From the Twenty-Third Discourse—page 499
in Irshad: Wisdom of a Sufi Master, by Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak Al-Jerrahi, trans. Muhtar Holland. An Ashki Book of Amity House, Warwick: 1988.
NO ONE IS EXEMPT FROM THE DUTY TO WORSHIP
If worship should be abandoned with the coming of certainty in ordinary sense, we could not explain the addiction to worship on the part of our venerable Masters, Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī, Hasan and Husayn (on all of whom be the approval of Allāh, Exalted is He), of the other noble Companions, of the rest of the Ten to whom Paradise was promised while they were still alive, of the Companions of the Bench and the Companions of Badr. Consider the three hundred and thirteen revered saints, who never be called to account for their deeds: the Companions of Uhud and those of the Ditch, Uways al-Qaranī, Hasan al-Basrī – the friend of Allāh’s beloved; Habīb al-‘Ajamī, ‘Abd al-Qādir Gaylānī, Ahmad al-Rufā’ī, Ahmad al-Badawī, Ibrāhim al-Dasūqī, Hasan al-Shādhilī, Sa’d al-Dīn al-Jibāwī, Abū Madyan, ‘Abd al-Salām al-Asmar, Muhyī-l Dīn al-‘Arabī, Hajji Bektāsh, Muhammad Bahā’ al-Dīn Naqshī, Shaykh Hajji Sha’bān, Ibrāhhim Gülshenī, Jamāl al-Khalwatī, Sünbül Sinān, Hajji Bayram, ‘Azīz Mahmud Hüdâ’ī and the rest. None of them deviated by so much as a hair’s breadth from the Sacred Law. They served their Lord in all sincerity, in good times and in bad, till the moment they died. They lovingly practiced their litanies and remembrances. They encouraged the lovers, who came to them for training, to worship their Exalted Lord, and advised all seekers to persevere in their worship as long as they lived. The same example was set by the twelve Imams and the fourteen Innocents, who were grandchildren of the venerable Muhammad, on him be peace, and the children of Imam ‘Alī, may Allāh ennoble his countenance.