Islam and Christianity

termed of aql and naql].
True Islamic savants are those who do not use their religious
knowledge to attain worldly rewards. They are the men of
Allâhu ta’âlâ. They are the inheritors and representatives of the
Prophet (’alaihi mussalâm). They are the best and the dearest
ones among mankind. On the Day of Resurrection, the ink of
their writings will weigh heavier than the blood of those martyrs
who died in battle for Islam, that is, for the cause of Allâhu
ta’âlâ. The Hadith ash-sherîf: ‘The sleep of savants is worship!’
praises those Islamic savants. They are the men who really know
that the hereafter is eternal, and that the world is temporary;
they well understand the beauty of eternal blessings in the
hereafter, and the ugliness and wickedness of the world. That is
why they have held fast to what is eternal, to the beauty lasting
without any change, not to what is provisional, changeable and
consumable. Being able to understand how important the
hereafter is depends on being able to see how great Allâhu ta’âlâ
is. One who has understood the importance of the hereafter
never deems the world valuable. It is because the hereafter and
the world are opposites in this respect. If you please one, the
other will be offended. One who deems the world valuable will
offend the hereafter. To dislike the world means to value the
hereafter. It is impossible to value or humiliate both of them at
the same time. Opposites cannot exist in the same place [water
and fire, for example].
Some of the great Sûfis, after having completely forgotten
themselves and the world, seem to be men of the world for
various reasons. They seem to desire and love the world. In fact,
there is no secular love or desire in their hearts. It is declared in
the 37th verse of Sûrat an-Nûr in the Qur’ân al-kerim: “They are
the men whom neither business nor trading distracts from
remembering Allâhu ta’âlâ.” They seem to be fond of the world,
but actually, never! Hâja Bahâeddîn-i Naqshiband Bukhârî [1]
(quddisa sirruh) said, “A young merchant was doing shopping in
the marketplace of Minâ in the blessed city of Mekka. Although
the shopping deal he was making amounted to around fifty
thousand gold coins, his heart was never oblivious of Allâhu ta’âlâ
even for a moment.”
3- The bigots of science are the third group of seditious men
who have obtained a diploma from a university and pass for
[1] Bahâeddîn-i Bukhârî, passed away in 791 (1389 A.D.)
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