Of this world, your portion is very small indeed!

Set forth to them the similitude of the life of this world: It is like the rain, which we send down from the skies: the earth’s vegetation absorbs it, but soon it becomes dry stubble, which the winds do scatter: it is (only) the Almighty who prevails over all things (Quran 18: 40)

It does not bother me at all that you woke up today and you are bothered by matters bothering your brethren, male and female. It does not bother me at all that you are there seated or standing running after the necessities of life. It bothers me a trifle that you are buffeted by the vicissitudes of life, by the vagaries and uncertainties of living and by the pursuit of that which would not last.

Yes. It is the will of the Almighty in creation that all subjects born of the womb shall toil and labour in order to enjoy and suffer. The worshipper of the Merciful shall observe vigil at night in order to qualify for His favours. The armed robber shall forsake the pleasure of his bed at night in order to visit pain on the neighbourhood and thereby qualify for punishment and eternal damnation. Yes. Those who shall enter paradise have to work and sweat; those who shall enter hell would have to earn it through toil and labour! I am not bothered by all of these simply because this is the reality.

I am concerned with one other thing, however. I am concerned with the possibility that you are involved in the frenetic pursuit of this world on the assumption that you could indeed have it all. No! You cannot have it all. Nobody has ever had it all. Nobody will ever have it all. Evidence in support of these claims and assertions are there in your wakeful moments, in your everyday life. There she is seated. The pepper grinder in the neighbourhood. Every time her husband copulates with her, pregnancy sets in. Today, she is nursing two beautiful girls. Only a year before, she gave birth to a boy.

Her husband is the Chief Messenger in that office. Yes. The Chief Messenger. To every profession its chief. There is the Chief Whip in the Parliament. There are chiefs in the palace. I wonder whether there are chiefs among thieves and kidnappers. Yes. There are Chief Lecturers. But there are no Chief Professors.