The Four Things Upon Which The Eye Should Be Closed

(Excerpted from Futuwat namah by Khwaja Husayn Wa’iz Kashifi Sabzawari An Naqshbandi Translated by M. Nur Abdussalam)

If asked: What are the four things upon which the eye should be closed? Say: 

1.      It should not look upon persons outside the prohibited degrees. To do so is a poison arrow in the heart coming from the hand of Satan.

2.      It should be closed to looking at fine countenances lustfully. But if someone with a pure heart does so, admiring them as wonders of God’s creation, it is not wrong. Verse: 

If you should gaze in purity upon a rosy cheek,
It is not prohibited to gaze upon the rose and the tulip;
But if the eye gazing upon it is not pure,
The kohl around such an eye is naught but dust. 

3.      It must not look upon the faults of others, for no fault is worse for anyone than looking at the faults of others. Verse: 

Look not at the faults of others and your own benevolence,
Lower your gaze to your own collar. 

4.      It must not look in contempt upon a fellow Muslims, nor should it belittle someone, for no one at the threshold of the Eternal is devoid lapses. As the scholar Khwajah Imad al-din (verse): 

Whether you are a king or a caliph
Look not with the eye of contempt upon anyone.