Jabir narrated: one day, Imam al-Baqir (PBUH) went out saying, “O Jabir, by Allah, the whole night passed while I am grieved and my heart is engaged.”
I asked, “What grieves you and in what is your heart engaged? May Allah make me your sacrifice. Is it for the world?”
Imam (PBUH) answered:
“No, Jabir, It is the grief for the care of the hereafter. He whose heart is occupied by the pure reality of faith will be far away from the worldly adornment. The adornment of this world is only play and entertainment. The Last Lodge is the true life.
O Jabir, The faithful believer should not rely on and trust the adornment of this world. You should know that the seekers of the worldly affairs are people of inadvertence, arrogance, and ignorance, while the seekers of hereafter are the faithful believers, who are practicing and pious. They are the people of knowledge, understanding, pondering, lessons, and test. They never tire of remembering Allah.
You should know, Jabir, that the true rich men are the pious. They are sufficed with the little worldly means. Their burdens are light. They remind you, if you forget, of charity, and help you do it. They have postponed their lusts and desires and preferred the acts of obedience to their Lord. They looked for the course of charity and the loyalty to the disciples of Allah; therefore, they loved, pursued, and followed them.
Consider this world as a lodging in which you reside for one hour only and then you will leave, or as a wealth that you dreamed about and made you happy, but when you woke up it was nothing.
Retain, O Jabir, these matters of the religion and the Lord’s words of wisdom that I am entrusting with you. Offer advice for yourself and look at the primacy that you assign to Allah in your life. In the same way, you will find your position before Him when you will be returned to Him.
See if you have a different perspective about the world from what I have described for you (know that you are in a bad situation and
dangerous position), you should move right now towards a situation that satisfies Allah.(1) It happens that one gets what he desires from the worldly affairs, but it becomes the source of misfortune and unhappiness for him. Likewise, it happens that one disliked a
matter of the world to come, but when he got it, it was the source of redemption for him.
(The above is a selection taken from Tuhaf ul-Uqoul an Aal ir-Rasoul/ compiled by Ibn Shu’ba Al-Harrani; translated by Badr Shahin.— Qum: Ansariyan Publications, 2000.)
The Roshd Website offers condolences to all Muslims, especially you dear friend, upon 7th of Dhu al-Hijjah, the anniversary of the martyrdom of the leader of the insightful and the dissector of knowledge, Imam Muhammad ibn Ali al-Baqir (PBUH).
Footnotes:
1. In an interpretation of this narration, the late Ayatollah Faiz Kashani states, “This means that if this world in your eyes was different from what I described, and you take an interest in it, you have to depart from it to a lodging in which you satisfy your Lord. In other words, even though your body is in this world, your soul should revolve around the hereafter. You should seek Allah’s satisfaction and the salvation from hellfire until your death.” (Wafi, vol. 4, p. 396)