541 – Rabiʿah al-Hanafi related to me, from a shaykh among the people of Basra, who said: Wahb b. Munabbih said:

“We once saw a sheet of paper being tossed about by the wind. We picked it up and found written on it:

‘In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate.

A dwelling whose inhabitants are never secure. Whatever its people take from it for its own sake, they will leave behind when they depart, and thereafter be called to account for it. Whatever its people take from it for something beyond it, they will leave behind when they depart, and thereafter abide with it. It is as though there are people who live in this world yet do not belong to it: they move within it as though they were outside it, acting in it with clear insight and hastening in it to avoid what they fear. Their bodies mingle with the people of the world, while their hearts dwell with the people of the Hereafter. They see the people of the world being exalted, but they themselves are far more mindful of the lifelessness of their own hearts.’

He said, ‘I inquired about this saying but could find no one who recognized it.’