The second is piety (wara’), and never venture upon a treachery.

The second is piety (wara’), and never venture upon a treachery. The third is to fear God-sublime is His remembrance-as if you see Him. The fourth is to weep a lot out of the fear of God, the Exalted, and a thousand mansions shall be built for you in the Garden for every tear. The fifth is to offer your property and your blood for the sake of your religion. The sixth is to follow my sunnah in respect of my salat, my fasting, and my charity (sadaqah). As to the salat, it consists of fifty rak’ahs.

As to the fasts, they are to be kept on three days in a month: on the first Thursday, on the Wednesday at its middle, and on the last Thursday. As to the charity, that consists of the utmost that you can give, so much so that you say to yourself, ‘I have been immoderate,’ whereas you will not have been immoderate. ““Commit yourself to the nightly prayer (salat al-layl)! Commit yourself to the nightly prayer! Commit yourself to the nightly prayer! Stick to the (supererogatory) noon prayer!

Stick to the noon prayer! Stick to the noon prayer! Accustom yourself to reciting the Qur’an at all times. Make it your practice to raise your hands during prayer and to turn them. Take care to brush your teeth every time that you perform wudu.” Commit yourself to ethical virtues, practice them, and refrain from moral vices, and if you don’t, don’t blame anyone except yourself.”[^1] Khisal is the plural of khaslah, meaning khui (i.e. trait, characteristic, disposition) as mentioned in the Surah.

Accordingly, its usage to denote the generality of dispositions as well as acts, as in this noble tradition and other places, is a figurative one. Or, perhaps, khaslah has a wider meaning than trait, in which case this kind of usage will be a literal one.

As to the word al-wara’ (with fathah on the ra’ ) , which occurs in the narration of the Imam (A) that and ri’ah are verbal nouns of wari’a and yari’u (with kasrah on ra’ in both the cases) meaning God-fearing ( taqwa ) or intensity of God-fearing and piety. Probably it is derived from ورعته توريعاً meaning كففته [I restrained it], for wara’ is, in reality, restraining of the soul and making it refrain from transgressing the limits of the Shari’ah and reason.

Or, it might have been derived from warra’a in the sense of radda (meaning dissuasion). Thus, it is said وَرَّعتُ الإبِلَ عنِ الماءِ i.e. ‘I turned back ( radadtuhu ) the camel from water. That is because, in wara’, one dissuades the soul from what it covets and seeks to indulge in.