Malfuzat - Volume IX — Page 299
6 July 1907 299 Faith should be Given Precedence over Worldly Concerns The Promised Messiah as said: Giving faith precedence over worldly concerns is a very difficult matter indeed. A person can easily make this claim and even acknowledge it, but not everyone can fulfil it. Giving prece- dence to faith over the world can be recognized by seeing how much pain a person’s heart feels when they suffer worldly loss, in comparison to the pain it feels when there is a loss in a matter of faith. Man should make [the state of ] his heart the means for recognizing how disturbed he becomes and how much he cries and screams at his worldly loss and how he is affected at the time of a loss related to faith. Evil is the person who deceives others, but most evil is the person who deceives himself—he does not give precedence to faith, but thinks that he is giving precedence to religion over the world. He has not become obedient to God Almighty in a true manner and imagines that he is a Muslim. It is possible that an individual who commits a wrong against another may run away after committing the wrong and save himself, but where will the one who transgresses against himself run to and how will he save himself from the punishment of this transgression? Blessed is the one who gives precedence to faith and God over all matters, for God also gives him preference.