If a person wants to emulate
someone, he should consider whether the person is among the people who remember
Allaah or among the heedless ones? And is he being controlled by desires or
revelation? If he is being controlled by desires then he is among the heedless
and his affairs have become wasted (furt).
That is, his affair, which is obligatory upon him to adhere to and carry out,
with which he will be rightly guided and attain happiness has been wasted as he
was negligent regarding it. The word furt
was also explained to mean israaf;
meaning he committed excess. Yet it was also explained to mean destruction and
the opposite of truth. All these sayings are close in meaning.
The intent here is that Allaah
- blessed and exalted be He - has forbidden obedience to the person who
possesses the above attributes. Hence, it is necessary that a man should
examine the one he wants to take as his Shaykh, model and example. So if he
finds him to be heedless of the remembrance of Allaah and being controlled by
his desires, he should stay away from him. But if he finds him to be among
those who adhere to the remembrance of Allaah much, follow the Sunnah, and his
affair is not excess; rather, he is steadfast in his affairs, then he should
hold onto his way.
There is no difference between
the living and the dead except with the remembrance of Allaah. The similitude
of the one who remembers his Lord and the one who does not remember his Lord is
the similitude of the dead and living. It was reported in the Musnad that: “Remember Allaah so much that people will
begin to call you a madman.”[1]
Taken from al-Waabil as-Sayyib by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah
[1] Recorded
by Ahmad (11676); this hadeeth was graded weak by al-Albaanee in ad-Da’eefah
(no. 517) - translator
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