After these three sections...

After these three sections, the fourth section of the Prophet’s (S) admonitions will be discussed. Fourth section Man ought not to content himself with discharging the obligatory duties and abstaining from the forbidden actions and imagine that he no longer has [any more] duties. Even though attaining this position is important, but still this is just the first step for attaining his ultimate goal.

It is axiomatic that man cannot manage to abstain from sins and perform the obligatory actions and in short, a person cannot take the next steps without taking the first step, but this [first] step, in comparison with the remaining steps, is a short distance already traversed, and man currently has a very long way to go.

Therefore, man has to be encouraged to undertake effort and activity and awaken in him the motivation not to content himself with discharging the obligatory works and quitting sins and the forbidden actions. The Station of Allah’s Devotees and Nocturnal Worshipers “O Abu Dharr! Allah takes a group of people to paradise and then grants them so much favor that they get tired of it, but when they look at the others residing in higher levels of paradise, they recognize them and say, ‘O Lord!

These are our brothers whom we used to live with in the world, why have you given them preference [over us]?’ “It will be said in response, ‘Far from it! Far from it!

They were hungry when you were full, and they were thirsty as a result of fasting when you were satiated, and they kept vigil at night performing acts of devoted worship while you slept, and they were outside in the way of Allah while you were enjoying ease inside your houses’.” On these sentences the Prophet (S) has portrayed a scene of the hereafter, a scene where man has found his way to paradise as a result of discharging obligatory actions and abstaining from forbidden actions.

There is no room for him to talk about hell and its perceptions, because he has been saved from the danger of the inferno and has become a dweller of the Garden of eternal bliss, but he has been a man of myopic ambition who contented himself with the low levels of heaven and did not have the resolve to undertake higher steps and attain higher levels [of paradise].

Now, they portray to him that even if you attained heaven by means of your discharging obligatory duties and responsibilities but still there are other people who are higher than you and you ought to try to attain their stations.