Paying God’s Due

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi (q.s.) wrote, “Hear what I said to one of our brothers to give him courage.  He was afraid to marry because of the temptations that marriage would entail, as many of our people have been afraid.  So I said to him, we see that there are some men who, though not of the elect, yet manage to live in the midst of manifold occupations as though they had none, whereas others, responsible for nothing but their own head, befuddle it to the point of being always in great trouble.  This comes from the fact that they are forever making plans and burdening themselves with a thousand worries.  And so it appears to me, but God Knows best, that grown men do not allow themselves to be distracted from their Lord by anything at all and that concern for family is the least of things. 

On what then does he rely, he amongst you who aspires to union and to that end gives up all activity for profit in this world or in the other?  Is there anything more astonishing than that a man should put all the blame on his professional activity for not being able to perfect himself?  He says, ‘If only I had abandoned my business and given all my attention to my Lord, I should be better off'’; and yet there are many lost moments in his life; he does not see them and finds nothing wrong in the fact that he wastes these moments without a thought for his Master.  This is where he goes astray and is lost, because it is not fitting that he should blame his business for having caused him to neglect the Salvation of his soul and that of his family so long as, in his free moments, he is not paying the Lord His due.”