Part 48

It is reported that a Bedouin once visited Hardin Ar-Rashid and said, “O Commander of the believers, may Allah preserve for you the grace that you are enjoying, by making it easy for you to keep being grateful, and may He fulfill for you the grace you hope for, by making it easy for you to do the things He likes and continue to obey Him, and make you aware of the grace you are enjoying but you are not aware of, so that you become grateful to Him.” He was pleased with these words and said, “How great are his words!”

A Great Principle: The Beginning of Knowledge and Action

The beginning of every theoretical capacity of awareness, and a practical capacity, is ideas and thoughts. They cause imagination, and imagination leads to will, and will necessitates action, and repeating that many times produces a_ habit, therefore, the correctness of these steps is according to the correctness of the ideas and thoughts, and their corruption is according to their corruption.

The correctness of ideas is when the person observes his Owner and Lord, yearns for Him and focuses on Him, for He is the cause of all that is correct. He is the One Who grants right guidance. His protection includes all kinds of protection for His servant and turning away from Him is the cause of all perversity and misfortune.

The servant gains all sorts of good and right guidance according to the degree of his awareness of His Grace, His Oneness, ways of Knowing Him, ways of submitting to Him, considering Him to be present with him, watching him, looking at him, observing him, and looking into his thoughts, will and intention. By then he would be shy of Him, and glorify Him so highly to the extent that he would not allow himself to be seen by Him doing things he does want people to see him doing.

When he considers his Lord as exaltedly as this, approaches Him, honors Him, selects and supports Him, according to that, Allah, the Almighty would keep baseness and bad thoughts away from him. And whenever he keeps away from Him and turns his back on Him, He would approach these base things and bad thoughts. By then He would prevent all perfection from him, and he would be exposed to all sorts of defects.

Therefore, man is the best of creatures when he approaches his Creator and abides by His Commands and abandons what He has forbidden, performs deeds according to His Pleasure and prefers Him to his vain desires. And he would be the worst of creatures when he moves away from Him, and refuses to come near Him to obey Him and seek His Pleasure.

Therefore, when he chooses to be near Him and prefers Him over his vain desires, then he would have applied his heart and mind and faith upon himself and his Satan; he would have applied his reason upon his temptation, and his guidance upon his vain desire. But when he chooses to be away from Him, then he would have applied his own self, his vain desire and Satan upon his mind, heart and senses.

You should know that ideas and scruples lead to thoughts, and thoughts lead to remembrance, and remembrance leads to will, and will leads to action, then it becomes firm and finally it becomes a habit. It would be easier to put a stop to it from the

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beginning than to terminate it when it has become strong and complete.

And in another wording the Messenger (peace be upon him) said, “All praise and thanks be to Allah, Who turned his cunning with scruple.”

There are two points of views concerning this statement: One: rejecting and hating it is pure faith.

Two: its existence and throwing it into the heart by Satan is pure faith, because he threw it into the heart in order to be in conflict with faith and eliminate it.

Certainly, Allah, the Almighty has created the mind just like a mill, which does not stop and has to have something to grind. If grain is put into it, it would grind it, and if soil is put into it or pebbles, it would also grind them. Therefore, thoughts and ideas that occur in the mind are like the grain that is put in the mill, and the mill can never remain without working.

Therefore, there are some people whose mill grinds grain to produce flour in order to benefit themselves and other people, but the bulk of them grind sand, pebbles, straw etc. When it is

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time for kneading and baking, the reality becomes apparent to him.

Chapter: The Heart is Never Void of Thoughts

When you reject an idea that comes to you, that which is after it would be rejected. But when you accept it, it would be a wandering thought, then it would prey upon the will, and with the help of the thought, they would use the body. If itis difficult to be used, they would both turn to the heart with hope and lust, and you would direct it to what is desired.

It is a well known fact that reforming ideas is easier than reforming thoughts. and reforming thoughts is easier than reforming will, and reforming will is easier than amending the evil of a deed, and amending it is easier than putting an end to habits.

The best medicine therefore, is to preoccupy yourself with things that concern you, away from that which does not concern you, because thinking about things that do not concern you is the beginning of all evil things. Whoever thinks about that which does not concern him, would miss that which concerns him, and he would be preoccupied with something that contains no good, far away from the best thing for him.

Therefore, thoughts. ideas, will and intention are the best things you should reform in yourself, because they are your characteristics and your reality, with which you can be closer to or away from your Lord, without whose nearness and Pleasure, you would never fnd happiness. And all misfortunes are because of your being away from Him and His displeasure with you. Whoever is low and despicable in his ideas and the domain of his thoughts, would be the same in the rest of his concerns.

Be careful not to make it possible for Satan to contro! your thoughts and will, for he would ruin them for you to the extent

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that it would be very difficult for you to make them right. He would throw upon you all kinds of harmful scruples and thoughts. He would come in between you and your thoughts about that which benefits you. And what is more, it is you who would be helping him against yourself, by making it easy for him to possess your heart and your ideas; so he gains control of them over yourself.

Your likeness to him is as the likeness of the owner of a mill in which, good grain is ground. Then a man came to him with a load of soil, dung, coal and scum in order to grind them in his mill. If he rejects him and does not make it possible for him to throw that which is with him in the mill, he would be able to continue grinding that which is useful for him. But if he makes it possible for him to throw them into the mill, they would ruin the grain that is in it, and the mill itself would be ruined.

That which Satan throws into the heart is usually one of the following thoughts: thinking about things that exist, if they were other than the way they are now. About things that have not existed, if they were to exist, how they would be. About things that can be thought about such as immorality and prohibited things. Illusory imagination that has no reality at all or about null and void things. That which cannot be perceived like the kinds of things that have been kept secret from his knowledge. He would throw these ideas into him that would not come to an end, and make them the center of his concern and thought.

The remedy for this is to preoccupy your thoughts with knowledge and concepts that are useful for you, regarding the Oneness of Allah and His Rights, and about death and its aftermath like Paradise and Hellfire. Also it is important to preoccupy yourself with learning the problems of deeds and the ways to avoid them.

You should preoccupy yourself with will and intention and that which is useful for you and reject that which is harmful.

According to the most knowledgeable people of Allah, wishing for treason and preoccupying yourself with it, is more harmful to the heart than treason itself. You can find this in the example of a king. Among the King’s retinues and servants is one who would like to betray him and his heart and thoughts are full of this, yet at the same time he serves him and performs his duties. If the king comes to know his secret and intention, he would hate him so profoundly that he would punish him with what he deserves.

He would be more hated to him than a man who is far away from him, and has committed some crime, but whose heart is with the king, and does not contain any wish for treason. The first one leaves it due to being weak and busy with that which he is doing, while his heart is full of it, but the second one commits these crimes, while his heart is void of any treason or desire to do it. Therefore, he is better than the first one.