187 – Hamzah ibn al-ʿAbbās narrated to me; he said: ʿAbdān ibn ʿUthmān related to us; he said: ʿAbd Allāh related to us; he said: Ḥurayth ibn al-Sāʾib related to us; he said: al-Ḥasan said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ once passed a refuse heap on one of the roads of Madinah and remarked, “Whoever wishes to behold the world in its entirety, let him look at this rubbish pile.” He then added, “Had the world been worth with Allah no more than a fly’s wing, He would not have granted a disbeliever so much as a sip from it.”

Abu Bakr said: One of the poet-sages recited:

Have you not passed deserted courtyards,
Where rubbish mounds now lie that once were richly veiled?
Have you not looked upon the world and all its finery—
Tricked out in the glitter of idle, beguiling play?
Marvel at the folly of a soul unmoved
By what the turns of time should make it heed.
By Allah, how strange that eyes can rest in it,
When it is built upon vexation and distress. ⦗90⦘

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣāliḥ dictated to me this epistle:

To proceed: May Allah protect us and you from the evil of a dwelling that has already receded while souls remain infatuated with it, and may He grant me and you the better abode that is advancing, though hearts are shut to it. It is as though the inhabited part of this present world has already departed from its people, and the neglected part of that next world has already alighted among its people. One shall reap gain, another will regret. All creation is about to face an everlasting life that never ends, judged by the Almighty who never wrongs. Then every anxiety will be severed, and all else—of the paltry goods of this beguiling world—will shrink to insignificance. And peace.