Chapter on Defining the Self-Deluded Person and the Duration of His Delusion

Chapter on Defining the Deluded One and the Length of His Delusion

I said:

How then should the deluded one—who is deceived by the outward appearance of his obedience—come to know himself and the length of his delusion during the days of his recitation of the dunyā (this world)?

He said:

This austere reciter should return to himself, then review the days that have passed of his life, examining them with zuhd (ascetic renunciation). Has there come upon him a single daytime day in which the sun rose upon him and then set, during which he guarded any limb of his limbs from what God, Exalted and Glorious, detested, and from what He prohibited, and he fulfilled it and carried out what God, Exalted and Glorious, made obligatory and incumbent upon him?

If he did that, let him review limb by limb. Does he know a single day, from morning to nightfall, in which he guarded his tongue, so that he did not speak a word that displeases God, Glorious and Exalted, and did not remain silent from a word his Lord made obligatory upon him, until evening—out of fear that he would not find that day among the days of his recitation rather than the days of his ignorance? And likewise his sight, his hearing, his errors, and the rest of his limbs.

If he found from himself that God, Exalted and Glorious, had preserved his limbs during the days of his recitation, or even a single daytime day—then let him return to his qalb (heart) and reflect. Does he know a single day from the days of his recitation, along with his guarding of his limbs, in which he examined his heart? Let him know whether he had been on guard against the awareness of God, Exalted and Glorious, the Most High, of what he concealed within himself, and whether his intellect had been a sentinel over his inner states on that day, such that no thought passed through his heart of what God, Exalted and Glorious, detests—of riyā' (showing off) and affectation, or from the promptings of his caprice or his enemy—except that he recognized it, detested it, and was disgusted by it, until he knew that he had made a single day sincere, from morning to nightfall, without heedlessness and without delusion. Let him examine that , for I fear he will not find it.

And so it continues in the remainder of the chapter.

I feared that were he to find that — meaning that nothing remain of what is other than that which God, exalted be He, rebuked — of ʿujb (self-admiration) and kibr (arrogance) and ḥasad (envy) and shamāta (malicious glee) and sūʾ al-ẓann (ill opinion) and other than these in his inner conscience. For the generality of the reciters of our age are deluded and deceived; we count ourselves among the austere and the abstemious, yet perhaps in the sight of God we are among the sinful transgressors. And how can we feel safe from being thus? Not a day passes over us except that we add to it new sins that were not there before, appending them to the sins from which yesterday was not free — sins of the limbs and sins of the inner conscience: arrogance, envy, malicious glee, ill opinion, self-admiration, riyāʾ (ostentation), and other than that. So every day of our lives we acquire new sins of our limbs and our hearts, joining them altogether to the sins that were there yesterday.

We cannot be free of one of two stations: either that we are, in the sight of God, exalted and majestic, among the people of pardon, forgiveness, and clemency — and so every day we increase in the renewal of sins alongside the renewal of days and nights throughout their length, in standing before God, exalted and majestic, and abundance of questioning, and constant reckoning, and abundance of toil beyond description; or that we are among the people of enmity and wrath — and so every day we increase therein by the renewal of sins, an increase in punishment through multiplication, humiliation, and disgrace. Our sins cannot be free from increasing in severity of questioning or intensification of punishment, because the first sin we acquired at the time of reaching maturity obligated punishment upon us, and then every sin after it is an increase in punishment through multiplication — unless the Merciful, the Generous, the Munificent pardons. And if He pardons, then the first sin we committed at maturity obliges us to stand accountable for it before God, exalted and majestic, and to be questioned about it. Then every sin after it increases us in accountability for it and abundance of questioning about it.

Al-Ḥārith (may God have mercy upon him) said: O my brother, let taqwā (mindfulness of God) be your concern, for it is the capital of your wealth, and the supererogatory works after that are your profit. No wise trader, no prudent and intelligent person, is one who counts for himself