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SERMON 110
Caution about this world
So now, certainly I frighten you from this world for
it is sweet and green, surrounded by lusts, and liked for its immediate enjoyments. It
excites wonder with small things, is ornamented with (false) hopes and decorated with
deception. Its rejoicing does not last and its afflictions cannot be avoided. It is
deceitful, harmful, changing, perishable, exhaustible, liable to destruction, eating away
and destructive. When it reaches the extremity of desires of those who incline towards it
and feel happy with it, the position is just what Allah, the Glorified, says (in the
Qur'an):
... like the water which send We down from heaven,
and the herbage of the earth mingleth with it, then it becometh dry stubble which the
winds scatter; for Allah over all things hath power. (18:45)
No person gets rejoicing from this world but tears
come to him after it, and no one gets its comforts in the front but he has to face
hardships in the rear. No one receives the light rain of ease in it but the heavy rain of
distress pours upon him. It is just worthy of this world that in the morning it supports a
man but in the evening it does not recognise him. If one side of it is sweet and pleasant
the other side is bitter and distressing.
No one secures enjoyment from its freshness but he
has to face hardship from its calamities. No one would pass the evening under the wing of
safety but that his morning would be under the feathers of the wing-tip of fear. It is
deceitful, and all that is there in it is deception. It is perishable and all that is on
it is to perish. There is no good in its provisions except in piety. Whoever takes little
from it collects much of what would give him safety, while one who takes much from it
takes much of what would ruin him. He would shortly depart from his collection. How many
people relied on it but it distressed them; (how many) felt peaceful with it but it
tumbled them down; how many were prestigious but it made them low and how many were proud
but it made them disgraceful.
Its authority is changing. Its life is dirty. Its
sweet water is bitter. Its sweetness is like myrrh. Its foods are poisons. Its means are
weak. The living in it is exposed to death; the healthy in it is exposed to disease. Its
realm is (liable to be) snatched away. The strong in it is (liable to be) defeated and the
rich is (liable to be) afflicted with misfortune. The neighbour in it is (liable to be)
plundered.
Are you not (residing) in the houses of those before
you, who were of longer ages, better traces, had bigger desires, were more in numbers and
had greater armies. How they devoted themselves to the world and how they showed
preference to it! Then they left it without any provision that could convey them through,
or the back (of a beast for riding) to carry them.
Did you get the news that the world was ever
generous enough to present ransom for them, or gave them any support or afforded them good
company? It rather inflicted them with troubles, made them languid with calamities,
molested them with catastrophes, threw them down on their noses, trampled them under hoofs
and helped the vicissitudes of time against them. You have observed its strangeness
towards those who went near it, acquired it and appropriated it, till they depart from it
for good. Did it give them any provision other than starvation or make them stay in other
than narrow places, or give them light other than gloom, or give them in the end anything
other than repentance? Is this what you much ask for or remain satisfied with, or towards
which you feel greedy? How bad is this abode for him who did not suspect it (to be so) and
did not entertain fear from it?
You should know as you do know, that you have to
leave it and depart from it. While in it, take lesson from those "who proclaimed 'who
is more powerful than we'" (Qur'an , 41 :15) but they were carried to their graves,
though not as riders. They were then made to stay in the graves, but not as guests. Graves
were made for them from the surface of the ground. Their shrouds were made from earth. Old
bones were made their neighbour. They are neighbours who do not answer a caller nor ward
off trouble, nor pay heed to a mourner.
If they get rain they do not feel happy, and if they
face famine they do not get disappointed. They are together but each one apart. They are
close together but do not see each other. They are near but do not meet. They are enduring
and have no hatred. They are ignorant and their malice has died away. There is no fear of
trouble from them and no hope of their warding off (troubles). They have exchanged the
back (surface) of the earth with its stomach (interior), vastness with narrowness, family
with loneliness, and light with darkness. They have come to it (this world) as they had
left it with bare feet and naked bodies. They departed from it with their acts towards the
continuing life and everlasting house as Allah has said:
. . . As We caused the first creation, so will We
get it return. (It is) a promise binding Us, verily We were doing it. (Qur'an , 21 :104)
.Forward to Sermon 111.Back to Sermon 109.
