On Curing Hasad

 

وَمِن شَرِّ حَاسِدٍ إِذَا حَسَدَ

[113:5]

سُبْحَانَ رَبِّكَ رَبِّ الْعِزَّةِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ

وَسَلَامٌ عَلَى الْمُرْسَلِينَ

وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

The Deen of Islam has also mentioned very important thing which is haqooq-ul-ibad which is the rights and responsibilities that we have of our fellow human beings.

In fact part of beauty of the deen of Islam is that not only it has been revealed upon us on adab towards Allah swt but it has also been revealed how to behave, the moral, etiquettes and adab one should have towards fellow believers & momineen as well as the adab we should have towards the whole of humanity itself.

On one side we are talking about our love for Allah swt at the same time we have different character attributes different relationships that we might have with other people. One of the major challenge  human beings has is precisely how to interrelate with other human beings. When a person comes to university and you mingle with so many different students or when you live in the dorm and you live with so many different students or the more n more contact and the more n more contact you have with other people then the more n more flash points there are. The more n more opportunities for conflict, controversy, more n more you are exposing yourself to being hurt and more n more you are granting the ability to yourself to hurt other people.

Therefore  it is very important that when we are placed in such a setting in which we have extensive interaction with people, some are friends, some are class mates , some are acquaintances, some are colleagues , some are instructors, some are students, so in this realm extensive interaction is critical.

It is more important to us that people who live in relatively secluded lives, it is very important for us to learn what the deen of Islam says about how we are suppose to interact with other people.

One of the major illnesses of the heart is to have what is called bughuz and hasad.

Defining Bughuz & Hasad

Bughuz means to have spite, malice or hatred towards somebody else or simply speaking to have ill-will, to have harbor negative feelings towards another human being in your heart.

The second word hasad means to be envious or jealous towards another person in your heart. And unfortunately we think or we might like to think that we are free of these attributes but the reality is that majority of us are suffering and are failing at one or multiple levels and have fallen prey to these two sinful attributes. So we need to discuss what these two attributes are and how the deen of Islam teaches us to cure these attributes inside us.

How do we know we have Bughuz/Hatred?

So the first thing is having anger towards someone, to be upset with someone. And the sign of this really i.e. if a person wants to know if he has this is that anybody in our life or anybody in this campus, anybody in the dorm who when we see them we get disturbed at the very least we have a feeling of being disturbed, a feeling of unease , perhaps a feeling of apprehension , perhaps a feeling of anger-but there is some affect i.e. our heart is affected by simply seeing that person or by engaging with this person or by being in the presence of this person. That means some level of bughus, some level of ghil, some level of anger, hatred, and rancor is in our heart.

Now if you think about it that way that means probably for everyone of us there’s at least if not several people like this are there in our lives.

Now if you look at it, what is it about this person that has made us angry towards this person?

Normally the way we excuse ourselves with this is that we say this is justifiable anger. That this person really has wronged me, this person has done something wrong. I am justified in being upset, Disturbed, and perturbed when I see them. In fact I am even justified in harboring those negative feelings. That is the major trap of shaytan or our nafs that puts us in and keeps us on this path of anger.

Justifiable Anger, and its Cure:

Let’s take the case of  “justifiable anger” and we can save ourselves from this, if we can make ourselves understand why this is not acceptable, then it is unnecessary to establish that unjustifiable anger is also unacceptable in the eyes of Allah swt.

– The way we are going to look at it is as follows that look it’s possible that X has done something to hurt you, we acknowledge that, X has done something that DID hurt you, we’ll go one step further that X said something deliberately to hurt you & therefore your feelings are understandable, we can rationalize them we can justify them.

However we want to look at it this we way that the cure for this is that we should look inside ourselves how many things that you and me have done that JUSTIFIABLY should anger Allah swt. How many things that you and me have done that in complete fairness and in all justice, could be in actions or emotions or sayings, due to which Allah swt should be extremely angry with us. So if we wish that Allah swt should forgive and forgo His justifiable anger with us that it demands & necessitates that we also forgo and overlook our justifiable anger towards other people.

