7.9. ABU SULAYMAN’S STATEMENT WAS ABOUT DETERMINATION TO BE CONTENT
It is thus clear that Abu Sulayman’s words were not about contentment but determination to have it, for contentment comes after the divine decree. Then, if this is determination, it must be remembered that just as determination can last it can also vanish. Indeed, people, and especially the Sufis, lose their determination on so many occasions. Because of this, when one of them was asked: “What made you know your Lord?” he said: “By the annulment of determination and ambition.” Allah, Most High, said to men much better than these Shaykhs:
“And you had certainly wished for martyrdom before you encountered it, and you have (now) seen it (before you) while you were looking on.” (Al- Imran (3) 43)
And
“O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do. Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in a row as though they are a (single) structure joined firmly.” (al-Saff (61) 2-4)
Al-Tirmidhi relates that some Companions told the Prophet: “If we would know the deed most beloved to Allah, we would do it.” Thereupon, it was revealed:
“Have you not seen those who were told, ’Restrain your hands (from fighting) and establish prayer and give zakah’? But then when fighting was ordained for them, at once a party of them feared men as they fear Allah or with (even) greater fear. They said, ’Our Lord, why have You decreed upon us fighting? If only You had postponed (it for) us for a short time.’”(al-Nisa (4): 77)
This party had made up their minds to join jihad and loved it, but once they were tried by it they began to hating and avoiding it. But what is the pain of jihad compared to Hell and the punishment of Allah which none can bear?
It is told that Samnun the Lover once said: There is nothing for me in anything beside You So test and try me in any way You wish At that instant, he was afflicted with dysuria (i.e. he was unable to urinate), so he began going around the Qur’an schools, distributing walnuts to the children and saying: ‘Invoke Allah for your lying uncle!’
By Shaykhu’l-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah
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