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God the Exalted says: "O you who believe, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire (Quran 66:6)," that is: discipline them (teach them good manners). And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "Good manners are part of faith." And he also said: "My Lord disciplined me and made my discipline excellent." So know that the adornment and beauty of all religious and worldly affairs depends upon their manners (adab), and every station among the stations of the various classes of people has its own manner. Unbeliever and Muslim, heretic and monotheist, Sunni and innovator all agree that good manners are excellent in one's dealings, and no custom in the world becomes established without the practice of manners. Manners, in respect of humanity, are the preservation of chivalry (muruwwa); in religion, the preservation of the Sunna; and in love, the preservation of reverence (hurmat); and these three are joined to one another, for whoever has no chivalry has no following of the Sunna, and whoever does not keep the Sunna does not observe reverence. And the preservation of manners in one's dealings arises in the heart from the veneration of the Sought One (the Beloved), and the veneration of God and His sacred symbols comes from piety (taqwa). Whoever, through irreverence, tramples underfoot the veneration of the signs of God has no share in the Sufi path (tariqat). Under no circumstances do intoxication (sukr) and being overwhelmed (ghalaba) prevent the seeker from preserving manners, for manners are a habit for them, and habit is joined to nature; and the fall of natures away from an animal is impossible in any state so long as life remains. So as long as their person remains, the following of manners is binding upon them in all states, sometimes with effort (takalluf) and sometimes without effort. When their state is sobriety (sahw), they preserve manners with effort; and when their state is intoxication (sukr), God the Exalted preserves the manners for them; and under no attribute is a saint one who abandons manners: "for affection lies with manners, and good manners are the attribute of the beloved." And whomever God the Exalted grants a miraculous grace (karama), it is a proof that He preserves for him the rulings of the manners of religion — contrary to a group of heretics (may God curse them) who say: "When a servant is overwhelmed in love, the obligation of following the law falls away from him." And this I will explain elsewhere, God willing. Now manners are of three parts: The first is in the affirmation of Unity (tawhid) with God, mighty and glorious, which is that in solitude and in company one guards oneself from irreverence; in solitude one behaves as people behave in the presence of kings. And it is in the sound traditions that one day the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, was sitting with his legs drawn up. Gabriel came and said: "O Muhammad, sit the sitting of servants. You are a servant, so sit as servants sit in the presence of the Lord, the Exalted." And they say that Harith al-Muhasibi for forty years, day and night, did not lean his back against a wall and did not sit except upon his two knees. He was asked: "Why do you afflict yourself?" He said: "I am ashamed to sit in the contemplation of God otherwise than as a servant." And I, who am Ali ibn Uthman al-Jullabi (may God be pleased with me), saw a man in the far reaches of the land of Khurasan, in a village called Kumand; that man was well known, and they called him Adib-i Kumandi. He possessed complete excellence. This man had stood upon his feet for twenty years; he sat down only for the tashahhud of the prayer. He was asked the reason for it. He said: "I do not yet have the rank to sit in the contemplation of God." And Bayazid was asked, may God have mercy on him: "By what did you attain what you attained?" He said: "By good companionship with God, mighty and glorious." They said to him: "By what did you attain what you attained?" He said: "By this, that I kept good companionship with God the Exalted and was with manners, and in solitude I was just as I was in company." And the people of the world should learn the preservation of manners in the contemplation of their Object of worship from Zulaykha: when she was alone with Joseph and sought from Joseph the fulfillment of her desire, she first covered the face of her idol with something. Joseph, peace be upon him, said: "Why do you do this?" She said: "I have covered the face of my god so that it may not see me in irreverence, for that would not be the condition of proper manners." And when Joseph reached Jacob, and God the Exalted graced him with union, He made Zulaykha young again and guided her to Islam and gave her in marriage to Joseph. Joseph approached her, and Zulaykha fled from him. He said: "O Zulaykha, I am your heart's beloved; why do you flee from me? Has love of me perhaps been wiped clean from your heart?" She said: "No, by God; rather love has increased. But I have always preserved the manners of the presence of my Object of worship. On the day I was alone with you, my god was an idol, and it never saw; yet, since it had two eyes without sight, I covered something over it so that the accusation of ill-manners might be removed from me. Now I have an Object of worship who is Seeing without pupil or instrument, and in whatever state I am He sees me; I do not wish to be one who abandons manners." And when the Messenger, may God bless him, was taken on the Ascension (Mi'raj), out of preserving manners he did not gaze at the two worlds; as God the Exalted said: "The sight did not swerve, nor did it transgress (Quran 53:17)," meaning: the sight did not swerve toward the vision of this world, nor did it transgress toward the vision of the hereafter. And the second part is manners toward oneself in one's dealings, which is that in all states one observes chivalry (muruwwa) with one's own soul, so that whatever would be ill-mannered in companionship with people and with God, one does not practice in companionship with oneself. The explanation of this is: that he speaks nothing but truth, and does not allow himself to utter with his tongue the opposite of what he knows, for in that is a lack of chivalry; and second, that he eats little, so that he need go less to the privy; and third, that he does not gaze upon anything of his own that it is not fitting for another to look at — for it is related of the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (may God ennoble his face), that he never saw his own private parts. He was asked about it and said: "I am ashamed before myself to gaze upon a thing at whose like it is forbidden to look." And the third part is manners toward people in companionship; and the most important is the manner of companionship with people, in travel and at home, through good dealing and the preservation of the Sunna. And these three kinds of manners cannot be separated from one another. Now I will, to the extent possible, set this in order, so that its way may become easier for you and for the readers. And with God is help and success, and God suffices us.