Knowledge and Wisdom

[vanillawafer]

This is another book by Imam al-Haddad called "Knowledge and Wisdom".

Knowledge, used appropriately becomes wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to place everything in its precisely appropriate location, in the precisely appropriate manner, at the precisely appropriate time. It is also the ability to put first things first. Wisdom is thus the highest mode of operation of the human mind.

There can be no relaxation at all in this world for a believer endowed with reason. Whenever he finds such relaxation, this is always accompanied by heedlessness of his Lord and his appointed time of death. God the Exalted, created the world for the believer as the means to an end, namely provision for the Hereafter and obedience to his Lord. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[vanillawafer]

When a person of taqwa and good conduct is stricken with poverty, his state with God will be that of acceptance. He will be content, patient, scrupulous, independent of others, and show many other noble attributes. His share of God's graces will be to receive His good pleasure, nearness, reinforcement with patience and assistance, and other divine graces. In his dealings with people he will keep his situation concealed and appear fine.

The same poverty, when it falls an ill-behaved and corrupt person, will insult in anguish, anger, envy, and covetousness. What he receives from God will be wrath and aversion, and there will be no assistance with patience and strength. He will be despised among people for his neediness and be censured for making bad choices and for the fact that he is unable to cater his needs while maintaining his honesty. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[vanillawafer]

A person of good conduct, to whom God the Exalted gives wealth and affluence, will be thankful and appreciative of His bounty. He will use it in obedience, spend it in goodly ways, and help the near and the far. He will receive God's pleasure and love, and be reinforced with more affluence and ease. People will praise him for his good works. and pray for an increase in affluence and ease for him.

On the other hand, an ill-behaved corrupt person who has money and affluence will be constantly engaged in accumulating and keeping his wealth avariciously to himself; he will be lacking in scruples and show extreme greed and similar terrible attributes; he will encounter God's wrath and displeasure; people will censure him for abstaining from good works and for lacking loyalty, justice, and other wholesome traits. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[vanillawafer]

A person of taqwa and excellent conduct, when healthy and whole, will be thankful and eager to please God the Exalted and to use his health and strength in obeying Him. He will receive His good pleasure and be honored. People will praise him for his good works, determination and earnestness in obedience.

When sickness and poor health befall him, he will accept it, be patient, submit to God's will, be content with it, and refrain from impatience, anger, and complaining to others. He will receive God's good pleasure, solicitude, and assistance, and will be strengthened with relief, tranquility, and the like. People will praise him and say that God the Exalted allowed this illness to afflict him in order to remit his sins, increase his good deeds, and raise his rank.

An ill-behaved corrupt person, when healthy, is ungrateful. He transgresses, neglects obedience, and is eager to use his strength and energy in rebellious and sinful ways. When he becomes ill or is afflicted in any other way, he turns angry, anxious, and impatient; he is annoyed with God's decrees and exhibits other blameworthy traits.

According to this pattern, it behooves you to observe and think about such things as honor and abasement, obscurity and renown, distress and affluence, and all other conditions which may alternate in people's lives. You will know that the fear of God and excellence of behavior render any of these conditions beautiful, good, and upright, whereas corruption and evil conduct render them ugly and degrading. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[vanillawafer]

Life is short, time is precious, death is near, and the distance to travel great, while the moment of standing before God to account for everything, however seemingly insignificant, is daunting and difficult. Observe in everyday life how a given person is preoccupied with what he considers most important and beneficial to himself--while he hardly ever thinks about what preoccupies others.

If this is what people do in their daily lives, how can they avoid doing the same for matters concerning the Hereafter? Although a person who gives priority in the world to the affairs of others over his own may be praised for it, this is not so in religious matters, when the opposite is the case. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[zzze]

assalamu alaykum

Although a person who gives priority in the world to the affairs of others over his own may be praised for it, this is not so in religious matters, when the opposite is the case. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

amazing!

jazakallahkhair

[vanillawafer]

If you wish to know which sciences and acts are the most important and beneficial for you, imagine that you were to die the next day and return to God to stand before Him and be asked to account for your knowledge, behavior, and all your affairs and states, subsequently taken to either the Garden or the Fire. what you see there as most important and useful to you is precisely what you must now give priority and attachment to; whereas what you find useless, unimportant, frivolous, or simply of no great necessity is what you must neither pursue nor occupy yourself with in this life.

Meditate on this matter and reflect well; it is of tremendous benefit to those who have discernment and are concerned about their appointed time, their return to God, their salvation, and their success in the Hereafter, which is better and more enduring (Quran,87:17) [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salalm

[vanillawafer]

Whenever you hear of a praiseworthy or meritorious activity and find that you cannot do it, either because it is physically impossible for you or because you are engaged in other activities that are more important to you, then you must have the intention to do it the moment it becomes possible or you have the time. This good intention of yours joins you to those who actually do it, for "the intention of the believer is better than his act," and he may achieve through (good intention) what he cannot achieve by action.

You may hear, for instance, of the merits of jihad, when it is effectively beyond your reach; or of merits of charity and feeding the poor, which you may be unable to do because of your own poverty; or of the merits of establishing justice, truth, enjoining good, and forbidding evil, which may be practically impossible for you because you possess no power and no jurisdiction over such matters. You must have the intention that if those acts were to become possible, you would perform them.

