"يحتاج المريد إلى شيخ وأستاذ يقتدي به لا محالة ليهديه إلى سواء السبيل، فإن سبيل الدين غامض، وسبل الشيطان كثيرة ظاهرة فمن لم يكن له شيخ يهديه، قاده ال… - Al-Ghazali

If you were to show a piece of intelligible writing to a reasonable person and say to him: 'do you know its writer?' and he said 'no', he would be speaking truly. But if he said 'yes: its writer is a man living and powerful, hearing and seeing, sound of hand and knowledgeable in the practise of writing, and if I know all this from [the sample] how can I not know him?-he too would be speaking truly. Yet the saying of the one who said 'I do not know him' is more correct and true, for in reality he has not known him. Rather he only knows that intelligible writing requires a living writer, knowing, powerful, hearing, and seeing; yet he does not know the writer himself. Similarly, every creature knows only that this ordered and precisely disposed world requires an arranging, living, knowing, and powerful maker.

Some may say that the resources of the world are necessary for men to pass their lives in this world. How can they abstain from using these necessaries of life? It may be noted carefully that whatever has been said about Zuhd (abstinence) pertains to the possession and use of useless and superfluous things of life. The practice of Zuhd has been advised about things which are not indispensable for life in this world. None can advise against using things which are necessary to maintain health so necessary for keeping body and soul together and for devotion and worship in the path of Exalted Allah.

مهما رأيت إنسانا يسيء الظن بالناس طالبا للعيوب فاعلم انه خبيث الباطن وأن ذلك خبثه يترشح منه، وإنما رأى غيره من حيث هو، فإن المؤمن يطلب المعاذير، والمنافق يطلب العيوب، والمؤمن سليم الصدر في حق كافة الخلق.