Better To Be Afraid Yet Safe

Al-Hasan al-Basri was asked, 

“O Abu Sa’id! What should we do? We sit with people who make us afraid (from death) that makes our hearts fly away.”He said, “By Allah! If you associate with someone who makes you afraid, so that you earn safety, is better than associating with someone who makes you feel safe, for in this case, un-safety might touch you.”Al-I’hyaa 4:170

Be With God If You Loose Some Thing

كُنْ مَعَ اللهِ إِذَا أَخَذَ مِنكَ مَا لَم تَتَوَقَّع ضِيَاعَهُ ، فَسَوفَ يُعطِيكَ مَا لَم تَتَوَقَّع تَملِكُهُ

Be with God, if He has taken from you that which you could never have imagined losing, and He will give you that which you could never have imagined owning. - Shaykh Muḥammad Mutawallī al-Shaʿrāwī [d. 1419AH/1998CE]

Succeeding In Hereafter And Dunya

Child of Adam, you are in need of your worldly portion and your portion in the hereafter, but you are more in need of the hereafter. If you put your worldly portion first, you shall lose that of the hereafter and threaten your worldly one. If you put the hereafter first, you will succeed in your worldly portion and put in its rightful place.- Mu’adh b. Jabal

Buried Hearts

God, Glorified be He, has compared those who do not answer the call of His Messenger to the people of the graves.  This is the best comparison because their bodies are the graves for their hearts, for their hearts have died and have been buried in their bodies. God said: Surely Allah makes whom He pleases hear, and you cannot make those hear who are in the graves.  Fāṭir, 35: 22]Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350), Ighathat al-Lahfān min maṣāyid al-Shaytān

Final Prayer

O my son, if you ever pray, then pray a farewell prayer.  Do not think that you shall return to it ever again.  Know O my son that the believer dies between two good deeds; a good deed that he put forth, and a good deed that he kept back. - Mu’adh b. Jabal to his son

Smile in Public, Weep in Private

When you are with people, smile frequently and maintain a cheerful countenance, but when you are alone, cry frequently and be in a state of grief and sadness (on account of your sins).  For it has been conveyed to us — and Allah Knows best — that on the Day of Resurrection, the most things that a believer will find in his book of good deeds are the grief and the sadness (that he felt in this world on account of this sins) -Sufyān al-Thawrī

True Purpose of Seeking Knowledge

Knowledge is sought after only so that one can use it to fear Allah (and ward off His punishment); It is in this context that knowledge is deemed a superior thing; otherwise, it is like all other things.—Sufyān al-Thawrī