sayd al-khatir Archives - AlJumuah Magazine

Selections from Sayd Al-Khatir by Ibn Al-Jawzi | The Life of the Prophet Is the Highest Ideal

ONE WHO SEEKS to grasp the truth about how to be pleased with Allah and His actions, and to know the source of this pleasure with Allah’s decrees, should look to the life of the Prophet ﷺ. Knowing his Lord For indeed,…

Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | Humum Al-Faqr (The Anguishes of Poverty)

Ibn Al Jawzi's take on what happens to scholars when their financial needs are not taken care of. What's interesting is that he cites how scholars were taken care of by the state "in the past", but this doesn't happen in his…

Why You Should Keep a Few Close Friends

Translation from Ibn al-Jawzi's Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | Friends and Others

Translations from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | On Seeking Praise | Omar Abdl-Haleem

HE WHO SEEKS the praise of others has worshiped them without realizing it. It is almost always true that a person who loves socializing has an empty life. For, one whose heart is busy [with the remembrance] of [Allah], the All-True, flees…

Translations from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | Knowledge Without Action | Omar Abdl-Haleem

The Entrance of Corruption SOME TIME AGO, I took account of myself with wonder—how I would adjudge something to be permissible, and then use that judgment to attain this or that thing of the world. The problem was, the acquisition of that…

Translation from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | Taking the Side of Allah

THE RATIONAL MAN is careful to uphold the positions of Allah even when it angers people. For he who takes the side of another at the price of the rights of the Creator, Allah turns the heart of the one he sought…

Translation from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | From the Stories of Life

The Wages of Youth I STUDIED THE conditions of people who attain glory or wealth. That’s just when the downfall of most comes. Behold the youthful among them: How excessive grows their sinful behavior; how neglectful they are of their chance for…

Translation from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | The Struggle Against Desirous Whim

I HAVE SEEN that the inclination of the ‘self’ toward what it desires tends to grow in intensity, until it leans forward to so great an extent that it pulls with it the heart, the rationality, and the mind of a person,…

Translation from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | The Veil of Life

A THOUGHT OCCURRED to me in a religious gathering—when the sitting became pleasurable, and the hearts were present, and the eyes were flowing, and the heads were bowed, and the souls felt remorse for their negligence, and the resolution to fix their…

Translation from Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Sayd Al-Khatir (Quarry of the Mind) | Judging with Deliberation

THE MOST IDIOTIC of people is the one who acts according to the present situation and neither envisions change nor anticipates possible scenarios. Take, for example, one who is deluded by political power. He acts according to his desires relying on his…