Time Management
A person may be healthy but not free due to being busy with earning a living, or he could be without need [for earning a living] and not be healthy. If the two factors come together and laziness from acts of obedience overcomes him, he is deceived. The full [picture] is that this world is a farm of the next world. In it is business whose profits will appear in the next life. So whoever uses his free time and health in doing acts of obedience is in an enviable position, fortunate, and blessed, and whoever uses them in acts of disobedience is deceived. Because free time is followed by business, and health by sickness, even if it is only old age.
—Ibn al-Jawzī [d. 597H/1201CE]
(Read on pg 17, Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, A Commentary on Ibn Taymiyyah’s Essay on the Heart. Dalwah Corner Bookstore. Kuala Lampur: 2008.)
Muhammad b. Ismaa’eel (al-Bukhari) had many praiseworthy qualities, but three of them in particular defined his character: he spoke very little; he was not covetous of what other people had; and he did not occupy himself in the affairs of people, but instead, he dedicated all his time to knowledge.
—Muhammad b. Abu Haatim describing Imam al-Bukhari
Siyar A’laam An-Nubalaa (12/448)
(Read on pg 37, Salaahud-Deen ibn ‘Alee ibn ‘Abdul-Maujood, The Biography of Imam Bukhaaree. Darussalam. Riyadh: 2005.)
طَعِمتُ حَلاَوَةَ الأَشيَاءِ طَرًّا
فَلاَ شَيءٌ أَلَذَّ مِنَ السُّكُوتِ
وَ خَيرُ مَجَالِسِ الدُّنيَا جَمِيعًا
مَجَالِسُ الدَّفَاتِرِ فِي البُيُوتِ
Many sweet things have I tasted far and wide,
but silence is the sweetest of these things I’ve tried
And to whichever of the world’s assemblies one devotes
Better still is the sober sitting at home with one’s notes.
—The poet-scholar of Yemen al-Amīr al-Ṣan‘ānī [d. 1182/1768]
Translation by Abu Zayd
Whatever has passed of this life is just like a dream and whatever is left of it is just a hope.
—Abu Hazim Salamah b. Dinar
(Read on pg 69, Abdul-Malik bin Muhammad ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Qasim, Life is a Fading Shadow. Darussalam Publishers. Riyadh:1999.)