Do so in every state and when rising from gatherings in which you have conversed. Be truthful where truthfulness is prescribed for you, and do not be cowardly or afraid. Avoid lying where avoiding it is prescribed for you. Fear three: fear God, fear yourself, and fear one who does not fear God.
If you are a preacher and imam, shorten the sermon and lengthen the Friday prayer, for this is a mark of a man’s understanding. Maintain presence with God and a sound intention in every deed you perform. Honor the gray-haired, for God feels shame before the gray-haired. Honor the bearers of the Qur’an and honor the just ruler. Beware of debt, for it is anxious thought by night and humiliation by day.
(Intention and the motive for worship)
Beware of letting anything among the adornments of this worldly life move you to worship your Lord, for you belong to whatever has moved you. Nor should you act for the aims of the souls, for such aims are present illnesses.
Among what we have transmitted concerning this is that a man of the Substitutes was walking through the air with his companions. They passed over a green meadow containing a murmuring spring. He desired to perform ablution with that water and pray in that meadow. He fell from among the company; they left him and went away, and he descended from their rank on account of this much. Consider this secret,
