En­deav­or (ghay­ra) lit­er­al­ly means mak­ing ev­ery ef­fort of con­cern, and be­ing alert in striv­ing, for chas­ti­ty, hon­or, and esteem. It sig­ni­fies be­ing on the alert in re­spect of re­li­gious pro­hibi­tions. God is lim­it­less in His con­cern for the pu­ri­ty of His ser­vants and is in­fi­nite­ly pleased with the care they show and the en­deav­ors they make in pre­serv­ing it. For this rea­son, He has made some things, in­clud­ing in­de­cen­cies and evil acts in par­tic­u­lar, un­law­ful. So His ser­vants, at least, must re­spond to His con­cern by be­ing as care­ful as pos­si­ble not to com­mit such acts. This is en­deav­or (ghay­ra); in this lies a per­son's hon­or.

In or­der to re­mind us of this point, God's Mes­sen­ger, up­on him be peace and bless­ings, said: "Do you won­der at the de­gree of Sa‘d's con­cern? I am more con­cerned than Sa‘d, and God is more con­cerned than me." Con­cern re­quires ful­fill­ing with great zeal what­ev­er God likes and or­ders and be­ing as de­ter­mined as pos­si­ble not to com­mit what­ev­er He dis­likes and for­bids. It al­so re­quires lov­ing from the bot­tom of on­e's heart the Es­sence, At­trib­utes and Names of the Nec­es­sa­ri­ly Ex­is­tent Be­ing, and do­ing on­e's ut­most so that He may be loved al­so by oth­ers, and pre­fer­ring re­la­tion­ship with on­e's Lord to ev­ery­thing in the world and the Here­aft­er. In ex­press­ing these last two points in par­tic­u­lar, the fol­low­ing verse of a saint is high­ly sig­nif­i­cant:

I wish all the peo­ple of the world love Him Whom I love,
And all that we speak about would be the Be­lov­ed.

If the en­deav­or re­quired is the as­sump­tion of a de­ter­mined at­ti­tude not to com­mit evil and there­fore re­lat­ed to God's ab­so­lute dis­like of such acts, then this would mean that one must adopt a man­ner that be­longs to God. He who was the voice of truth, up­on him be peace and bless­ings, said: There is no one more con­cerned than God. It is be­cause of His con­cern that He has pro­hib­it­ed all in­de­cen­cies to be com­mit­ted, wheth­er in pub­lic or se­cret­ly.[1] This draws at­ten­tion to the Di­vine source of con­cern and en­deav­or. By say­ing, God dis­plays con­cern, and a be­liev­er al­so dis­plays con­cern. God's con­cern is for the pro­hib­it­ed acts that His ser­vant may com­mit,[2] he re­minds us of the mu­tu­al­i­ty of con­cern and the ar­dent en­deav­or that is re­quired by it.

The schol­ars of truth have in­ter­pret­ed con­cern and en­deav­or in two ways:

• Rec­og­ni­zing no al­ter­na­tive or ri­val to the Be­lov­ed.
• Fix­ing all of on­e's at­ten­tion on the Be­lov­ed and try­ing to out­do all else in lov­ing Him.

How­e­ver we want to un­der­stand en­deav­or, wheth­er it be re­sist­ing cor­po­re­al de­sires and try­ing to lead our lives on the ho­ri­zon of the heart and the spir­it, or wa­ging war against evil mor­als and es­tab­lish­ing a way of life formed of good mor­als or vir­tues, or feel­ing in our hearts that we be­long to Him ex­clu­sive­ly¾all these are among the prin­ci­pal el­e­ments which will bring us up to the lev­el of true hu­man­i­ty. They are a re­sponse to God Al­might­y's in­fi­nite con­cern for His ser­vants. God's con­cern is that He does not leave His ser­vants for­ev­er vul­ner­a­ble to oth­ers' sense of what is fair, just and right, and He hon­ors them with ex­clu­sive loy­al­ty and ser­van­thood to Him, He does not throw them in­to the hu­mil­i­a­tion of sub­jec­tion to false, im­ag­i­nary de­i­ties. In re­sponse to this, the re­quired con­cern of His ser­vants is, in the words of Maw­lana Ja­mi‘, the crav­ing for One, the in­vok­ing of One, the seek­ing of One, the see­ing and fol­low­ing of One, the know­ing of One, and the men­tion­ing of One.

