the self, so that his very soul becomes insignificant to him for Allah’s sake. A form of renunciation that encompasses all the foregoing is to renounce everything other than Allah and every matter that distracts you from Him.

The finest renunciation is to keep one’s renunciation hidden.

The hardest is to renounce one’s personal shares and ego-driven interests.

The difference between renunciation (zuhd) and scrupulousness (waraʿ) is this: renunciation is to abandon whatever will not benefit in the Hereafter, whereas scrupulousness is to abandon whatever one fears may harm in the Hereafter.

A heart attached to desires is incapable of either true renunciation or true scrupulousness.

Yahya ibn Muʿadh said: “I marvel at three things: a man who parades his deeds before a fellow creature like himself yet neglects to perform them for Allah; a man who is stingy with his wealth even though his Lord is asking him to lend it, yet he lends nothing; and a man who yearns for the company and affection of created beings while Allah is calling him to His own company and affection.”

A Notable Benefit

Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allah said: “In Allah’s sight, abandoning a command is graver than committing a prohibition; for Adam was forbidden to eat from the tree, yet when he did so Allah accepted his repentance, whereas Iblis was commanded to prostrate to Adam, refused, and no repentance was granted to him.”

I say: This is a great and weighty matter—namely, that neglecting the commands is, in Allah’s estimation, more serious than committing the prohibitions (1). The reasons are many:

First: what Sahl mentioned concerning Adam and Allah’s enemy, Iblis.