Meanwhile, do whatever you can and help the people responsible for those things by whatever means lie within your power, even if only by praying for them and exhorting them to be thorough in their work. You may thus gain as much in the way of recompense as they do, for the Prophet, said, may peace and blessings be on him, "One who shows the way to an act of goodness is equal to the one who does it." Also, "One who exhorts (people) to right guidance has a reward equal to that of all those who follow him without this diminishing their reward in any way." [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[Jamroll]

As usual, awesome thread, nills. Jazakallah khairun.

[vanillawafer]

Whatever acts of goodness you are able to do, you must do. should you have to choose, then choose the better and more perfect one. With regard to what you are unable to do, you should have a sincere intention to do it whenever it becomes possible.

Some good things carry no risks whether at their beginnings or ends, for example, acquiring beneficial knowledge, multiplying supererogatory devotions, such as Prayers and Fasts, and similar things. These you must strive for and diligently seek in any manner you can.

Other good things carry risks and one fears for those who are exposed to them lest they fall into certain kinds of evil and prohibited things. Examples of these are positions of power and positions of wealth. These should be avoided and not chased by men of intelligence and wisdom, for if chased until obtained, they may destroy them, as has happened to many people who exposed themselves to such dangers and then lost both their religion and their worldly goods and fell into a state which brought upon them the wrath of their Lord.

It is sufficient for you as far as these things are concerned, to have between yourself and God the Exalted the intention that if you ever become established in such a position, you will agree only to assume it only for His sake and will behave according to his good pleasure, and do in a way that brings you nearer to Him. Then through these good intentions, you will receive as much divine reward as those who are actually in such positions, but you will remain safe from the risks and tests. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[zzze]

assalmau alaykum

i especially like the last 2. Very clever! masha Allah

jazakallahkhair vanilla

[vanillawafer]

Jamroll said

As usual, awesome thread, nills. Jazakallah khairun.

zzze said

assalmau alaykum

i especially like the last 2. Very clever! masha Allah

jazakallahkhair vanilla

There are opposites in this world: light and darkness, good and evil, beneficence and corruption, benefit and harm, and many others. People whose powers of discernment are weak may observe this and wonder, then perhaps imagine, that had the world been made exclusively of light, goodness and beneficence, it would have been better. This way of thinking is nothing but ignorance, (rational) inadequacy, and unawareness.

Know that the existence of the world as it is, with its multitude of opposing and contrasting things, is most complete and excellent and could not have been better or more wisely made, considering the reason behind it and what it was created for.

Know that the existence of the world as it is contains many signs indicating the names of God the Exalted and His attributes. This is possible only when the world is as it is. There are also signs referring to other-worldly matters, which is only possible with the world being as it is . There are also signs concerning this world which is again possible only because it is as it is. This is because light can be known only by the presence of its opposite, good can be known only by the presence of evil, and this goes to virtue and corruption, benefit and harm, health and sickness, and so on. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam

[vanillawafer]

When the people of this world, the distracted, and those who mix (good with evil acts) give their love to the people of the Hereafter (those who possess knowledge and practice it), when they revere them and envy their obedience and attentiveness to God (high and majestic is He), they are doing well and this is a sign of their (ultimate) happiness and success. It may even lead them to emulate those people of virtue, tread their paths, perform the good works they do, and acquire their praiseworthy attributes.

People of religion and the Hereafter must raise their ambition, rise above seeking material security in the world and in its people. When people of religion and the Hereafter behold worldly people eager to accumulate (wealth) and preoccupied with passions, they feel sorry for them and pray that they may be freed and saved from turning away from God that others have fallen prey to, and from their heedlessness of the Hereafter, which is their ultimate return and their appointed time. [Knowledge and Wisdom]


salam

[vanillawafer]

Know that gentleness is required in all things. It is encouraged and approved by both sharia and reason. Things can be achieved through gentleness that cannot even remotely be done through severity and force. Gentleness is the attribute of the wise and the compassionate among those servants of God whom He has selected.
Gentleness is to manage things with subtlety, ease dignity, and deliberation. Gentleness is entirely good, and intelligent men should apply it to all things, especially in dealing with people, first of all with one's family and employees, then with everyone else. It should never be neglected, and it always yields the required results, even if not immediately.

On some rare occasions, however, gentleness may be found ineffective, especially in dealing with certain mean and ignoble natures. To treat such people with gentleness would be harmful to them; they should be treated in an apparently harsh and severe manner, but with the intention of reforming them and correcting their behavior. In this way, one should understand why, on certain occasions and with certain people, great men of God are rigorous. Some people are only shells devoid of reason. If you do not empower them, they will overpower you. [Knowledge and wisdom]


salam

[vanillawafer]

The man who gives his worldly life and his Hereafter equal attention, and has inwardly the same degree of concentration and eagerness and outwardly the same amount of effort and pursuit, is excessively foolish and stupid. What then of the man who gives more attention and effort to his worldly life? And what then of the man who pays no attention at all nor exerts any effort for his life-to-come? We ask God to guard us against this and all other afflictions and dangers and to guard our loved ones and all Muslims!

Those who give their worldly life and their Hereafter equal attention deserve this description because they do not differentiate between that which is better, more permanent, purer, and more spacious, and that which is lowlier, ephemeral, turbid, disturbing, and constricting. They are similar to the one who treats equally diamonds and dung, or pure gold and clay.
It is clearly evident that those who prefer the world to the Hereafter are doubt-ridden skeptics, while those who treat them equally are unintelligent. Only those who prefer the Hereafter are intelligent and resolute believers. [Knowledge and Wisdom]

salam