The Words | GLEAMS | 750
(724-779)

Exaggeration Is Implied Disparagement

Whatever you describe, describe it as it is. In my opinion, exaggerated praise is implied disparagement.

Favour greater than Divine favour is not favour.

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Fame Is Tyrannical

Fame is a despot; it ascribes to its owner the property of others.

As in the famous Nasreddin Hoja joke, his zakat, that is, one tenth, is his true property.

The imaginary renown of Rustam-i Sistani plundered an age of the glories of Iran.

That famous fancy. swelled with plunder and pillage, it was mixed with

superstition, and threw down mankind.

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Those Who Suppose Religion and Life Can Be Separated Are the Cause of Disaster

The mistake of the Young Turks: they did not know our religion is the basis of life; they thought nation and Islam were different.

They imagined civilization would endure and always be dominant, and saw happiness and prosperity to lie within it.

Now time has shown civilization's system to be corrupt and harmful26incontrovertible experience has taught us this.

Religion is the very life of life, its light and its basis. This nation will be revived only through the revival of religion. Islam understood this.

Contrary to other religions, our nation has progressed to the extent we adhered to our religion. And it has declined to the degree we neglected it.

This is an historical fact which occurred due to our feigned forgetfulness.

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Death Is Not Terrifying As Is Imagined

Misguidance is misleading, it makes death terrifying. Death is a change of clothes, or a change of abode. It removes man from dungeon to garden.

Whoever wants life should want martyrdom. The Qur'an describes the martyr's life. Martyrs, who do not experience the pangs of death, all know themselves to be alive and see themselves thus.

But they find their new lives to be purer. They do not suppose they have died. Note carefully what their relation to the dead is, it is like this:

In a dream two men are walking in a beautiful garden holding every sort of delight. One knows it is only a dream and receives no pleasure.

It does not delight him; its fills him with regret. The other one thinks it is the waking world, and receives true pleasure; it is real to him.

The dream is the shadow of the similitude, and the similitude is the shadow of the Intermediate Realm. It is due to this that their principles resemble each other.

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26. This is an accurate prediction; it looks to irreligious, tyrannical civilization, in the throes of death.

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