222 – ‘Abd Allah narrated to us; he said: Abu al-Khattab Ziyad ibn Yahya al-Hassani related to me; he said: a son of Muhammad ibn Husayn told me that al-Hasan ibn Abi al-Hasan passed by a gathering of the tribe of Thaqif. They said to him, “Abu Sa‘id, would you not admonish us with a few words—perhaps Allah will let us benefit from them?”

So, while still standing, he spoke:

“Indeed our Lord—He has no partner—has made this world a mere way-station. Within it He has set good and evil as a trial for its people, so that He may test which of them is best in deeds. Thus they move about in it, each striving in his own manner, for the brief span of finite lifetimes. Their provision reaches them therein; they partake of it for as long as they accompany it, and before long they leave it to those who succeed them, just as they inherited it from those who preceded them. So it will continue until the world spews out its inhabitants, attains the limit appointed for it, and perishes just as they will have perished.

“As for the Hereafter, He has made it the abode of true life, comprising a Garden and a Fire that have descended, each sealed, from the vastness of their Lord. Good is utterly remote from evil, and evil is utterly remote from good. We therefore beseech the One who created us as He willed to make our final return—and yours—to His own abode, the Abode of Peace.”