A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Referring to Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ), Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Razi ( q.s. ) said, “I accompanied al-Fudayl for thirty years without ever seeing him laughing or smiling, except for the day when his son, ‘Ali, passed away.   I asked him about this.   He said, ‘If Allah ( s.w.t. ) Loves something, I love it too.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “When Allah ( s.w.t. ) Loves His servant, He Bestows on him much grief, and when He dislikes His servant, He Grants him abundance in this world.”   Imam Abu ‘Abd ar-Rahman ‘Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak ( r.a. ) said: “When al-Fudhayl passed away, sorrow departed.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “Whenever I disobey Allah ( s.w.t. ), I know this from the behaviour of my donkey and my servant.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “If this world with all that is in it were offered to me, and I were not held responsible for enjoying it, I would still turn away from it in disgust, as you would turn away from a decaying corpse, while passing it by, in order not to smear your clothes with it.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “I would rather swear that I am a hypocrite than that I am not a hypocrite.”   He also said, “Not to act for the sake of others is hypocrisy, while to act for the sake of others is polytheism.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Imam Abu al-Qasim ‘Abd al-Karim ibn Huzan al-Qushayri ( r.a. ) recorded, in his Risalah al-Qushayriyyah , Shaykh Abu ‘Ali al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) came from Khurasan, from the region of Marw.   It is said that he was born in Samarkand, and grew up at Abiward.   He passed away in Makkah, in the month of Muharram, in the year 187 AH.   Shaykh al-Fudhayl ( q.s. ) was a dangerous young lad, who robbed caravans between Abiward and Sarakhs.   The reason for his repentance began when he fell in love with a slave girl and, as he was climbing up the wall in order to meet her, he heard a Qur’an reader reciting the following:   سُوۡرَةُ الحَدید ۞ أَلَمۡ يَأۡنِ لِلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ أَن تَخۡشَعَ قُلُوبُہُمۡ لِذِڪۡرِ ٱللَّهِ … ( ١٦ )   Has not the time arrived for the believers, that their hearts, in all humility, should engage in the remembrance of Allah ... (Surah al-Hadid:16)   And he said, “O my L...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Zayn ad-Din Abu al-Faraj ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Rajab al-Hanbali ( r.a. ) wrote, in his Jami’ al-‘Ulum al-Hikam , “Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh asked a man, ‘How many years have come upon you?’   He replied, ‘Sixty years.’   He said, ‘Therefore, for sixty years you have been going to your Lord, and you are about to reach.’   So, the man said, ‘To Allah we Belong, and to Him we shall Return.’   Fudhayl ibn 'Iyadh asked, ‘Do you know the meaning of that?  You are saying, ‘I Belong to Allah as a servant, and I am going to return to Him.’  So, whoever knows that he Belongs to Allah as a servant, and that he will return to him, then he should know that he will be Stopped.  And whoever knows that he will be Stopped, then he should know that he will be Questioned.  And whoever knows that he will be Questioned, then let him prepare an answer for the Question.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “If anyone asks you whether you love Allah ( s.w.t. ), keep silent; for if you say, ‘I do not love Him’, you are a disbeliever; and if you say, ‘I do’, your deeds may contradict your claim.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh  Abu ‘Ali  Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “If Iblis conquers the son of Adam with one of these three, he then says, ‘I will not seek anything else from him.’   They are: Being impressed with oneself; deeming his good deeds to be plentiful; and forgetting of his sins.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh  Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “To be humble is to accept the truth, and submit to it, even if you heard it from a child, or someone who is uneducated or ignorant.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “Do not feel lonely on paths of guidance just because few people travel on them.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘lyadh ( q.s. ) said, “The believer screens, and gives sincere advice; and the wicked unveils, and exposes.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “For a worship to be Accepted, it has to meet two conditions: correctness and sincerity.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) remarked, “To stop performing good works for the sake of men is hypocrisy, and to perform them for the sake of men is polytheism.  Sincerity is that Allah ( s.w.t. ) Cure you of both.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh  Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “Two things harden the heart: too much speech and too much food.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “As long as people are doing fine, their true natures are concealed, but when calamity strikes, their true natures are revealed, so the believer resorts to his faith, and the hypocrite resorts to his hypocrisy.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad adz-Dzahabi ( r.a. ) wrote, in Siyar A’alam an-Nubala’ , “Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh said, ‘Whosoever feels depressed because of loneliness, and yet feels tranquil when they are around people, then surely that one is not safe from pretending to be virtuous.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “Whoever limits his speech to be in accordance with his actions, will minimise his speech on that which does not concern him.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( r.a. ) said, “Five things are associated with difficulty in life: a heart that is hard; eyes that do not shed tears; limited modesty; to desire the material world; and to have lengthy hopes in your life.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh  Abu ‘Ali  Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyadh ( q.s. ) said, “Indeed, I love those whom Allah ( s.w.t. ) Loves.  They are those from whom the companions of Muhammad ( s.a.w. ) are safe.  I hate those whom Allah ( s.w.t. ) Hates.  They are the people of the deviant sects and innovation.”