Allah swt mentions in the Quran Karim:

وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ

[3:134]

That they are the people who literally swallow their anger; this is the literal meaning in Arabic.

– Means that they suppress their anger even though they do FEEL their anger.

The deen of Islam is not saying that you become emotionally numb, you will not be hurt or you won’t feel anger, no, YOU Will feel that anger and resentment.

 So what does Allah swt wants us to do?

He describes the praiseworthy attribute of the believer that they swallow their anger, they don’t act upon it. That is what it actually means by ‘swallowing’. A lot of us have this problem that we REACT.

Muslims are not reactive people; we cannot be provoked, we cannot be prodded into action that somebody says something we shoot back, somebody does something we just shoot back. That is against the SHA’AAN of a believer.

If we do something for some other educative reason that is different, but purely reactive behavior is not there in the Muslims.

And this is why Allah says that the anger is there, the sign of a believer is that he swallows it, suppresses it, it means that he doesn’t let the water boil over-he puts a lid on the pot how much the water might be boiling, she keeps the lid securely fastened.

Benefit of Swallowing our Anger:

This is for our own benefit. Many times when we act in anger, we act in haste; we make a decision that we will regret later on. Somebody will say something and we allow ourselves to be provoked and we shoot back and say something that we will regret later. We will wish that we could take it back. SO it’s actually for our own benefit, so Allah swt has taught us we should be people who swallow and suppress our anger.

If anything, Muslims are supposed to be proactive:

They are supposed to preemptively launch a word or an action or a dua against evil or injustice.

First Cure for Anger:

So the first way then to control our anger is simply to control and say ok if I am angry with this person for XYZ reason..Just try to imagine how Allah swt feels with me for XYZ reason.

In that sense the person will even totally forget about other people.

This thought process; this mental exercise would be enough to make a person totally lost . They will be so preoccupied with that that they will totally become oblivious to their feeling of anger towards the other person.

Secondly is to think that if that person is worthy and deserving of my anger the how infinitely worthy am I of Your anger, Allah swt you have not reacted, you have not manifested your wrath.

– You have not seized me in Your Power, In Your Qudrat in Your Jalal & Azmat, so Allah swt whatever little ikhtiyar/ power  you have given me I will not seize this other person in whatever power you have given me. It is very important to think, to identify who the people are towards whom we harbor our feelings towards and sit down make this mental exercise and remove that negative feeling.

The second this closely related to this is hasad. Let me tell you about hasad in detail then I will tell you general comment on both of these things.

HASAD & Its Cure:

Hasad means specifically to envy another person.

Signs that one has Hasad:

1-      When a person gets something which means that when Allah swt bestows a person with something we get upset we get angry. In Urdu : hamaray dil mein jalan hotee hai.

We get inflamed, we feel a fury. We feel upset that why did this person get this , this grade, this promotion, this status, why did this person get time, why was this person’s name taken…whenever if somebody gets something and we feel upset & Disturbed about that ..That is a sign of hasad.

2.      If somebody is praised in front of us we get upset, it bothers us. Why did so and so get praised and not me. Why did he praise Y and not me. Why did X did well in the course and not me. All of that is hasad.

The most criminal form of hasad is hasad in the deen.

– One is hasad in the dunya that I am upset this person got money, this house, promotion etc…I am upset that this person got into LUMS, Got a scholarship etc.

– The most devastating and criminal form of hasad is in the deen, why is it that the person is able to follow the deen. Why is that this person is regular in their fajr. Why is it that this person is regular in their zikr.

– When we see people around us like that rather than being happy with them, rather than thinking that at least there are some people ,if I am not able to successfully bring myself to My Lord ,who are struggling, striving perhaps maybe meeting with a greater measure of success than me and in fact I shouldn’t just be happy , I should be hopeful that Ya Allah you have guided this person.

– When I see how much Karam and reham and shafqat, how much generosity and kindness you are bestowing upon this person then I get umeed, I get rija,  I Get hope that perhaps Your gaze also might come my way when I  see this person progressing I realize that Your gaze is being cast that Your hidayah  is being sent , that You are sending Your Mercy, You are guiding people. Whenever I see people becoming guided Allah swt I become more hopeful, perhaps there is hope for me too as well to be guided.

