Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sermons
Sermon
187

SERMON 187

Allah's favours

I advise you, O'
people, to fear Allah and to praise Him profusely for His favours
to you and His reward for you and His obligations on you. See how
He chose you for favours and dealt with you with mercy. You sinned
openly; He kept you covered. You behaved in a way to incur His
punishment, but He gave you more time.

Condition of persons
facing death

I also advise you to
remember death and to lessen your heedlessness towards it. Why
should you be heedless of Him Who is not heedless of you? Why
expect from him (i.e., the angel of death) who will not give you
time? The dead whom you have been watching suffice as preachers.
They were carried to their graves, not riding themselves, and were
placed in them but not of their own accord. It seems as if they
never lived in this world and as if the next world had always been
their abode. They have made lonely the place where they were
living, and are now living where they used to feel lonely. They
remained busy about what they had to leave, and did not care for
where they were to go. Now they cannot remove themselves from
evil, nor add to their virtues They were attached to the world and
it deceived them. They trusted it and it overturned them.

Transience of this
world

May Allah have pity on
you. You should therefore hasten towards (the preparation of)
houses which you have been commanded to populate, and towards
which you have been called and invited. Seek the completion of
Allah's favours on you by exercising endurance in His obedience
and abstention from His disobedience, because tomorrow is close to
today. How fast are the hours of the day, how fast are the days in
the month, how fast are the months in the years and how fast the
years in a life.