He, exalted is He, also says:

“Vying for increase has distracted you
until you visit the graves.
No indeed, you will come to know.
Again—no indeed—you will come to know.
No indeed—if you had certain knowledge…” (At-Takāthur 1–5)

And He says:

“This worldly life is nothing but play and amusement, whereas the Abode of the Hereafter—if only they knew—is indeed the real life.” (Al-ʿAnkabūt 64)

Explanation

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—entitles this chapter: The virtue of renouncing the world, urging restraint in it, and the superiority of the poor.

The dunya is this life we are now living. It is called dunyā for two reasons:

1. It is lower than the Hereafter, for it comes before it, as He, the Exalted, says: “And the Hereafter is better for you than the first life.” (Ad-Duḥā 4)

2. It is base and insignificant compared with the Hereafter. Imam Aḥmad, may Allah have mercy on him, narrated from al-Mustawrid ibn Shaddād that the Prophet ﷺ said: “The space occupied by the whip of one of you in Paradise is better than the whole world and everything in it.” The place taken by a small, short stick in Paradise surpasses the world and all it contains, from its beginning to its end. That is the reality of the dunya.

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—has cited several verses, all of which show that it is not fitting for an intelligent person to