The truest companion

[Shajaa3ah]

"The book is a companion that does not praise you and does not entice you to evil. It is a friend that does not bore you and it is a neighbour that causes you no harm. It is an acquaintance that desires not to extract from you favours through flattery and it does not deceive you with duplicity and lies.

When you are poring through the pages of a book, your senses are stimulated and your intellect sharpens. Furthermore, your tongue will find eloquence and grandeur. Through reading the biographies of others, you gain an appreciation of common people and you learn the ways of kings. It can even be said that you sometimes learn from the pages of a book in a month, that which you do not learn from the tongues of men in a century. All this benefit, yet no loss in wealth and no need to stand at the door of the teacher who is waiting for his fees, to learn from someone who is lower than you in manners.

The book obeys you by night as it does by day, both when you are travelling and when you are at home. A book is not impaired by sleep nor does it tire in the late hours of the night. It is the teacher who is there for you whenever you are in need of it and it is the teacher, who, if you refuse to give to it, it does not refuse to give to you.

If you abandon it, it does not decrease in obedience. And when all turn against you, showing you enmity, it remains by your side. As long as you are remotely attached to a book, it suffices you from having to keep company with those who are idle. It prevents you from sitting on your doorstep and watching those who pass by. It saves you from mixing with those who are frivolous in their character, who are foul in their speech, who are base in character, and who are woeful in their ignorance.

If the only benefit of a book was that it keeps you from foolish daydreaming and prevents you from frivolity, it would certainly be considered to be a true friend who has given you a great favour.”

~ Al-Jahiz

[caramel]

Bump. Jazak Allah Kheir sister.

[Umm Baraa Al Maliki]

Alima:wow.. you found it! thought u gave up.
congrats. once u set ur mind to accomplish something...
u really go all the way don't ya? im impressed.
I'm going to print it out right now. I don't wanna risk losing it again.
salaam.

[bismillah]

al-Hasan al-Lu’lu’i said: “I spent forty years during which I never stood up or slept but there was a book on my chest.” (Jaami’ Bayaan al-‘Ilm wa Fadlihi, 2/1231)

[bismillah]

Ibn al-Qayyim said: “I know someone who, if he is stricken with a headache or a fever, he still keeps a book by his head. When he comes round, he will read, and when his sickness overwhelms him again he will put the book aside.” (Rawdat al-Muhibbeen, p. 70)

[Shajaa3ah]

It is an acquaintance that desires not to extract from you favours through flattery and it does not deceive you with duplicity and lies.

‘Abd al-Rahmaan ibn Abi Haatim al-Raazi, the author of the great book al-Jarh wa’l-Ta’deel, was famous for staying close to his father and learning a great deal from him. He used to say, “He would be eating, and I would read to him, or walking and I would read to him, or on his way to the washroom and I would read to him, or going home to get something and I would read to him.” (Siyar A’laam al-Nubalaa’, 13/251).