The most dangerous type of hasad is hasad in Deen.

And this type of hasad, it is the sifat of Shaytaan.

‘Shaytaan didn’t have ordinary hasad for Syeddina Adam a.s. He had hasad in specifically, now listen to this carefully, he had hasad in the Mehboobiat of ALLAH swt. 

Shaytaan saw that Syeddina Adam a.s was the mehboob of Allah.

Now that wasn’t necessarily excluding him or any of the angels, Shaytaan is a jinn, it wasn’t excluding him or excluding Jibrael a.s. He couldn’t stand the fact that another being could be the Mehboob of Allah swt.

This is hasad-fid-deen.

This is hasad in a religious, spiritual manner. That might be the  ultimate type of hasad.

So that means we should assess ourselves that do we also have envy due to the mehboobiat of somebody else that they might be becoming the mehboob of Allah or the mehboob of somebody else. That means we have the shayatani type of hasad.

So this type of hasad we should acknowledge we should analyze and we should try to literally extinguish it entirely from our being, from our heart, from our thought process, our emotions and our outlook.

What is the cure for hasad?

 

First Cure:

Well the first cure of hasad is similar, it’s a mental exercise to realize: What we have to do with all of these sins, these internal sins, many times me and you we don’t feel the enormity of our internal sins and so in order for us to do that we have to flush them out. We have to remove the gift wrapping. We use euphemisms for this that No that person hurt me or I am upset or I am disturbed or I am in a bad mood. So these are all sorts if euphemisms for our sins.

So, the first step is to be honest and to try to expose our sins , to become face to face with the naked ugliness of that reality.

And so what should we do how should we look at this that I am not just envious that a person got X , what I am actually saying is that I am upset with Allah swt because Allah swt is the being who does taqseem, Allah swt is the being who apportions out this dunya.

Allah swt is the being who apportions out the deen. So if we are upset that a person is progressing more in the deen than us actually that means, the way we should look at this , it means that we are upset at Allah swt that Allah swt how dare You allow this person to progress in the deen Al-aman Al-hafeez! Allahuakbar! Who are we to have even a drop of such attitude that we can challenge Allah swt wishes, that we can challenge Allah swt’s desires, challenge the way Allah swt brings His servants towards Him.

We should never have this feeling towards somebody. And when we realize this then we will realize the enormity of Hasad. Then we will have nafrat towards our own hasad. That is the problem, that we don’t look down we don’t frown upon our hasad and that is because we don’t view our hasad negatively, we are able to keep it, we are happily living two-faced or dualistic lives. We are not trying to remove the hasad from our hearts.

Look at this that this is simply not hasad towards the person, this is malcontent, this is discontent. We are feeling outraged at Allah swt for giving that person something. And that is something that I don’t believe any rightly thinking, believing person could feel outraged towards Allah swt.

Second Cure:  Imagine that Allah swt is gazing at our heart

The second thing that you should imagine that Allah swt is gazing at our heart at that moment so the second we gaze upon somebody else whether we cast a gaze of anger towards them or we cast  a gaze of envy towards them we should think that I am looking at this person and Allah is looking at my heart at this moment and that should be enough to make that person scared. That itself is enough to make a person humbled.

That how can I let Allah swt gaze upon this fire of hasad in my heart what should I be hoping is that Allah swt endow me with the coolness, softness, calmness of His remembrance and His Love in my heart.

So on the surface I make dua that Allah increase me in my love for You , increase me in my remembrance of You, increase me in these things of calmness, coolness, itmenaan and in reality at this moment Allah swt is catching me as a munafiq, that I am being hypocritical, I am untrue to my duas, I myself am eliminating that calmness, I myself am bringing in the storm of hasad and anger in my heart.

So we should imagine that hasad is naked before Allah. Allah swt sees our true intentions. Allah swt is not fooled by the justifications or the rationalizations we might offer our self.

Third Cure: Make Dua for that person

Another cure for hasad, even for anger or harbor negativity towards someone is to make dua for that person.

– To make dua profusely for that person , to make so much dua for that person that perhaps you haven’t even made that dua for yourself.

