Malfuzat - Volume VII — Page 431
26 September 1905 431 expensive and fine clothing but dyed it and that became the dis- tinct attire of the faq i rs. Similarly, their movements are also peculiar. For example, when sitting, they sit with their eyes closed but their lips are moving in this state as if they are not in this world, despite their nature being corrupt. The condition of their Prayers is that if they meet important people, they make them exceptionally lengthy, but may skip them altogether when they are alone by themselves. In the same way, the most peculiar situations arise during fasts. For example, to show that they observe optional fasts, they have adopted this strategy that when they visit a rich person and it is time to eat and the food is served, they insist saying you go ahead and eat, I have an excuse. The meaning of this, in other words, is that I am fasting. In this way, they speak as if they are concealing the fact that they are fasting, but—in fact—their purpose is to show that they observe optional fasts. Thus, he has written about many of the foul things per- taining to the faq i rs of his time and has clearly written that pretentiousness is rampant among them. Nearly the same has become the condition in this age as well. Those who are famil- iar with the condition of these p i rs and p i rz a das know very well that they employ all kinds of hypocrisy and pretentiousness. However, the essential point is that whoever fears Almighty Allah and pins his hopes on Him, reforms himself for the sake of Almighty Allah and reforms himself in the way that Almighty Allah desires and directs, whereas the person who fears people and places his hopes in people, reforms himself for the sake of people. Godly people are not worried about what people think. Rather, they consider them to be inferior even to a dead insect. Therefore, they do not get stuck in these trials. 1 And, in reality, what should he do with them! Almighty 1. Al- H akam, vol. 9, no. 37, p. 4, 5, dated 24 October 1905