavours and transient blessings is to use them in a manner compatible with the Islam. In other words, it is to obey Allâhu ta’âlâ’s commands and prohibitions. Those flavours will be harmful if they are not utilized compatibly with the Islam. They will cause Allâhu ta’âlâ’s wrath and torment. Maximum possible abstinence from enjoying them is the safest course to follow for real and definite salvation. Those who cannot manage that degree of abstinence should use the medicine requisite for protection. Thereby they will be safe from their harms. Shame on those people who can neither manage the necessary abstinence nor protect themselves by using medicine and who, thereby, leave themselves vulnerable to patent disasters and afflictions in addition to a pathetic deprivation from eternal happiness! So pitiable are those people who succumb to the indulgences of their nafs and fail to enjoy the worldly flavours in manners and doses prescribed by the Islam, thereby divesting themselves of the felicitous and everlasting flavours of Paradise. Do they not know that Allâhu ta’âlâ sees all? Have they never heard that enjoyment of worldly blessings within the limits of moderation drawn by Islam is the only way of acquiring immunity from harms? There is the inevitable and imminent Judgment Day, when all the worldly activities of each and every person will be laid before them.
How lucky for those who have attained love of Allâhu ta’âlâ by abstaining from His prohibitions in the world, when the Promised Day comes! How lucky for those who do not succumb to the temptations of the sequinned worldly life, who fear their Rabb (Allâhu ta’âlâ) and curb their sensuous desires, who advise their household and their inferiors that they should perform their daily salâts steadily, how lucky for them! Salâms to those people who follow the way to felicity shown by Allâhu ta’âlâ and who adapt themselves to Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’! |
” |
|
— First Volume, 56th Letter, Maktubat of Ahmad Sirhindi |
||
| “ | - Man’s own nafs is the most adamant obstructive curtain between man and Allâhu ta’âlâ. “Abandon thy nafs, and come to Me! Thy very self is the cloud hiding the sun thou art after! Know thyself,” says the divine Word. Pushing the nafs away from between requires a conscientious and delectable process. It cannot be described by words and writings. Nor is it something that can be learned by perusal. It has to be a gift that one was endowed with in the eternal past, and it has to be primed by the attraction of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Since we live in a world of causations, a Wali’s lecture will suffice, with the proviso that you should love the Walî. The more you love him, the more will you receive of the fayz and ma’rifats radiating from his heart, attaining perfection at the end. The hadith-i-sherîf which reads, “A person will be together with his beloved one,” expresses this fact. | ” |
|
— Second Volume, 29th Letter, Maktubat of Ahmad Sirhindi |
||
| “ | - My dear son! The world is sweet in appearance, and yet venomous in essence. It is quite worthless. A person who is caught in its trap can never be free again. A person who dies with that poison is a mere carrion. It is madness to lose one’s heart to it. It is like sequinned filth, or sweetened poison. A wise person will not fall for such false and deceitful beauty. He will not set his heart on vicious and harmful pleasures. He will spend his sojourn in this life trying to find favour in his Owner’s eyes. He will earn what will be useful for him in the Hereafter. He will do his duties as a slave of Allâhu ta’âlâ. He will hold fast to the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. He will abstain from His prohibitions, i.e. harams. Shame on those who run after harmful things instead of doing so! | ” |
|
— Second Volume, 45th Letter, Maktubat of Ahmad Sirhindi |
||
Read more about this topic: Ahmad Sirhindi
Famous quotes containing the words selections from the, selections from and/or selections:
“Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)