– To make dua for that persons deen , for their Akhirah. You make dua that Allah swt grant them Jannat-ul-Firdous, that you make dua that Allah swt make her amongst the ranks of His Auliya & His Ulama. Make dua that Allah swt grant her the qurb and maarfat,zikr and tawakkul and all that things that we might be even lazy in making dua for our own selves.

Benefits of making these duas:

–  when we put something truly in the beginning we must be putting it on our tongue, the reality may not be in our heart, but when we put it on our tongue we are hoping that Allah swt will put the reality in our heart.

– By the way, this is a good way to understand the relationship b/w the zahir and the batin. People don’t realize that. Yes people belittle the zahir. Yes sometimes there are many of us who, we are successful to the extent that it is a superficial appearance, however we have hope from Allah swt that if we adorn ourselves to the zahir of the sunnah, if we adorn ourselves according to the zahir of the shariah, if we observe a dress code that is in accordance to the zahir of the shariah then Allah swt might put the haqeeqat of iman, he might put the batin in our heart.

– Just like that these dua that we put these words in our tongue which are words of compassion which are completely opposite to feelings of anger and feelings of envy that we have it in our heart, so we hope that by changing our zahir Allah swt will be able to change our batin by making dua for this person and this is true for every single thing that we do in the zahir.

Example:

One way to say is that I think that keeping a beard is an act of love for the beloved messenger s.a.w so I will call this a sunnah beard. Another way is to say that do you really think that Allah swt cares about your facial hair so to call something facial hair which is one step away from other types of hair.

So if you use this term ‘facial hair’ as opposed to the sunnah appearance, just our language, just our expression ,90% of that is our motive expression in our language and also in our outlook ;how we perceive something.

If a person has this niyat that I want to have my zahir my outer appearance conform to the sunnah appearance of Prophet s.a.w with the hope that Allah swt might accept from me and by virtue of that he might show he might manifest that acceptance by transforming that inner self according to the inner sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w.

Similarly a women can say that I am not claiming to be the most modest person on the planet,I am not claiming to be a model of virtue as people cynically or sarcastically might suggest I am simply thinking that if my outward conform to what Allah swt wishes, if I can make my outward more and more pleasing to Allah swt , if I can have a seemingly virtuous outward appearance, Allah swt might put true virtue in my heart he might put true virtue in my batin.

So when we make this dua for that person against whom we have hasad , its very pleasing to Allah swt , not only can He can reform our batin in this particular sense but it’s possible he might reform our batin in many other ways as well, and on top of this there is a special barakah in making dua for that person.

The Prophet s.a.w said in a Hadith that Whenever a person makes dua for her fellow muslim then Allah swt appoints an angel and the angel says Ameen to that dua”. So the angel says amen and then the hadith continues that the angel says amen walaka amen . So the angel actually says three things:

1-The angel says amen to our dua.We make dua for this person. This person gets the duas, our alfaaz  and gets the amen of the angels.

2-And then the angel makes dua for us walaka and it means AND FOR YOU. In another words that means exactly the same thing for you prayed for that other person the angel makes that dua for us..

3-And then after making that dua for us the angel says ameen again, they say ameen to their own dua for us.

So think about it if you make dua for somebody else you still comeout ahead. Because the dua that you made for that person the alfaz, the lisaan, the zabaan  of that dua that was yours and the angel said ameen, but then the angel makes dua for you by saying walaka that means the lisaan of the dua itself is the angels plus the angels say ameen. So when we make dua for others with our tongues and essence, that means the angels make the same dua for us with their tongue plus the angels say ameen to their dua with their tongues in our haqq for our sake.

So this is an incredible Mercy of Allah swt, this is actually part of the manifestation of Allahs Mercy what a phenomenally incredibly beautiful way of human interaction Allah swt has revealed in the Quran and what an incredible way of tazkiya of purification, recitification that Allah swt has revealed in this deen of Islam.And really the huqooq-ul-ibad are meant to be understood.

This is a great misconception that huqooqulibad and huqooq-ul-Allah are separate.

That is not true. That is not true at all. The huqooq-ul-ibad are subsumed under the huqooq-ul-Allah.

