| 1 | O People! There is no other deity but Allah! |
| 2 | The Compassionate, the Beneficent, the Gracious; |
| 3 | All prayers and homage be to Allah and no other! |
| 4 | To control those urges and primal desires, |
| 5 | That make the uneducated and undisciplined no better than animals and monkeys; |
| 6 | That one may stand as a man or a woman and not dishonor Allah, |
| 7 | By mimicking the behaviour of wild beasts; |
| 8 | To refrain from those foods, drinks or actions which we dearly love; |
| 9 | That we do not allow our bellies to balloon, |
| 10 | And our behaviour to become like the moneylenders and traders that eat and act like swine; |
| 11 | That we respect the gifts of food from Allah, |
| 12 | And give thanks for bounteous gifts. |
| 13 | Remember the Divine whenever you retreat from society, |
| 14 | And make prayer your sleep, and hunger your food. |
| 15 | Kill not your hearts with excess of eating and drinking. |
| 16 | The world is sweet in the heart, and green to the eye; |
| 17 | In retreat for prayer, Illumine your hearts with hunger, |
| 18 | And strive to conquer yourself using hunger and thirst. |
| 19 | The nearest to Allah are the abstinent, whoever they are, wherever they are. |
| 20 | A keeper of the fast, who does not abandon lying and detraction. |
| 21 | Allah cares not about his leaving off eating and drinking. |
| 22 | A man while fasting must abstain from all bad expressions, |
| 23 | And must not even resent an injury. |
| 24 | There is no monasticism in Islam. |
| 25 | True faith does not live outside of a community, but within it. |
| 26 | Allah gives men and women the ability to think, to reason and to choose. |
| 27 | Therefore you yourself do not need to be told what is wicked and that which is true. |
| 28 | If a person tells you to kill those who have intercourse before marriage, |
| 29 | If they tell you this is demanded by Allah, |
| 30 | Then the gifts given to you by Allah should be enough to see through such evil. |
| 31 | The greatest sin, above all others is to kill in the name of Allah. |
| 32 | If any saying contradicts this, then it is false. |
| 33 | Modesty and chastity are part of the faith. |
| 34 | It is to men first that chastity and honor applies. |
| 35 | For men have stronger urges. |
| 36 | A man who is not a virgin upon his first marriage, |
| 37 | Is guilty of a far greater sin than any woman. |
| 38 | Chastity is given unto you as a rule, not for pain, but to save you from it. |
| 39 | A person who gives in too easily to urges and desires at a young age, |
| 40 | Quickly loses all self-respect and soon becomes a slave of wicked vices. |
| 41 | Those who demand women are chaste before their first wedding, |
| 42 | Yet turn the other way concerning men are guilty of false judgment in the eyes of Allah. |
| 43 | A married man who defiles the chaste honor of an unmarried virgin girl is such a grave sin, |
| 44 | Allah demands all guilt be placed upon the man and the girl be released from all guilt, without question. |
| 45 | A family that harms a daughter out of some false sense of dishonor at her loss of chastity, |
| 46 | Is guilty of a grave dishonor to the trust placed in them by Allah. |
| 47 | Allah entrusts each family to protect and nurture their own, not inflict evil upon their children. |
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Sufa 48 - The Abstinence (Al-Imtana`a)