Of Vanities and Sundry Matters
The angels are not with the company with which is a dog nor with the company with which is a bell.
A bell is the Devil’s musical instrument.
The angels do not enter a house in which is a dog, nor that in which there are pictures.
Every painter is in Hell Fire; and God will appoint a person at the Day of Resurrection for every picture he shall have drawn, to punish him, and they will punish him in Hell. Then if you must make pictures, make them of trees and things without souls.
Whosoever shall tell a dream, not having dreamt, shall be put to the trouble at the Day of Resurrection of joining two barleycorns; and he can by no means do it; and he will be punished. And whosoever listeneth to others’ conversation, who dislike to be heard by him, and avoid him, boiling lead will be poured into his ears at the Day of Resurrection. And whosoever draweth a picture shall be punished by ordering him to breathe a spirit into it, and this he can never do, and so he will be punished as long as God wills.
O servants of God use medicine: because God hath not created a pain without a remedy for it, to be the means of curing it, except age; for that is a pain without a remedy.
He who is not loving to God’s creatures and to his own children, God will not be loving to him.
The truest words spoken by any poet are those of Lebīd, who said, “Know that everything is vanity except God.”
Verily he who believeth fighteth with his sword and tongue: I swear by God, verily abuse of infidels in verse is worse to them than arrows.
Meekness and shame are two branches of faith, and vain talking and embellishing are two branches of hypocrisy.
The calamity of knowledge is forgetfulness, and to lose knowledge is this, to speak of it to the unworthy.
Whoso pursueth the road of knowledge, God will direct him to the road of Paradise; and verily the angels spread their arms to receive him who seeketh after knowledge; and everything in heaven and earth will ask grace for him; and verily the superiority of a learned man over a mere worshipper is like that of the full moon over all the stars.
Hearing is not like seeing: verily God acquainted Moses of his tribe’s worshipping a calf, but he did not throw down the tables; but when Moses went to his tribe, and saw with his eyes the calf they had made, he threw down the tables and broke them.
Be not extravagant in praising me, as the Christians are in praising Jesus, Mary’s Son, by calling him God, and the Son of God; I am only the Lord’s servant; then call me the servant of God, and His messenger.
It was asked, “O Messenger of God, what relation is most worthy of doing good to?” He said, “Your mother,” this he repeated thrice: “and after her your father, and after him your other relations by propinquity.”
God’s pleasure is in a father’s pleasure, and God’s displeasure is a father’s displeasure.
Verily one of you is a mirror to his brother: Then if he see a vice in his brother he must tell him to get rid of it.
The best person near God is the best amongst his friends; and the best of neighbours near God is the best person in his own neighbourhood.
Deliberation in undertaking is pleasing to God, and haste is pleasing to the devil.
The heart of the old is always young in two things, in love for the world and length of hope.
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