• The light of reason shines in the night of passion; the highway of right guidance glimmers, and in that radiance the clear-sighted man catches sight of the final consequences.

• With resolute will step out of this cramped courtyard, crammed with afflictions, into that vast expanse where no eye has ever beheld its wonders; there no quest is frustrated and no beloved is ever lost.

• Seller of your own soul for a craving whose love is wasting illness, whose union is injury, and whose beauty is bound to vanish! You have bartered the costliest treasure for a paltry price—as though you never knew the worth of the merchandise or the cheapness of the payment—until, when you arrive on the Day of Mutual Loss and Gain, the swindle in the contract will at last be plain. “There is no god but Allah” is the commodity, Allah is the Buyer, its price is Paradise, and the broker is the Messenger; will you agree to sell it for a mere fraction of something whose whole of wholes is not worth a mosquito’s wing (1)?!
If a thing whose entirety is worth
no more than a gnat’s wing to the Lord
whom you now serve—
while a shard of that same thing owns you
body and soul—
what, then, is your value in His sight?
And you sold for it a self He had already bid for
with every promised excellence
though its owner’s fondness has long since faded (2).

• Spineless of resolve! Where are you, when this very road wore Adam to exhaustion, drew Noah to lament, cast Abraham into the fire, laid Ishmael beneath the knife, sold Joseph for a pittance and left him years in prison, saw Zechariah sawn in two, beheaded the noble, chaste John, subjected Job to crushing hardship, and—beyond all this—