375 – Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Malik related to me, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Asmāʾ ibn ʿUbayd told me, saying: ʿAwn ibn Maʿmar narrated to us, saying:

A learned man once wrote to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz:

“To proceed: this world is not a home in which to settle. Adam was sent down to it from Paradise as a punishment. One who is unaware of Allah’s reward imagines that it is the reward itself; and one who is unaware of Allah’s punishment imagines that it is the punishment itself. It is neither. Rather, it is a realm whose inhabitants are handed over either to wrath or to honour. In this it resembles a snake: its touch is soft, yet within it is death. Therefore be in it like a sick man who forces himself to take his medicine in hope of recovery, and who refrains from the food he craves in hope of being cured.”