📘 You can only warn him who follows the Remembrance, and fears the Compassionate One in secret�He said:The one who worships God in his innermost secret (sirr), will be endowed with certainty (yaqīn) by God. The one who worships God with a truthful tongue, will find his heart ascends to the very Throne. The one who worships God with equity (inṣāf), will have the heavens and the earth weigh [in his favour]. He was asked, �What is equity (inṣāf) [in worship]?� He replied:It is that none of your bodily members moves unless it be for God. Furthermore, when you ask Him for the next day�s provision (rizq), your equity has left you, for the heart cannot bear two concerns (hammān). Equity between you and other people is when you take from them with the attitude that you are receiving a favour. However, if you demand to be treated justly, that means you are not being equitable. It was related of John the Baptist and Jesus that they went out walking, and John bumped into a woman, upon which Jesus said to him, �O son of my maternal aunt! Today you have committed a grave sin for which I do not think God will forgive you.� He responded, �And what is that?� He said, �You bumped into a woman.� He said, �By God, I did not notice her.� Jesus said �Glory be to God! Your body is with me but where is your heart?� He said, �It is attached to the Throne, and if my heart were to find rest with the angel Gabriel for just a blinking of the eye, I would consider myself as not having known God, Mighty and Majestic is He.�His words:

📘 �And why should I not worship the One who created Me�� He [Sahl] was asked about the best form of worship and replied:It is sincerity (ikhlāṣ), in accordance with His words, And they were only commanded to worship God alone, devoting religion purely to Him (mukhliṣīna lahu al-dīn) [98:5]. No one�s actions become truly sincere, nor his worship whole, as long as he tries to evade four things: hunger (jūʿ), nakedness (ʿury), poverty (faqr) and abasement (dhilla). Indeed, God, Exalted is He, made his servants worship Him through the following three: the intellect (ʿaql), the spirit (rūḥ) and [physical] strength (quwwa). If he is afraid of [losing] two of these, the loss of intellect and theloss of the spirit, then he should take pains to perform well [the acts of worship]. As for [the loss of] physical strength, then there is no taking pains to perform them or learn them well, even if he prays seated. His words, Exalted is He:

📘 If it had been Our will, We could have taken away their sight�He said:This means: �If We so willed We could gouge out the eyes of their hearts by which they perceived disbelief (kufr) and its path, so that they could only perceive Islam and nothing else.� �but how would they have seen? the path of Islam if He did not do that.His words:

📘 �It is just a Reminder and a Qurʾān that makes things clear,He said:It is a reminder (dhikr) and a [source of] contemplation (tafakkur). But God, Glorified and Exalted is He, knows best.His words, Exalted is He: