Shaykh Abdul Kadir al-Jilani on truthfulness

Bismillah.

O liars, the truthful person never turns back! The truthful person has no back. He is a front with no back, truthfulness with no telling of lies. He is words and action, claim and evidence. He never turns back from his Beloved because of arrows that come to him from Him, but he rather receives them with his breast. Your love of something blinds and deafens you. When someone knows what he is seeking, he would find worthless whatever he has to spend.

The lover who is truthful in his love always plunges into dangers in the quest for his Beloved.

If he faces an inferno, he throws himself right into it. He swoops at what others would not dare even approach. It is his truthfulness that prompts him to do this. It is his love and impatience with being distant from his Beloved that prompt him into this. Afflictions reveal the truthful one and the liar and distinguish between them. How excellent is this piece of poetry of one of the people of Allah:

"It is in times of dissatisfaction

not in times of satisfaction

that the lover

becomes identifiable

from the hater."

- Shaykh Abdul Kadir al-Jilani in Jila al-Khatir/Purification of the Mind

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O son, if you brag how easy your life has been, know that you are not among the lovers. If you complain how difficult life has been, know that you are not patient enough and do not have adab because you are supposed to lament to Your Lord only. But if you do that, it shows you do not understand that by right you should rejoice for being chosen to face tribulations. Afflictions are gifts for a discerning heart. Know that!