Rafed English

Is Play Forbidden? Who says this?

The subject, here, does not concern the forbidding of a thing or its lawfulness. It may be a thing lawful, but because it exceeds its proper bounds it is disliked and dispraised. As Allah, Glory and Exalted be He, created all things of great significance, it is essential that every thing in our life have a specific time, otherwise, excessiveness, instead, can be invested in the affairs which are important and useful. Therefore, it is said:

"What a difference there is between two kinds of actions. An act whose pleasure passes away, but its distressful consequence remains, and the act whose hardship passes away, but its reward stays." Then, try for one day only to count your wasted time and, surely, you will be surprised at the results.

While we read the bewildering results, let us consider, for example, that there are prisoners who wish to return to their free life to fill up every moment of their life with science and action, and it is nothing but the feeling that their free time passed away in vain.

And let us, also, consider that there are some people who wish that their days were more than 24 hours and, if they could, would borrow time from those who do not care for time.

Such people - the owners of useful time -have times in which they rest, and, at the same time, they renew their activity in order to continue their work, again, with a high spirit and prosperity.

We can make use of this opinion and consider that time takes its longevity or brevity from what we fill it up with of deeds. A quick glance at the life of great men and their success, reveals an important secret of their prosperity. That is the investment of their time in the best way. Rarely will we find among them those who waste their time in vain. The well-known inventor of electricity, 'Edison', is said to have never endured time, but, he used to swallow it up. He used to work, constantly, as if he wanted to achieve in an hour what others achieved in 10 hours. He disliked being absent in solving one such practical question but, it caused him to waste one week in the problem and was eventually futile.

It is known about various great scholars that they used not to sleep at night, except a few hours, for the purpose of making use of additional hours of their days. These people are they who always remember the saying of the poet:

"The beating of man's heart tells him that life is but minutes and moments, therefore, keep these memories for yourself after your death. Surely, memories, for man, are but the lifetime of a moment."

Adapted from: "How to Utilize Our Free Time?" by: "Al-Balagh Foundation"

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