The Rarest Thing on Earth
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Welcome. One year after the Prophet ﷺ passed away, Abu Bakr stood up to speak to the people. He began, the Messenger of Allah stood among us in this very place, a year ago. And then he wept.
When he could speak again, he passed on what the Prophet ﷺ had said. Hold to truthfulness, for it goes with righteousness, and both are in Paradise. And ask Allah for wellbeing. For no one has been given, after certainty, anything better than wellbeing.
After certainty. As if certainty were the first gift, and everything else came after it.
More than eleven hundred years ago, the scholar Ibn Abi al-Dunya of Baghdad gathered a small collection about this rare quality. Certainty. Not just believing in Allah, but being so sure of Him, and of His promise, that it changes how you live.
He records a saying passed down from the elders. Nothing has come down to the earth in smaller measure than certainty. And nothing has been shared among people in smaller measure than gentleness.
It is rare. And that is exactly why the righteous never stopped asking Allah for it.
