Spending Time in Seclusion

Spending Time in Seclusion
]Many of the pious predecessors would spend long periods of time in seclusion.

When one of them was asked:


“Do you not feel the bite of loneliness?”
He replied:


“How can I, when He has said that He is the companion of those who remember Him?”
[Aboo Nu'aym, 8/217]

Another said:


“How can one feel the bite of loneliness when he is with Allaah?”
Yet another said:


“Whoever feels the bite of loneliness when alone does so because of his lack of solace with his Lord.”
[Ibn Abee Ad-Dunyaa, Al-'Uzlah #49]

Yahyaa Ibn Mu’aadh would frequently seclude and isolate himself. His brother censured him saying:


“If you are a man amongst men, you need the company of men!”
So he replied:


“If you are a man amongst men, you are in need of Allaah!”
It was once asked of him:


“You have migrated from the people, with whom do you live?”
He replied:


“With the One for whose sake I migrated.”
[Extracted from "The Journey Of The Strangers", p. 96]