Higher Aims: Striving in Worship
In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
by al-Jumu'ah Magazine
The Salaf have understood the Deen of Allah as well as the essence of this
life and its inescapable leading to the Hereafter, so they felt aversion for the
distractions and the tribulations of the world. They found no sleep and their
heart kept away from desires. They kept above the insignificant concerns of
life. Their biographies abound with stories that show their striving in
righteousness, repentance and their strong will in worship and
humbleness:
Al-Hasan al-Basri said, "Whoever competes with you in the
Deen then try to surpass him, and whoever competes with you in the matters of
this life then throw it back at him." Whenever he missed a Salah in
congregation, Ibn Umar radhiallahu and used to fast one day, pray for one whole
night, and free a slave .
Abu Musa al Ash'ari used to apply himself so
much in worship a the end of his life that he was told, "Why don't you slow down
and be gentle with yourself?" He replied, "When the horses are released for a
race and are close to the finish line, they give all the strength they have.
What is left of my life is less than that." He maintained the same level of
devotion and worship until he died.
Mawriq al-'Ajli said, "I did not find
an example, for the believer in this life, better than a man on a plank in the
sea, imploring, 'O Lord, O Lord' hoping that Allah will save him."
Usamah
said, "Whenever you see Sufyan ath-Thawri, it is as if you see someone in 'a
ship fearing to drown,' one would often hear him say, 'O Lord, save me, save
me!'."
Fatimah bint Abdil Malik, the wife of the Khalifah Umar ibn Abdil-Aziz
said, "I have never seen a person offering salah or fasting more than he did, or
a person fearing the Lord more than him. After offering Salat-ul-Isha, he would
sit down and cry until he becomes sleepy, then he would wake up again and
continue crying until sleep overtakes him."
Amir ibn Abdullah was once
asked, "How can you tolerate being awake all night, and thirsty in the intense
heat of the day?" He replied, "Is it anything more that postponing the food of
the day to night-time, and the sleep of the night to daytime? This is not a big
matter." When the night came, he would say, "Remembrance of the heat of hellfire
has taken sleepiness from me." And he would not sleep until dawn.
Ahmad
ibn Harb said, "I wonder how the one who knows that above him, paradise is being
embellished, and below him, hell fire is being kindled, and yet sleeps between
them!"
Waqi' said, "Al Amash was almost seventy years old and he never missed
the first takbirah (for salah in the masjid). I used to visit him frequently for
more than two years and never saw him make up for even one rakah."
Abu
Hay an related that his father said, "Ar-Rabi" ibn Khuthaym was crippled and
used to be carried to the congregational salah. So people told him, 'You have an
excuse (for not coming)', he said, 'I hear "hayee 'alas-salah', the call to
salah; so if you can come to it even by crawling, do so," paraphrasing a
hadith.
Abul-Mawahib ibn Sarsari said concerning Imam abul-Qasim ibn
Asakir, "I have never seen the like of him, and none had encompassed as many
good characteristics as he did concerning his adherence to one way for forty
years, making salah in the first row unless he had an excuse, i'tikaf during
Ramadhan and the ten days of Thul-Hijjah, and the lack of desire to accumulate
properties and build houses, as he forbade himself these. He turned away any
position of imam or speaker, though they were offered to him, and he devoted
himself to enjoin good and forbid evil, and he would not fear anyone in
that."
Courtesy Of: Islaam.com