Indeed it is a right that God has over you and it is through...

Indeed it is a right that God has over you and it is through it that you can have any right over God. You should beseech God's help for guarding it and seek its aid for [fulfilling your duty to] God. [^9] Zuhd and Piety: Another spiritual motif conspicuous in the teachings of the Nahj al-balaghah is zuhd, which after taqwa is the most recurring theme of the book.

'Zuhd' means renunciation of the 'world', and very often we encounter denunciation of the 'world', and invitation and exhortation to renounce it. It appears to me that it forms one of the important themes of the Nahj al-balaghah, which needs to be elucidated and explained in the light of various aspects of 'Ali's approach.

We shall begin our discussion with the word 'zuhd' The words 'zuhd' and 'raghbah' (attraction, desire), if mentioned without reference to their objects, are opposite to each other. 'Zuhd' means indifference and avoidance, and 'raghbah ' means attraction, inclination, and desire. Indifference can be of two kinds: involuntary and cultivated.

A person is involuntarily indifferent towards a certain thing when by nature he does not have any desire for it, as in the case of a sick person who shows no desire either for food, or fruits, or anything else. Obviously, this kind of indifference and abstinence has nothing to do with the particular sense implied in 'zuhd '.

Another kind of indifference or abstinence is spiritual or intellectual; that is, things which are natural objects of desire are not considered the goal and objective by a human being in the course of his struggle for perfection and felicity. The ultimate objective and goal may be something above mundane aims and sensual pleasures; either it may be to attain the sensuous pleasures of the Hereafter, or it may not belong to this kind of things.

It may be some high ethical and moral ideal, like honour, dignity, nobility, liberty, or it may belong to the spiritual sphere, like the remembrance of God, the love of God, and the desire to acquire nearness to Him. Accordingly the zahid (i.e. one who practises zuhd) is someone whose interest transcends the sphere of material existence, and whose object of aspiration lies beyond the kind of things we have mentioned above.

The indifference of a zahid originates in the sphere of his ideas, ideals, and hopes, not in his physiological makeup. There are two places where we come across the definition of 'zuhd' in the Nahj al-balaghah. Both of them confirm the above interpretation of zuhd.