- ʿAbd Allah narrated to us—ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Yaḥyā mentioned—and ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmārah related, from a man of Basra, who said:
“I set out from Basra intending to reach Asqalan. On the way I encountered a caravan, and they asked me, ‘Shaykh, where are you headed?’ I replied, ‘To stand on guard in Asqalan.’ They said, ‘Do you not fear travelling alone?’ I answered, ‘No.’ I continued with them until we reached Bayt al-Maqdis. When I was about to part from them, they said, ‘We commend to you the fear of Allah, and adherence ⦗46⦘ to the station of waraʿ (scrupulous piety); through it you will attain zuhd (detachment) from the world, and through zuhd you will attain the love of Allah.’
“I asked, ‘What, then, is waraʿ?’ They wept and replied, ‘O man, waraʿ is holding the self to account.’ I said, ‘And how is that done?’ They answered, ‘You take yourself to task with every blink of the eye, every morning and evening. If a person is watchful and discerning, no excess slips past him. Once he reaches the rank of waraʿ he bears hardship, swallows anger and bitterness, and Allah grants him further waraʿ and patience. Know that patience, in relation to faith, is like the head to the body; the pivot of this whole matter is patience.
“As for renunciation of the world, it is that a man does not settle upon any comfort in which his soul finds rest. And the lover of Allah is ever in straitness, increasing only in love for Allah and receiving from Him nothing but favour.”