The only way to keep this mill in proper working order is to occupy it with what truly concerns you; it is ruined altogether when you busy it with what does not.

How apt is the saying of one of the wise: “When I saw every kind of treasure set up as an easy target for ruin, and observed that decay governs them and inevitably overtakes them, I turned away from them all toward that which no one of sound judgment can dispute—namely, the most beneficial of stores, the finest of gains, and the most profitable of trades. Allah is the One whose help is sought.”

Shaqīq ibn Ibrāhīm said: “The door of divine success has been shut before people by six things: their preoccupation with the blessing itself instead of thanking for it; their eagerness for knowledge while abandoning practice; their haste to sin while delaying repentance; their self-deception in keeping company with the righteous while failing to follow their deeds; the world turning its back on them yet they chase after it; and the Hereafter advancing toward them while they turn away from it.”

I say: The root of all this is the absence of true longing and true fear; its root is weak certainty; its root is poor insight; its root is a base, debased soul that prefers what is inferior to what is better. Had the soul been noble and high-minded, it would never have settled for the lowly.

Thus, with Allah’s enabling grace and will, the root of every good is a soul’s honor, nobility, and loftiness, while the root of every evil is its baseness, vileness, and smallness.

Allah, the Exalted, says: “He has certainly succeeded who purifies it, and he has certainly failed who corrupts it” (al-Shams 9–10)—that is, successful is the one who magnifies, enhances, and nurtures the soul through obedience to Allah, and ruined is the one who belittles and debases it through disobedience to Allah.

A noble soul, therefore, is satisfied only with what is highest and best of all things.