They are part and parcel of the rights of Allah swt and that also is actually elevates generosity and kindness in Islamic perspective far beyond  generosity and kindness that is done in a secular ethical framework because if a person is kind and charitable or is engaged in some philanthropy or charity for their own personal secular philosophy in that ethical framework then that cannot be even considered as having fulfilled huqooq-ul-ibad. That is huqooq-ul-insaan.

The difference is this person doesn’t view these people as ibaad because that person doesn’t even believe in Allah swt how is he going to view humanity as the servants and slaves of Allah. And in some sense the believers, every human being wears the mantle of slave.

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

 [51:56]

So Allah swt has honoured all of humanity by putting upon them the floral bouquets of servanthood. The momineen are those people who have acknowledged themselves as Allah swt servants and slaves and the kufaar are the deniers and rejectors of those who deny this aspect of servanthood. But they cannot escape it, its partly embedded in their humanity.

So even when a muslim does something for a non muslim that still counts as huqooqulibad because the non-muslim is still amongst the ibad, those servants of Allah who have yet not been to acknowledge their servanthood, who have yet been to submit to their servanthood.

And so doing something for humanity out of the link that they are ibad links that act to Allah swt, because huqooqulibad means huqooq of the Ibad-ul-Allah. So huqooq-ul-ibad are subsumed under the huqooq of Allah.

And there is a second that it is related , its that when we do something we do it in our own way we realize our servanthood.

In other words when we have sabr towards someone we are realizing our identity as abd-us-Suboor. We are realizing our servanthood and slavery to that Being who has ultimate patience.

When we have kindness towards someone or generosity towards someone we are realizing our self, our own identity as AbdulKarim.

When we are kind and merciful and passionate towards someone we are realizing our own identity as abdulRaheem.

When we overlook a persons faults when we hide a person’s fault we are realizing our own identity as abdusSattar.

So when a person fulfills the huqooqulibad for the sake and name of huqooqulAllah, in reality that person themselves  is increasing their uboodiat they are increasing their own ‘abdiat they are a perfecting slavehood and servanthood in the eyes of Allah swt.

Now lest a person may have a misconception why cant I be angry at someone and realize by status as AbdulAkbar right or why cannot we be angry at someone and realize myself as AbdulJalal so to be very clear,that:

Allah swt’s sifaats i.e. attributes are broadly speaking of two kinds:

One is sifaat-e-jamalia  and the second is sifaat-e-Jalalia.

A human being has no share in sifaat-e-Jalalia.

Our acting as Abdul-akbar means we are totally putting ourselves enslaved to that Being who is Akbar , we are saying that there is no kibriyaee ,  there is no greatness, there is no glory except for Allah swt. There is no way that we can somehow think that we tap into that.

It’s the sifaat-e-Jamalia that we are meant to tap into.

Obviously our generosity is absolutely , totally incomparable to Allah swt sifat of generosity whether in degree or in kind.But we will view it that way that this is the way we will manifest our identity as AbdulKarim as by trying to be karim towards other people. But the way we  manifest our identity as Abdul-Aziz or Abdul-Aa’la or Abdul-Akbar is not by being haughty or high-handed or using our power to other people rather these Sifaat-e-Jalilia it means that we are completely  acknowledge the foregoing of those attributes that we don’t have any element of those attributes inside us.

In this  sense , huqooq-ul-ibaad is critical. We also have to understand this as well that we can never fully realize or actualize Islam, we can never be a proper servant or slave of Allah swt until and unless we have opportunities to do amal on every aspect of the deen. S

o if we don’t fulfill huqooqulibaad, we have not perfected our deen until we actually go out there and engage with the servants of Allah and constantly continue to perfect our adaab, our morals, our etiquettes our manners in dealing with that.

Now getting back to more practical things that pertain losing to both hasad and anger. We have to replace this with a more positive emotion and that is we really have to learn to become people who love one another for the sake of Allah swt. We have to overcome our pettiness, we have to overcome our jealousy, we have to overcome perhaps our own inferiorities.

All of this, this side of it is all washed away, that increasing the love that we have for one another for the sake of Allah swt.

