O my world-worshipping soul! Does your slackness in worship and remissness in the prescribed prayers arise from the multiplicity of your worldly occupations, or because you cannot find time due to the struggle for livelihood? Were you created only for this world that you spend all your time on it? […]
Man resembles a delicate and petted child in the universe. There is a great strength in his weakness and great power in his impotence. For it is through the strength of his weakness and power of his impotence that beings have been subjected to him. If man understands his weakness […]
All immorality and instability in the social life of man proceeds from two sources: The First: “Once my stomach is full, what do I care if others die of hunger?” The Second: “You work, and I’ll eat.” That which perpetuates these two is the prevalence of usury and interest on the one […]
O unjust man! See now what a great sin is rancour and enmity toward a brother believer! If you were to say that ordinary small stones are more valuable than the Ka‘ba and greater than Mount Uhud, it would be an ugly absurdity. So too, belief which has the value […]
As was explained in the First Station of the Twenty-First Word, the power of patient endurance given to man by Almighty Allah is adequate to every misfortune, unless squandered on baseless fears. But through the predominance of delusion, man’s neglect and his imagining this transient life to be eternal, he […]
The training philosophy and science and Qur’anic wisdom give to human social life is this: Philosophy accepts ‘force’ as its point of support in the life of society. It considers its aim to be ‘benefits’. The principle of its life it recognizes to be ‘conflict’. It holds the bond between […]
One time, I was asked the following question by the brothers who assist me: “For fifty days now —and now seven years have passed— (this refers to 1946) you have asked nothing at all about this ghastly World War, which has plunged the whole world into chaos and is closely […]
At the time I approached old age, my physical health, which perpetuates heedlessness, was broken. Old age and illness attacked me in concert. Hitting me over the head, they chased away sleep. I had nothing to bind me to the world like family, children, and possessions. Having wasted the fruits […]
O sick person who gives up offering thanks and takes up complaining! Complaint arises from a right. None of your rights have been lost that you should complain. Indeed, there are numerous rights upon you to offer thanks (shukr) which you have not performed. Without fulfilling your rights to Almighty […]
O impatient sick brother! Although illness causes you an immediate suffering, from the time of your last illness until today, the passing of that illness leaves you with a spiritual pleasure and a happiness of the spirit arising from its rewards. From today, rather, from this hour on, there is […]