The scholar, the worshipper, the Zaahid, Shumait ibn Ajlaan said, “I heard my father saying:
‘Verily the believer says to himself: ‘It’s only [a matter of] three days.
Yesterday and what it contained has passed.
Tomorrow is [false] hope which you might not reach. If indeed you are from tomorrow’s people then [rest assured] tomorrow will come along with its provision.
Before tomorrow [even arrives there] is a day and night [i.e., the current day] in which many souls will perish—maybe you [too] will be one of those who do.
Each day’s worry is enough [to handle].
But you went and burdened your weak heart with years and ages worth of worry, the worry of prices increasing and falling, the worry of winter before winter even came, and that of summer before it did.
What, then, have you left for your weak heart in terms of its hereafter?
Every day your appointed term decreases yet you are not worried.
Every day you fully collect all your sustenance yet you are not worried.
You have been given what suffices you but yet seek what will cause you to transgress.
Not with a little are you content, and nor with plenty are you satisfied.
And how can a scholar not perceive his own ignorance when he has failed to give thanks for what he [already] has and is deceived into asking for yet more?
Or how can he whose desires do not cut off from the dunyaa and whose craving for it does not end work for the Hereafter?
How totally and utterly strange that someone believes in the Home of [Eternal] Life yet strives [instead] for the Abode of Deception!’’”
Qisarul-Amal, pp. 56-58.