That is why this deen has put so much emphasis that Muslims are not meant to have individualized approach to Islam, that we are meant to individually try to understand things in our religion or we use our individual rationality.

In this deen we are meant to relate to one another.

In some sense the greatest sign of Allah swt is to be found in a human being and in that sense that greatest sign is to be found in spirituality or perhaps second sign is human emotion.

The most noble form of that human emotion comes out when we interact with one another in the way that Allah swt wants us to do so.

So the beauty of the love between an ummati and their Nabi, the beauty of the love between a teacher and student

The beauty of the love between spouse according to the teachings of Allah swt and the Beloved Messenger s.a.w,

The beauty of the love between a mother and her child, the beauty of the love between a father and his child.

This is a part of our human beauty that Allah swt wants us to realize and actualize by following these moral ethical teachings of the deen of Islam.

What prevents us from eliminating these illnesses?

And one major thing that keeps us from doing so, that keeps us from eliminating the anger inside us, that keeps on eliminating the hasad inside us, that prevents us from adorning the most noble attributes, passion and mutual love is the illness that we have that WE NO LONGER ARE ABLE TO LISTEN TO NASEEHAH. We don’t like to be advised, we don’t like people telling us what to do.

Infact the very word ‘preaching’ has a negative connotation.”Oh that person is too preachy’’,’’Oh we don’t want to be preached to’’..what does that mean?

It means that we are going against the hadith of Prophet s.a.w.

He said in famour sahih hadith that:

“Ad-Deenun Naseeha –  Deen is contained in Naseehah”

Naseehah is contained in deen, the essence of deen lies in naseehah and naseehah is the essence of deen.

The essence of Islam lies in advice in mutually advising, reminding one another..and the essence of mutually reminding one another is that that should be done for the sake of the deen. We have become people who have lost our tradition of naseehah. We don’t want to place ourselves in naseehah. We ridicule that in terms of that we have given up our mind, we are listening to other people, we are blindly following others. Once we become disconnected not just from our illmi tradition, we become disconnected from our tradition of naseehah. We become disconnected from our tradition of tarbiyah , of tazkiyah. We become disconnected from the tradition of our elders of our mashaikh.

This is why Allah swt said in the Quran Karim.

وَكُونُواْ مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ

[9:119]

O you who believe you should adopt taqwa towards Allah swt  you should know Allah, love Allah, be conscious of Allah, be righteous in your actions, abstains from what He frowns upon. You should place your very being in the being of the sadiqeen.

Why?

So that you might listen to that naseehah, you might internalize that naseehah, you might benefit from that naseehah, that we might submit to that naseehah that is from the Quran and Sunnah so that we might be successful in molding ourselves in a way that is pleasing to Allah swt.

So,  If we regain this level of naseehah and we should also think those of us who have opened ourselves to naseehah that if we have hasad or envy towards one another it is a betrayal towards that naseehah.

It is a betrayal towards everything that is pure in that naseehah especially the hasad that we have in deen, that is something that absolutely we have to eliminate.We can have ‘hasrat’ that Allah swt I am so happy that You have sent Your blessing and Your Grace upon this person, I wish that all for this person to be Decreed , in fact I wish this person to be further increased in the fazal and grace that You have bestowed upon them, But I also wish that I get a share of that fazal.

Allah swt says in the Quran:

وَاللّهُ ذُو فَضْلٍ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِين

[َ3:152]

That Allah swt is the Being of fazal, of Grace , of Beneficience on the believers.

He bestows upon whom He wills and our job on earth is to make ourselves in such a way or to try to make our self in such a way that would attract the gaze of Allah swt, we would attract His fazal, we would earn His Rahmah, that we would make ourselves in such a way that it is part of His Will to  shower His Graces upon us, to guide us further on a path that is closer to Him.

May Allah swt enable All of us to honour the huqooq-ul-ibad, to purify us of our anger of our malice, spite, our hatred towards others, to purify ourselves to rid ourselves of all traces of envy and jealousy, be there for the sake of this world or be they envy/hasad for the deen.

Ameen.

Following is a not a word-word transcript of the talk delivered by Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db on curing Hasad (EnvY)