17. WEIGH YOUR DEEDS IN LIFE BEFORE THE SCALES OF HEREAFTER
I contemplated my condition thoroughly; I called it into account before it is called into account [in the Hereafter]. I weighed my deeds before they are weighed, so I found the divine kindness (luft al-rabani) surround me since birth until now— kindness (luff) after another, hiding (sitr) of my defects and forgiveness (’afu) of what would otherwise entails punishment (aquba).
Yet I found [within me] no way to show gratitude (shukr) for that except with the tongue. I remembered sins for which if I had been punished, I would have perished quickly, and if some of it had been revealed to people, it would have caused me humiliation.
Do not think that they were from major sins so as not to consider me as lewd. They are ugly sins for someone like me [to commit] that happened with false justifications.
Thus, I say when I pray, ‘O Allah, with Your praise and Your sheltering of me, forgive me.’
Then I requested gratitude (shukr) from myself for that, but did not find it appropriate. Yet, I demand my desires that have been decreed and do not demand patience {sabr) in hardships or gratitude for the blessings from myself.
I started wailing over my shortcomings in praising the Benefactor, and on my pleasure of attaining knowledge (ilm) without applying it. I had hoped to attain the ranks of the great, but life passed away without reaching the goal.
I then found that Abu’l-Wafa’ ibn ‘Aqll had similar wailing, and I liked his wailing, so I wrote it here. He told himself, “You foolhardy! You organise words to be called ‘a debater’, and the fruit of this is to be called ‘a debater, just like the swift fighter.
You wasted the dearest and most precious thing, in the eyes of the wise; the days of your life, until you are known among the soon-to be dead as ‘a debater’. Then, the caller and the called will be forgotten when the hearts are obliterated. That is if it remained until your death, for a more skilled young man may arise, and steal the tide from you.’
The wise are occupied with leaving a legacy after death, which is application of knowledge and purified consideration of themselves.
Ugh, to myself when I have written volumes in the fields of knowledge, yet no virtue became attached to it. When debated, it acts high; when advised, it is arrogant, and when the worldly desires flash in the horizon, it flies to it like a vulture and swoops down on it like a crow on a dead body.
I wish it had taken like the desperate takes from dead meat. It hides its defects when mingling with people, but does not shy as Allah sees it.
If it misses a desire, it is annoyed, and when it is provided with blessings, it is distracted from the Benefactor.
Ugh to me today, above earth, and tomorrow, beneath it!
I swear, the stinking of my body after three days in my grave is less than the stinking of my manners among friends.
I swear, I am amazed at the patience of the Most Generous; how He covers for me as I am being torn apart, and how He gathers me as I am being scattered.
Tomorrow they will say, “The righteous learner scholar died.” Were they to know me as I know myself, they would not even bury me.
By Allah, I will call on myself like someone revealing the enemy’s shortcomings. I will wail the wailing of the bereaved [of a child], for I have no one to wail over these hidden calamities and covered traits, that have been hidden by He who knew them.
By Allah, I do not find a pleasant trait in myself that I can use as an expedient and say, “O Allah, forgive this sin by this good trait.”
By Allah, I never turned around, except to find from His Kindness that suffices me, and safeguarding that protects me, despite the enemies’ domination. I never had a need and extended my hand except He fulfilled it. This is His way with me, when He is the Lord who does not need me, and this is my manner with Him, when I am a servant in need of him.
I have no excuse, and I cannot say, “I did not know,” or “I was unaware.” By Allah, He has created me in a sound and proper way, and lit my heart with acumen, so that the hidden and the obscure open to my understanding.
How regretful am I for an unsatisfactory life that has passed!
How deprived am I of the ranks of insightful men! How great is my regret over what I neglected concerning Allah! How gloating is my enemy!
How disappointed is whoever thought well of me when my organs testify against me!
How forsaken am I upon the display of evidence! By Allah, Satan laughs at me when I am (considered) the insightful.
O Allah! I ask You for a pure repentance from this filth and a true awakening to clear the remaining muddiness.
I come to you after the age of fifty, a decayed object. Knowledge refused but to take my hand to honour, and I have no tool except sorrow and regret.
I swear, I did not disobey You out of ignorance of the magnitude of Your blessings, or forgetfulness of Your foregoing generosity, so forgive my preceding deeds.”
(Source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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