The Blacksmith of the Soul

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Shaykh Bayazid Thayfur ibn ʿIsa al-Bisthami (q.s.) said, “For twelve years, I was the blacksmith of my soul.  I thrust my soul into the furnace of discipline and made it hot in the flames of arduous endeavour, then I placed it upon the anvil of reproach and hammered it with the hammer of self-blame, until I had fashioned out of my soul a mirror.  For five years, I was my own mirror, and I polished that mirror with every manner of godly service and obedience.  After that, I gazed upon my own reflection for a year, and I saw about my waist an infidel girdle of delusion and coquetry and self-regard, because I relied upon my own acts of obedience and approved of my own conduct.”


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