272 – Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to me; he said: Ṣāliḥ ibn Mālik related to me:

The mother of Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʿigh wrote to her son Ibrāhīm—who at that time was residing near the Sacred Mosque in Mecca—asking him to come to her. He answered with a letter that said:

“Marw, the place where you so delight in the thought of meeting me, is no abode of permanence. Marw is only a stopping-place for travellers and wayfarers. However dutiful a person may be toward mother and children, his stay there is brief, until they are carried on to one of two homes: the first is a separation from which there is no reunion, the second a reunion from which there is no separation.

“If you entertain any doubt about this, then where are the kings who once dwelt there? Where are the multitudes that filled its quarters? Where are the nations that contended for it? Where are the builders who laid brick upon brick to fortify it? Call out to them—they will not hear you. Life has been exchanged for death, as though they had never inhabited it or made it their home.

“So, in the face of such a concern, of what use is one beloved to another, or one close friend to his companion? No one possesses anything for anyone save what he has stored up for him in the Hereafter. As for the people of this world, they will soon be uprooted from it. And peace.”