Malfuzat - Volume VII — Page 430
Malfuzat - English translation of Urdu Volume 7 430 has placed such simplicity in Islam that if other nations were to come to know about its true essence, they would envy its simplicity. For a true Muslim, it is not necessary that he has a rosary of a thousand beads in his hand, and his clothes are saffron or green or of any other colour, and he should hold his breath or adopt other similar contrivances to reach God. There is absolutely no need for these things because all these things are superfluous and there is nothing superfluous in Islam. Yes, it is true that Islam wants you to make great progress internally and develop distinctions within yourself, but exter- nal distinctions are mere pretensions, their purpose being noth- ing more than showing off to people that we are special and they should incline towards us. The P i rz a das and Ascetics of Hadrat Imam Ghazali’s Time Imam Ghazali, Allah’s mercy be upon him, has written the strangest of strange accounts of the p i rz a das and faq i rs [ascet- ics who live off alms] of his time. He says that it is a pity that conditions have deteriorated so badly because the faq i rs found in this age are not faq i rull a h [beggars of Allah] but are faq i rul- khalq [beggars of people], and this is the very reason why they employ expediency in their every action and pause, raiment, food and drink, and speech. For example, for clothes, they observe that if we wear rough clothes like the ordinary poor people, we will not get the respect that can be expected from the rich. They will think of us as people of lowly means and inferior status. However, if we wear fine clothes, then they will consider us totally materialistic and will not pay us any attention, dismissing us as worldly peo- ple. Therefore, they found it expedient to purchase high quality,