Eternal Words Nahj al-Balaghah Sermons SERMON 188 - Allah’s Favors
SERMON 188 - Allah’s Favors
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I admonish you, O people, to fear Allah and to praise Him abundantly for His favors unto you, for His reward for you, and [even] for His obligations on you. See how He chose you for favors and dealt with you with mercy. You sinned openly; He kept your sins covered. You behaved in a way to incur His punishment, but He gave you more respite.
Condition of Persons Facing Death
I also admonish you to remember death and to lessen your heedlessness towards it. Why should you be heedless of the One Who is not heedless of you? Why expect from him (i.e. the angel of death) to give you a respite? The dead whom you have been watching suffice as preachers. They were carried to their graves, not riding but transported, and were placed in their graves, but not of their own accord. It seems as if they never lived in this world and as if the next world had always been their abode. They have made lonely the place where they were living and are now living where they used to feel lonely. They remained busy about what they had to leave behind them and did not care about where they were going to. Now, they cannot remove themselves from evil, nor add to their virtues. They were attached to the world and it deceived them. They trusted it and it overturned the tables to them.
Transience of this World
May Allah have pity on you! You should, therefore, hasten towards (the preparation of) houses which you have been commanded to populate, towards which you have been called upon, and to which you have been invited. Seek the completion of Allah’s favors on you by exercising endurance in His obedience and abstention from His disobedience because tomorrow is close to today. How fast are the hours of the day?! How fast are the days in the month?! How fast are the months in the years and how fast the years in one’s lifetime?!
