Less Than a Gnat's Wing
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Welcome. One day, the Prophet ﷺ was walking with his Companions when they passed a dead young goat, thrown out by its owners. He picked it up by its ear and asked, which of you would like to have this, for a single coin?
They said, we would not want it for anything. Even if it were alive, it would be worthless. So what use is it dead?
He said, by Allah, this world is more worthless to Allah than this is to you.
And he said, if this world were worth even a gnat's wing to Allah, He would not give a disbeliever a single sip of water from it. And, this world compared to the Hereafter is like one of you dipping his finger in the sea. Let him see what it brings back.
With reports like these, the scholar Ibn Abi al-Dunya of Baghdad opens one of his longest books. More than six hundred sayings, stories, and poems, all about one question. What is this world really worth?
It may sound like a gloomy book. It is not. It is a book about freedom. Because the person who sees the world truly is the only one it cannot enslave.
