501 – al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to me; Ibrāhīm ibn Rajāʾ related to me ⦗214⦘ and said: I heard Ibn al-Sammāk state:

“People are of three kinds: the renunciant, the patient, and the eager.

• The renunciant rises each morning having driven both delight and grief from his heart because he no longer pursues this deceptive world. Nothing of this life that reaches him makes him rejoice, and nothing of it that slips away makes him sorrowful. He is unconcerned whether he begins the day in hardship or in ease. Such a person has excelled in his renunciation.

• The patient man inwardly craves the world and longs for it, yet when some portion of it falls into his hands he puts a bridle on himself, loathing its dispersal and dreading its evil end. Were you to look into his soul, you would marvel at his purity and self-restraint.

• As for the eager one, he cares not whence the world comes to him. He does not mind if, in gaining it, he sullies his reputation, diminishes his lineage, or wounds his religion. These people thrash about in a flood of confusion, and they are too foul even to be spoken of.”

al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān then recited to me:

Two seekers of the world’s desires stand far apart—how varied are mankind’s states!
One, to soothe the soul, destroys it;
another, to spare the soul, weans it from the world.