doubt at the word of a European philosopher. Yet owing to their belief, the Companions did not waver in the face of the attacks of the entire world of unbelief and of the Christians, Jews, and philosophers? And how can you compare the intense fear of God of the Companions and their complete righteousness, which demonstrated the strength of their belief and proceeded from it, and your dull belief, which due to your extreme weakness does not impel you to perform even the obligatory practices completely, O you who make such a claim? However, the Hadith the meaning of which is: “Those at the end of time who do not see me and believe, are more acceptable,” [^10] refers to particular virtues. It concerns certain special persons. Our discussion, however, is in regard to general virtue and the majority.

[^10]:See, Musnad, v, 248, 257, 264; al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, iii, 41; iv, 89.

##### Second Question

Second Question: They say that the saints and possessors of perfection abandoned the world. It even says in a Hadith: “Love of this world is the source of all error.” [^11] Whereas the Companions were very involved in the world. Let alone abandoning the world, some of them were ahead of the civilized of that time, even. How is it that you say that even the least of such Companions was of greater worth than the greatest saint?

[^11]:See, al-Munāwī, Fayḍ al-Qadīr, iii, 368, No: 3662.

The Answer: It has been proved decisively in the Second and Third Stopping-Places of the Thirty-Second Word that to love the face of the world which looks to the hereafter and that which looks to the divine names is not the cause of loss, but the means to perfection and attainment, and however far one goes in those two faces, the further one goes in worship and knowledge of God. The Companions’ world was within those two faces. They looked on this world as the arable field of the hereafter, and sowed and reaped it. They saw beings as the mirrors of the divine names, and gazed on them yearningly. As for the transience of the world, that is its transitory face, which looks to man’s base desires.

##### Third Question

Third Question: The Sufi paths are the ways of reality. Some of the heroes and leaders of the Naqshbandi Order, which is claimed to be the most famous, the most elevated, and the highway among the Sufi ways, defined its basis as follows. They said: “On the Naqshbandi way four abandonings are necessary: abandoning the world, abandoning the hereafter, abandoning existence, and abandoning abandoning.” That is to say, on the Naqshi way one has to give up four things: both give up this world; and, on account of the soul, not make even the hereafter one’s true aim; forget one’s existence; and in order not to become vain and proud, not think about