Peak of Eloquence Nahjul Balagha By Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib - English Translation - Sermon 228

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Fear of Allah, an Account of Those Who Remain Apprehensive of Death and Adopt Asceticism

Certainly, fear of Allah is the key to guidance, a provision for the next world, freedom from every kind of slavery, and deliverance from all ruin. With its help, the seeker succeeds, and whoever makes for safety escapes and achieves his aims.

Perform good deeds while such deeds are being raised (in value), repentance can be of benefit, prayer can be heard, conditions are peaceful and the pens (of the two angels) are in motion (to record the deeds). Hasten towards (virtuous) actions before the change (to old age) or to a lingering illness, or to a snatching death. Certainly, death will end your enjoyments, mar your pleasures and puts an end to your goals. It is an unwanted visitor, an invincible adversary and a non-discriminating killer. Its ropes have entrapped you, its evils have surrounded you, its arrowheads have aimed at you, its sway over you is great, its oppression on you is continuous and the chance of its missing you is remote.

Very soon you will be overwhelmed with the gloom of its shades, the severity of its illness, the darkness of its distresses, the senseless

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utterances of its pangs, the grief of its destruction, the darkness of its encompassing and the bitterness of its taste. It will seem as if it has come to you out of a sudden, silenced those who were whispering to you, separated your group, destroyed your doings, devastated your houses and altered your successors to distribute your estate among the chief relatives who were of no benefit to you, or the grieved near ones who could not protect (you), or those rejoicing who did not lament (you).

Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to strive. Exert your effort, equip yourself, get ready and provide yourself from the place of provision. And let not the life of this world deceive you as it deceived those before you from among the past generations and by-gone periods - those who extracted its milk, benefitted from its neglectfulness, passed a long time and turned its new things into old (by living long). Their abodes turned into graves and their wealth into inheritable estate. They do not know who came to them (at their graves). They do not pay heed to those who weep over them nor respond to those who call upon them. Therefore, beware of this world, for it is treacherous, deceitful and cheating. It gives and takes back, covers with clothes and uncovers. Its pleasure does not last, its hardship does not end and its calamity does not terminate.

Part of the same sermon about the ascetics:

They are from among the people of this world but are not its people because they remain in it as though they do not belong to it. They act herein upon what they observe and hasten her in (to avoid) what they fear. Their bodies move among the people of the next world. They see that the people of this world attach importance to the death of their bodies while they themselves attach more importance to the death of the hearts of the living.