• Polytheism, lying, and ostentation (riyāʾ) are a tree in the heart; its fruit in this world is fear, anxiety, grief, constriction of the breast, and darkness of heart, while its fruit in the Hereafter is zaqqūm and everlasting torment. Allah mentions these two trees in Sūrat Ibrāhīm.

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When a servant reaches maturity he is handed the covenant that his Creator and Owner entrusted to him. If he takes that covenant with strength, acceptance, and a firm resolve to carry out its terms, he becomes qualified for the ranks and stations reserved for those who honour their covenants.

Should he, at the very moment of receiving it, rouse his soul and declare: “I have been made worthy of my Lord’s covenant—who, then, is more entitled than I to accept, understand, and implement it?”, he will first devote himself to grasping the covenant, pondering it, and learning his Master’s injunctions. He then trains his soul to comply with it, act upon it, and execute it exactly as it requires. Thus he perceives with his heart the reality of the covenant and all that it contains, acquiring a new aspiration and a determination unlike the resolve he possessed in the heedless days of youth before the covenant reached him. He resigns from the darkness of youthful delusion and blind conformity to custom and upbringing, perseveres in lofty ambition, tears aside the veil of darkness, and steps into the light of certainty. In proportion to his patience and the sincerity of his striving he attains what Allah grants him out of His bounty.

The first stage of his felicity is to have an attentive ear and a heart that understands what the ear has received. When he hears, comprehends, and the clear path becomes plain before him; when he sees its sign-posts rising upon it and beholds most people swerving from it to the right and to the left, he clings to that path and does not turn aside with them