Some view en­deav­or as the in­i­ti­at­es' mak­ing Him their unique con­cern, their sole hope of con­tent­ment, and ex­clud­ing all else oth­er than Him from the sphere of their ef­forts which must be di­rect­ed to­ward Him alone and ex­clu­sive­ly. It has been re­gard­ed as the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the state in which that some wan­der sigh­ing for the Be­lov­ed from whom they are sep­a­rat­ed, are. The in­i­tial vers­es of the Math­nawi by Ja­lal al-Din al-Ru­mi sound like me­lod­ies of such en­deav­or and long­ing:

Lis­ten to the flute, how it re­counts;
It com­plains of sep­a­ra­tion.
.......................................................

I seek a bos­om split in parts by sep­a­ra­tion,
So that I can ex­plain to it my pain­ful yearn­ing!
Who­ev­er has fall­en far from his or­i­gin,
Longs for the day when he will be re­u­nit­ed with the Be­lov­ed.

Those who have made se­ri­ous en­deav­or with ut­most con­cern have treat­ed the sub­ject of en­deav­or in three de­grees:

The first con­sists of the en­deav­or that is prac­ticed and known by reg­u­lar, pro­found wor­ship of God, by those who em­broid­er their lives with the threads of pi­e­ty and right­eous deeds. In or­der to be­come per­fect­ed, they ex­ert such en­deav­or that even a sin­gle, slight er­ror is enough for them to suf­fer pangs of con­science for a life-time.

The sec­ond de­gree of en­deav­or is prac­ticed by those who have set their hearts on God, the Truth, ex­clu­sive­ly, who go from state to state, who trav­el from love to pleas­ure and there­on in­to deep­er and deep­er yearn­ing. They make ev­ery en­deav­or to please Him and, as stat­ed in the verse, To what­ev­er di­rec­tion you turn, there is the "Fa­ce" of God (2:115), they al­ways turn to Him with all their fac­ul­ties and un­der all cir­cum­stan­ces, and are on the alert against let­ting their eyes slide to an­oth­er be­lov­ed. They al­ways try to find Him in any cor­ner of their hearts for spe­cial meet­ings, as men­tioned in a had­ith, I have a spe­cial time with God.[3] They re­gard it as the great­est dis­re­spect for time to fail to spend even a mo­ment  in know­ing and pleas­ing Him. They trem­ble with the threat, This is be­cause you ex­ult­ed on earth with­out right, and you be­haved in­so­lent­ly! (40:75), and they hear with ea­ger­ness the Di­vine call, Eat and drink at ease as re­ward for your dep­ri­va­tions and sac­ri­fi­ces in past days! (69:24) re­sound­ing all the time at dif­fer­ent pitch­es.

The en­deav­or of those en­dowed with true knowl­edge of God, which is the third de­gree, is al­ways to pur­sue deep­er and deep­er knowl­edge of Him, say­ing, We have not been able to know You as Your knowl­edge re­quires. They glimpse un­be­liev­a­ble beau­ties and some­times keep what they have wit­nessed con­cealed, even from their own eyes, in jeal­ousy. Some­times they be­moan this world as be­ing a place where He can­not be seen and com­plain of their eyes, in that they are un­a­ble to see Him and be­lit­tle their own be­ing as they can­not keep con­cealed their spe­cial re­la­tion­ship with the Be­lov­ed and His spe­cial fa­vors to them. Like a com­pass, they are al­ways sen­si­tive­ly poised and ag­i­tat­ed un­til they reach the day of fi­nal, eter­nal re­un­ion with the Be­lov­ed, a day when they will ac­quire stead­i­ness.

O God, I want (Your) for­give­ness and en­deav­or (to please You)! O God, lead me to what You love and are pleased with!
And may Your bless­ings and peace be on our mas­ter Mu­ham­mad Mus­ta­fa.

[1] Al-Bukhari, "Nikah," 107; Al-Muslim, "Tawba," 32-34.

[2] Al-Muslim, "Tawba," 36.

[3] al-Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa', 2:173.

• 'Ashq (Passion or Intense, Ecstatic Love)
• 'Ibada, 'Ubudiya, and 'Ubuda (Worship, Servanthood, and Deep Devotion)
• Basira and Firasa (Insight and Discernment)
• Dahsha and Hayra (Utmost Astonishment and Amazement)
• Dhikr (Recitation of God's Names)