So work for the sake of Allah when you feel hopeful just as you work for Him when you feel afraid. By Allah, I have never seen the like of Paradise—a seeker of it can still fall asleep—nor the like of Hell—a fugitive from it can still fall asleep. Whoever is not benefited by the truth will be harmed by falsehood, and whoever is not set straight by guidance will be bent by misguidance. Know, then, that you have been ordered to set out on this journey and have been shown where to find provisions.
O people! This world is but an immediate, passing commodity from which both the righteous and the wicked eat, while the Hereafter is a true promise, governed by a Mighty Sovereign. Indeed, Satan threatens you with poverty and commands you to indecency, whereas Allah promises you His forgiveness and bounty—and Allah is All-Encompassing, All-Knowing.
O people: Do well during your lifetimes and you will be safeguarded in your descendants. For Allah has promised His Garden to whoever obeys Him and has threatened His Fire to whoever disobeys Him. It is a Fire whose roaring never subsides, whose captive is never released, whose broken one is never mended (1); its heat is intense, its depth is unfathomable, and its drink is pus and blood. The two things I fear for you most are following passion and having long hopes.
In another wording: Following passion turns one away from the truth, and having long hopes makes one forget the Hereafter.
ʿĀṣim ibn Ḍumrah reported: A man spoke ill of this world in the presence of ʿAlī. ʿAlī replied, “The world is a house of truth for whoever treats it truthfully, a house of salvation for whoever understands it, a place of wealth and provision for whoever takes from it what he needs. It is the landing-place of Allah’s revelation, the place where His angels pray, the mosque of His prophets, and the marketplace of His friends: they earn in it mercy and acquire in it Paradise. Who, then, can blame it after it has openly declared its own perishing (2) and shouted its own parting? It has mixed joy with trouble, and by its trials has blended desire for it with wariness of it, using both encouragement and warning.
“So, O critic of the world, O one who beguiles himself with idle hopes (3), when has the world ever deceived you, or when has it taken up residence with you? Was it at the deathbeds of your fathers, now dust? Or in the resting-places of your mothers beneath the soil? How many people have you nursed with your own hands, tending them with both palms, seeking a cure for them, consulting physicians for them—yet your medicine could not avail them, nor your weeping benefit them!”
Sufyān ath-Thawrī and al-Aʿmash transmitted—through ʿAmr ibn Murrah, from Abū l-Bakhtarī—that a man once came to ʿAlī and lavished praise on him, though he inwardly hated him. ʿAlī said to him (4), “I am not as you say, but I am above what you conceal in your heart.”
Ibn ʿAsākir (5) relates that a man said to ʿAlī, “May Allah keep you firm.” ʿAlī replied, “Upon your own chest be firmness.”
Ibn Abī d-Dunyā reports: Isḥāq ibn Ismāʿīl narrated to us, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah narrated to us, from Abū Ḥamzah, from Yaḥyā ibn ʿAqīl, from Yaḥyā ibn Yaʿmur, who said that ʿAlī declared: “The decree descends from heaven (6) like drops of rain, allotting to every soul what Allah has written for it of increase or decrease in life, family, or wealth. So if someone observes a loss in himself, his family, or his property, yet sees that another has been given ten times more, let that not become a trial for him (7). For as long as the Muslim remains in this world, whenever it is mentioned he shows humility toward it.”