I once said to Abū Ḥāzim, “Something is weighing on my heart.”
He asked, “And what is it, my nephew?”
I replied, “My attachment to this world.”
He said, “Know that this is not a matter for which I reproach myself over something Allah has made dear to me, for Allah has indeed placed love of this world within us. Our self-reproach should concern something else: that our love for it must never drive us to take anything Allah detests, nor to withhold anything Allah loves. If we keep to that, our love for it will do us no harm.
Ḍamrah ibn Rabīʿah narrated from Thawābah ibn Rāfiʿ that Abū Ḥāzim said, “What is Satan? He was disobeyed and it did him no harm; he was obeyed and it did him no good.”
From him also: “What is this world? What has passed is a dream, and what remains is mere hopes.”
Yaʿqūb ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān reported that Abū Ḥāzim said, “The ill-tempered person: the one who suffers most because of him is his own self between his two sides—it is in continual distress—then his wife, then his children. He may enter his house while they are in good spirits, but the moment they hear his voice they scatter in fear. Even his mount veers away lest he pelt it with stones; his dog, when it sees him, leaps onto the wall; even his cat runs from him.”
Abū Nubāta al-Madanī narrated from Muḥammad ibn Muṭarrif: “We visited Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj when death had drawn near to him and asked, ‘How do you find yourself?’
He replied, ‘I find myself well—placing my hope in Allah and thinking well of Him. By Allah, the one who goes out morning and evening building the capital of the Hereafter for himself, sending it ahead before death descends upon him so that he will arrive at it—and it will stand for him and he for it—is not the same as the one who goes out morning and evening engrossed in the capital of this world, building it for someone else, only to return to the Hereafter with no portion or share therein.’”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam said, “I have never seen anyone whose mouth wisdom was nearer to than Abū Ḥāzim’s.”
Yaʿqūb ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated from Abū Ḥāzim, who said, “You find a man busy doing…” (the report continues).