The Devotion of Life — Page 178
178 You should make the recitation and understanding of the Holy Qur’an obligatory on yourselves because we have to attach our lives to this teaching and practise it. We are not going to be like those scholars who acquire knowledge but for others, and are not able to apply it to themselves; when the time comes, they feign a hundred excuses. Then there is newspaper reading. Daily papers and some other journals should be read. Then there are games. You should take part in them as well. Make it obligatory upon yourselves that you occupy your time usefully with the exception of six or seven hours that you have to sleep, you should sleep that much in this age; if the administration has set up a tighter schedule than this, they will soften it, but you should remain totally occupied outside these six or seven hours. Remember that you have the opportunity to be the first students of this Jami’a. This is not only an honour but also a great responsibility. Students have a disposition of their own and that becomes the disposition of their Institution. Those who come later follow the same pattern. If the initial students are good, the administration does not have to work as hard on the later entrants and because of the good name of the students, the Institution becomes popular. Sometimes there are a good lot of students and the Institution becomes popular because of them, although, the teachers and the professors work just as usual. So you have to make a special effort to become good and then with that intention when you