“The Sufi is a servant. Although he or she may be master in terms of teaching others, his or her mastery comes from loving service. Service is a necessary means through which knowledge is expressed and the purpose of human life is fulfilled. Khwaja Yusuf Hamadani (r.a.) (d.1140), one of the foremost Central Asian masters of wisdom, said, ‘service to humanity is not just helpful to correct living. By its means the inner knowledge can be preserved, concentrated, and transmitted’. Sufis typically are not pietists, especially in this day and age. Striving to be ‘in the world but not of the world’, the Sufi attends to professional, domestic, and social duties, and then late at night or early in the morning sits in meditation. He or she is an ordinary person with extraordinary capabilities.”

(From “Turning toward the heart by” by Hazrat Azad Rasool (r) 2002, p53)