Purify your intention, your state, and all your actions for Allah alone.
The Counsel of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Jalīl Qāsim (d. 1998)
1. One should weigh all their actions against the Sharī’a. One whose actions are compliant to the sunna will be spared embarrassment and debasement.
2. Stay away from luxury and other trappings of this world. Stay away from those matters that distract from Allah. Keep the world in your hands, not in your heart.
3. Ward off all concern, whisperings, and illusions. Make your concern only Allah.
4. Do not think of matters in the past, and of matters that are to come. Rather, be in thepresent only.
5. Adorn your heart constantly with His remembrance (dhikr). Be vigilant of Allah in your private and public moments, in all your actions and quiet states.
6. Seek Allah’s assistance in all your matters. Occupy your mind with contemplation regarding His creation and acts.
7. Contemplate Allah’s rulings, be content with His provision, never criticize Allah or question His decree.
8. Do away with the base soul and its complications. Seek Allah’s assistance in this struggle.
9. Purify your intention, your state, and all your actions for Allah alone.
10. Know with certainty that He is with you and sees you. Therefore, fill your heart with awareness and sincerity towards Him.
11. Clear His house (i.e. your heart) and purify it. Never associate anyone or anything with Him. Never let Allah find you where He has forbidden you, and do not let Him miss you where He has ordered you.
12. Stay away from excess speech and excess gazing. Keep your heart with Allah, and He will take care of you.
13. The best advice for a disciple at any stage in the Sufi path is that one should not find in the Sharī’a any criticism of their own actions, and that one’s general community, as long as they be upright Muslims, would not have any criticism in their devotional actions as well.
© Copyright by Tarek A. Elgawhary, 2014. All rights reserved.