O people, you are, in this world, the target for the arrows of death. With every drinking there is choking and with every eating there is suffocation. You do not get any benefit in it except by foregoing another (benefit) and no one among you advances in age by a day except by the taking away of a day from his life. Nothing more is added to his eating unless it reduces what was there before. No mark appears for him unless a mark disappears. Nothing new comes into being unless the new becomes old. No new crop comes up unless a crop has been reaped. Those roots are gone whose off-shoots we are. How can an off-shoot live after the departure of its root?
No innovation is introduced unless one sunnah is forsaken. Keep away from innovations and stick to the broad road. Surely the old tested ways are the best and the innovated ones are bad.
(1) Al-Harrani, Tuhaf, 73;
(2) al-Mufid, al-'Irshad, 139 as well as al-'Amali;
(3) al-Tusi, al-'Amali, I, 220;
(4) al-Qali, al-'Amali, II, 67.