who had settled in Medina. Hanzalah had first approached Abu Bakr with his problem, but Abu Bakr felt that in this case the answer should come from the highest authority. The man's face was full of woe, and when the Prophet questioned him he said: "Hanzalah is a hypocrite, O Messenger of God." The Prophet asked him what he meant, and he answered: "O Messenger of God, we are with thee, and thou tellest us of the Fire and of Paradise until it is as if they were before our very eyes. Then go we out from thy presence, and our minds are engrossed with our wives and our children and our properties, and much do we forget." The Prophet's answer made it clear that the ideal was to seek to perpetuate their consciousness of spiritual realities without altering the tenor of their daily lives: "By Him in whose hand is my soul," he said, "if ye were to remain perpetually as ye are in my presence, or as ye are in your times of remembrance of God, then would the Angels come to take you by the hand as ye lie in your beds or as ye go your ways. But yet, O Hanzalah, now this and now that, now this and now that, now this and now that!"
[footnote 18: M. (Muslim) XLIX, 2]
-pg. 219 of Muhammad: His life based on the earliest sources by Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din)
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