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Satan will still continue to pursue us, in fact he might possibly say to us, ‘People say that you discontinued your good deed for sincerity and you have no desire for fame, now you are popular for your sincerity so you should leave this place.’ Even if we leave that place and suppose that we start living in a cave or underground, he will make our hearts feel joy by whispering to us, ‘People think that you are an ascetic and they are aware of your isolation and respect you for this reason.’ وَعَلٰي هٰذَا الۡقِيَاس [and so on…]
Thus at every single step of the way he will continue to create problems for us. Therefore we should not discontinue good deeds for fear of showing off and we should not either pay much attention to whispers of Satan.
Example of a person who discontinues good deed for fear of showing off
Ḥujjat-ul-Islam Sayyidunā Imām Muhammad Ghazālī عَـلَـیۡـهِ رَحْـمَـةُ الـلّٰـهِ الۡـوَالِی wrote in Iḥyā-ul-‘Ulūm: A man who refrains from doing a good deed for fear of showing off is like a man whose master gives him some wheat which is mixed with other seeds that look like wheat and he instructs the servant to separate the two so that only wheat remains. Now the servant fears that he may not be able to completely clean and separate the wheat, so consequently he does not do anything at all. Similar to him is a man who completely discontinues a good deed due to fear of insincerity and thinks to himself, ‘If I cannot do it sincerely then what is the point of doing it at all?’
(Iḥyā-ul-‘Ulūm, vol. 3, pp. 395)
صَلُّوۡا عَلَى الۡحَبِيۡب صَلَّى اللّٰهُ تَعَالٰى عَلٰى مُحَمَّد
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