Windows to our heart – I [Outward]

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يَوْمَ لَا يَنْفَعُ مَالٌ وَلَا بَنُونَ

إِلَّا مَنْ أَتَى اللَّهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ

[26:88-89]

سُبْحَانَ رَبِّكَ رَبِّ الْعِزَّةِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ

وَسَلَامٌ عَلَى الْمُرْسَلِينَ

وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

[37:180-182]

Allah swt says in the Qur’an-ul-Karim,

يَوْمَ

Remember that Day – it basically means: prepare for that Day, be mindful of that Day, live your entire life focussed on that Day, and make every day of this world a preparation for that Day i.e. the Day of Judgment in which nothing will benefit a person – neither their sons; their worldly relations, their money; their wealth; their worldly possessions, save that person who will bring to Allah swt a pure and untainted heart.

And, Allah swt has Put this precious piece of our humanity known as “Qalb” as part of our Rooh – and its called the heart of our Spiritual self; the heart of our Rooh. He has put it in a very precious place.

The first sign  Allah swt Gave us is that:

He Put the Qalb inside the physical heart – All of modern medicine  believes that the Physical heart is the most important part of the body and if the Physical heart is healthy then the person has a greater chance of being healthyand if the physical heart is not healthy then the person has a greater chance of being sick.

Just like that Allah swt has made the Spiritual Heart.

Windows to our Heart

Now the Spiritual heart has relationships with two types of things – the purity of the Qalb i.e. keeping the Spiritual heart pure and munawwar and enlightened with the light of the love of Allah swt is based on the delicate relationship the heart has with two things.

Those two things are:

1. Things on the Zaahir – our outward/external attributes

2. Things in the Baatin – our inner/inward attributes

1. Zaahir: Our Outward external Attributes

Lets begin first with the Zaahir.

We should view them to be every single part of our body and everything we do with that body actually is just a window or an avenue into the heart. You know, its almost like sometimes in fiction novels, they would write about this situation inside a robot and they’d be controlling  the robot – just like that a qalb is inside a person and its our choice whether we let that Qalb, spiritual heart, submit to Allah swt and then control our body or we let the body take over and then it will control whether our qalb is pure or not.

Every time our body does something that is against the wish and pleasure of Allah swt, every time any part of our body does anything that is against the  taught Sunnah of Sayyidina RasoolAllahi صلى الله عليه وسلم, then our Spiritual heart gets hurt, our Qalb gets blackened.

This is why Sayyidina RasoolAllahi صلى الله عليه وسلم said that every time a person sins, a black spot comes on their heart.  What he meant by that was that a stain, a rust, a corrosion, corruption, comes onto that most pure part of their body. We want to keep our outward self so clean, even if we get one drop of grape juice, ghee on a white clothing we want to change it – we always notice it. Just like that a person should have as much sensitivity to this spot that comes on their physical heart.

We should imagine that our qalb is controlling our body, as opposed to letting our body control our qalb. This is why even in English they say, “Listen through the ears of your heart.” or “I’m gazing at you from the depth of my heart.”

Even though they realize that ears of the body are outward and we hear external messages, but they have connection to the heart. Thats why they use these phrases because they realize that the external eyes and ears have a deep rabt and connection with the heart.

1. Things that we hear:

We are constantly listening to other people, in this age of Media, News, Radio, T.V,  Internet, Car Radio, Phones, Having Radio/T.V’s in our Phones, Head phones – even just the headphone itself is showing that we are constantly supposed to be putting something in our ear – be it a person’s iPod, iPad, their [cell]phone.

So, we have to think that Okay, As Muslims we know that whatever we put in our ear, actually we are putting into our heart – thats how we should feel. And so, we should not just refrain from listening to outright lies, fabrications, back biting, slander but we should not listen to anything that would distract our heart from Allah swt. I’m not just talking about Music, T.V., Lying, Back biting, Slander..its Also what Allah swt in the Qur’an-ul-Karim has Called: “Laghw”

Laghw can be translated as: “Vain talk, idle talk, futile talk”

that is what Allah swt in the Quran-ul-Karim is Calling us away from that we shouldn’t listen to something futile and pointless without worth, without value..

Why? Because our heart is so special that we don’t want to put anything without worth, without value into it!

Just compare how we treat our heart to  how we treat our stomach.

Now, would you want to have something to eat that has no taste, no calories, no energy, no benefit whatsoever? we are not going to eat it! We know its not harmful, it has no negativity but its just neutral and has no benefit – but, thats whats called lughw “vain, idle, futile, worthless” . So, we would never put anything like that into our stomach. we wouldn’t bother. We may put harmful things into our stomach because we do that for a good taste, for sweetness – we do it for savories

If I said there is something i have which has absolutely no benefit whatsoever, we won’t put it into our stomach. This is why sometimes our Mashaikh say that we are more catering to our stomach than we are catering to our spiritual heart.

Now, we should look at it this way that, Okay with my ears of course I cannot listen to something that is sinful but i don’t even want to listen to that thing which is without benefit. Next time, when I’m surfing the internet and theres this video that has been advertised or there is a link to some video – Do I really need to Share that? Do I really need to hear it? Is that of benefit to me? We should think what am I putting into my heart – if it doesn’t have any benefit then we shouldn’t put it in!

RasoolAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم used to make dua that O Allah Grant me ‘ilm-un-nafe’ i.e. that Knowledge which benefits..

…to be continued, iA

[Just a few highlights from Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db’s CII Tazkya Talk : 10th March 2011 ]

Tazkya Talk Flyer ->  [To listen to Shaykh’s Tazkya Talk every Thursday 10:10pm [Click here]

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