Living The Quran
From Issue: 467 [Read full issue]
Al-Naziat (The Setting Stars)
Chapter 79: Verses 40-41
True Remembrance
"But unto him who shall have stood in fear of his Lord's presence, and held back his inner self from base desires, paradise will truly be the goal."
How numerous the tongues that move with the name of Allah! But how meagre the benefit! An how rare the hearts that become genuinely humble at the mention of Allah! Yet how desperate the need of the world for those rare hearts!
Undoubtedly, the ruin of religion comes about when it digresses into empty words and forms. And the mission of religion will not have been accomplished until the day it creates in all men living conscience, pure mind and hearts that aim in awe at countenancing the divine. That is what true dhikr is!
Accounted among the influences of this kind of dhikr is that it curbs man's appetite for wealth. Thus, those who remember Allah are never obsessed by greed for more and more, and are certainly never demeaned by greedy or covetous constitutions. Rather, they earn their money honourably, and spend it on their legitimate needs without ever thinking to hoard or accumulate it.
Source:
"Remembrance And Prayer" - Muhammad Al-Ghazali, p. 159