Establish with all of your powers a union with your fellows and brothers in religion that is stronger than the union of the worldly! Do not fall into dispute! Do not say to yourself, “Instead of spending my valuable time on such petty matters, let me spend it on more valuable things such as the invocation of God and meditation;” then withdrawing and weakening unity. For precisely what you imagine to be a matter of slight importance in this moral jihad may in fact be very great. In just the same way that under certain special and unusual conditions the watch kept for one hour by a soldier may be equal to a whole year’s worship, in this age when the people of truth have been defeated, the precious day that  you spend on some apparently minor matter concerning the moral struggle may be worth a thousand days, just like the hour of that soldier. Whatever is undertaken for the sake of God cannot be divided into small and great, valuable and valueless. An atom expended in sincerity and for the sake of God’s pleasure becomes like a star. What is important is not the nature of the means employed, but the result that it  yields. As long as the result is God’s pleasure and the substance employed is sincerity, any means to which recourse is had will be great, not small.

SEVENTH CAUSE

Dispute and rivalry among the people of truth do not arise from jealousy and greed for the world, and conversely union among the worldly and neglectful does not arise from generosity and magnanimity. It is rather that the people of truth are unable to preserve fully the magnanimity and high aspiration that proceed from the truth, or the  laudable  form  of  competition  that  exists  on  God’s  path.  Infiltrated  by  the unworthy, they partially misuse that laudable form of competition and fall into rivalry and dispute, causing grave harm both to themselves and to the Islamic community. As for the people of neglect and misguidance, in order not to lose the benefits with which they are infatuated and not to offend the leaders and companions they worship for the sake of benefit, in their utter humiliation,  abasement and  lack of manliness, they practise union at all costs with their companions, however  abominable, treacherous and harmful they be, and wholeheartedly agree with their partners in whatever form may be dictated by their common interest. As a result of this wholeheartedness, they indeed attain the benefits desired.

So O people of truth given to dispute and afflicted with disaster! It is through your loss of sincerity and your failure to make God’s pleasure your sole aim in this age of disaster that  you have caused the people of truth to undergo this humiliation and defeat. In matters relating to religion and the hereafter there should be no rivalry, envy or jealousy; indeed there can be none of these in truth.