A selection from the translated Nahjul-Balaghah with commentary by Martyr Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari and edited by Yasin T. Al-Jibouri.
The conflict between the adoption of either the world or the Hereafter as ultimate ends and the enjoyment of the other is the kind that exists between a perfect and an imperfect end. If the imperfect is made the ultimate goal, the perfect is necessarily missed whereas, if the perfect were one’s end and goal, it would not necessarily preclude the imperfect.
The same is true of anything primary in relationship to its secondaries. If something secondary were made as the aim, it would result in deprivation from the primary. But if the primary is made the aim and the goal, the secondary, being a corollary of the primary, is automatically included. This is most eloquently explained in Hikma 269 of Nahjul-Balagha:
There are two types of workers among the people of the world:
(One type is represented by) the man who works in this world for this world, and his involvement in the world makes him forget the Hereafter. He is worried about those whom he shall leave behind (when he dies) lest poverty should strike them, as if he were himself secure of it (i.e. sure of not being poor in the Hereafter). So he spends his life for the (worldly) benefit of others [earning nothing for his own eternal life in the Hereafter].
The other type of man works in the world for the sake of the Hereafter and secures his share of the world effortlessly. Thus, he derives benefit from both and comes to possess both the worlds. As a result, he acquires honor before Allah Who grants him whatever he asks of Him.
Rumi offers an interesting allegory. He compares the Hereafter and the world to a caravan of camels and the trail of dung that it leaves behind. If one’s aim were to own the camels, he would also have the camels’ dung and wool. But if one wants only the dung and the wool, he will never come to acquire the camels and will always be collecting dung and wool of camels which belong to others.
Hanker you after faith for its pursuit yields Beauty, wealth, honor and good fortune. Consider the Hereafter as a camel train; The world is a trail of wool and dung in its rear. If you want only the wool, you will never the camels own; Yet if you own a camel train, isn’t its wool your own ?!
That the relation of the world to the Hereafter is like that of a secondary thing to its primary. Worldliness, being a pursuit of the secondary, leads to deprivation from the benefits of the Hereafter. Other worldliness by itself ensures the benefits of the world. Such a teaching originates in the Holy Quran. Verses 145-148 of surat Imran expressly and verses 18 and 19 of surat al-“Isra’ together with verse 20 of surat al Shura implicitly present this view.
Part of a series: Nahjul-Balaghah with Commentary by Martyr Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari
Source: Shafaqna English