Know, O dear readers, that every man is not fit for friendship.
The prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said: ‘A man is upon the religion of his friend. So let him look with whom he befriends.’
Making friendship has a look to one’s character, conduct and qualities. Making condition to get benefit of the qualities of your friend and search to get temporal and spiritual benefits. Wealth, name and bargain are the temporal benefits. This is not our subject. The benefits of religion are following
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To get education and learn action,
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To get benefit of saving oneself from name and fame which cause anxiety of mind,
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To gain wealth to maintain oneself,
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To seek help in necessary actions, in dangers and difficulties and in many other actions of life,
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To get blessings of the invocations of a friend,
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To hope for getting intercession of a friend in the next world.
A certain sage of yore said: Increase the number of friends, as every believer has got the right of intercession and you may hope to fall in the intercession of your friend.
God says: Those who have faith and do good works will seek intercession and He will increase His Favours on them. To explain this verse, there is a Hadith that believers will make intercession for their friends and God will admit them in Paradise along with them. It has also been said in explaining it that when a man is forgiven, he will get right of intercession for his friends.
[From Ihya ulum-id-Din; written by Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali]
Gemt i: Livet i Islam, Reflektion
