203 – ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to me, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Muslim al-ʿIjlī, who said: A man of the Banū Shaybān informed me that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah be pleased with him—once delivered a sermon and said:

“All praise belongs to Allah; I praise Him, seek His help, believe in Him and place my trust in Him. I bear witness that there is no deity except Allah alone with no partner, and that Muḥammad ﷺ is His servant and Messenger. He sent him with guidance and the religion of truth to remove your maladies and to rouse you from your heedlessness.

Know that you will surely die and then be resurrected, that you will be made to stand for your deeds and will be recompensed for them. So let not the life of this world deceive you, for it is a realm encircled by trials, known for its extinction, described by its treachery. Everything in it is bound to fade away, and among its people fortunes alternate and revolve; its conditions never last, nor can its residents escape its harm. One moment its folk are in comfort and joy, the next they are in affliction and delusion—ever-shifting states, ⦗99⦘ revolving turns. Life in it is blameworthy, its ease never endures. Its people are only exposed targets: it shoots at them with its arrows and forces them to swallow its cup of death. Each person’s appointed end therein is fixed and his allotted share complete.

Servants of Allah, realise that you and the fleeting blossom you enjoy of this world are on the same path as those who have already passed—people whose lives were longer than yours, whose strength was greater, whose dwellings were more prosperous, whose traces reached farther. Yet after their long wanderings, their voices fell silent and were extinguished; their bodies decayed, their homes lay empty, their landmarks vanished. They exchanged lofty palaces and couches and well-spread cushions for rough rocks and propped-up stones in low, hollow graves—chambers whose courtyards were built with ruin and whose walls were raised with dust. Their arrival to them is imminent, and their inhabitants are estranged: surrounded by the bustle of the living, yet dwelling in loneliness; the city thrives above them, yet they find no company, nor do they maintain the ties of neighbours and brothers despite the closeness of their quarters.

How could they keep in touch when decay has ground them beneath its weight and stones and soil have consumed them? After life they became dead, after a luxuriant existence mere fragments. Loved ones were bereaved of them; they settled beneath the earth and departed never to return. Alas, alas! ⦗100⦘ “No indeed! It is but a word he speaks, and behind them lies a barrier until the Day they are raised.” (Q 23:100)

It is as though you have already reached what they have reached of decay and solitude in the abode of the dead, as though you have been pawned in that bed and enclosed in that repository. What, then, of you when matters reach their end, the graves are overturned, what lies in the breasts is laid bare, and you are brought for reckoning before the Majestic King? Hearts will flutter in dread of past sins; the veils and coverings will be torn away, and your hidden deeds and secrets will be exposed.

There and then every soul will be repaid for what it has earned. Allah, exalted is He, says: “that He may recompense those who did evil with what they did and reward those who did good with the very best.” And He, exalted is He, says: “The record will be set down, and you will see the wicked fearful of what is in it. They will say, ‘Woe to us! What a record is this! It leaves nothing small or great without enumerating it.’ They will find all that they did present, and your Lord wrongs no one.” (Q 18:49)

May Allah make us and you among those who act by His Book and follow His friends, until—by His bounty—He settles us and you in the Abode of Permanence. Indeed, He is Praiseworthy, Glorious.”