(7:38)” Piety, meaning lack of interest in the worldly...
(7:38)” Piety, meaning lack of interest in the worldly affairs in one’s mind and hear and abstinence from pleasure seeking in practice, is the outcome of a kind of enlightenment in one’s soul in a way that man sees the world as transient and subject to decline. As a result of such an insight, man considers his personality as one created for eternal life hence finding himself too dignified to have tendency towards a mortal, material life.
The leader of the pious, Imam ‘Ali (as), in sermon No 32 of Nahjul Balagha, says: وَلبِئسَ المَتْجَرُ أنْ تَرى الدُّنيا لِنَفسِكَ ثمَناً ومِنْ مَالَكَ عِندَ اللهِ عِوَضاً “ How bad is the transaction that you allow, (the enjoyment of) this world to be a price for yourself as an alternative for what there is with Allah for you ” That is to say, man’s human personality and the eternal life of the Hereafter is so sublime that if he loses the two but gains the whole world, it would be a bad transaction.
The pious man finds his prosperity and his ultimate goal in the illuminated world of affinity with God and His pleasure. In this relation, Imam Sajjad (as), in the eighth part of the Whispered Prayed of the Devotees, says: فَقَدِ انْقَطَعَتْ إلَيكَ هِمَّتي وانْصَرَفَتْ نحْوَكَ رَغْبَتي، فَأنتَ لا غَيرُكَ مُرادي ولكَ لا لِسِواكَ سَهَري وسُهادي، ولِقاؤكَ قَرَّةُ عَيني وَوَصْلُكَ مُنى نفسي... ورِضاكَ بُغْيَتي.
“ For my aspiration has been cut off from everything but You and my desire has turned toward You alone, You are my object, none other; to You alone belongs my waking and my sleeplessness. Meeting You is the gladness of my eye, joining You is the wish of my soul. Toward You is my yearning, in love for You my fervent craving.
Your good pleasure is the aim I seek .”[^1]10 Quoting Imam Sajjad (as), Abu-Hamza ath-Thumali, says: ** ** مَولايَ، بِذِكْرِكَ عاشَ قَلبي وبمُناجاتِكَ بَرَّدْتُ ألم الخوفِ عنِّي “ O Master Lord, in Your remembrance my heart takes delight, with prayers I hold communion with You, it freezes the pain of fear that torments me .”[^2]11 A pious man is not one who does not possess anything but one who is not slave of anything.
Therefore, a pious man is a sublime soul released from the humiliating, materialistic captivity and soaring in the infinite space seeking God. Such a man has become familiar with supernatural pleasures. His joy and sorrow depends on that type of pleasure, not on worldly pleasures, which are little provision and exposed to rapid annihilation.