Windows to our Heart – II [Inward]

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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]

Last Thursday, we spoke about the outward avenues into our Qalb – that our Spiritual heart of our Rooh  is affected by every single thing that we do outwardly. That is why Allah swt Says in the Qur’an:

وَذَرُوا ظَاهِرَ الْإِثْمِ وَبَاطِنَهُ

[6:120]

That you should leave all the sins that you do – both the sins that you do outwardly and also the sins that you do inwardly because they will have an effect on our heart, on the rooh, on the iman of our heart and the sense and on the sensibility of our heart to overcome our nafs.

Outward avenues include the things that we say with our tongue, that we do with our hand, that we see with our eyes etc.

Windows to our heart – Batin

Now, we are going to start with the Batin – the inner things that effect our Qalb, Batin attributes include the feelings that we feel or the thoughts that we think inside of our selves – undetectable by anyone; no body else would be able to see it, that our unseen, unknown except to ourself – that Allah swt in other places in the Qur’an-ul-Karim refers to as “Al-Khafi”, “Sirr” – that which we keep hidden; that which we keep secret…thats why Allah swt Says in the Qur’an-ul-Karim:

اللَّهُ بِأَعْلَمَ بِمَا فِي صُدُورِ

[29:10]

that Allah swt Knows what is in the hearts [of men]

Those sins that are

فِي صُدُورِ

in our inner-self, they also have an effect on our qalb

First: Lustful Desire [Shahwah]

When a person allows themselves to feel lustful desires in an impermissible way, in an unlawful way be it about someone from the opposite gender or sometimes, even in the same gender – if somebody will feel any lustful desire, passion for that which Allah swt has Forbidden for them, that has an effect on their heart

Perhaps the single most devastating and crippling effect that comes on our heart is when we allow our heart to experience lustful desire. In fact, our own Mashaikh, Imam-e-Rabbani Mujaddid Alif-e-Sani Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi rahimahullah ta’ala has made that clear about the relation between lust and heart. Thats why that person who has a more pure heart, he will have less impure desires

Now it happens that Shaytan never gives up on a person. If a person’s heart is weak, then Shaytan can easily tempt him into the most crude type of lustful desire. And that is why you will find that those human beings whose hearts are empty of iman – who are kuffar, the unbelievers – they have made a world for themselves in which they fulfill their lustful desires  in ways like animals, even worse than animals. They fulfill their lustful desires with people who they don’t even know, they wouldn’t even know their names! Its a physical love which has no connotation of emotional love, or spiritual love or personal love! Most of the bachelors grow up like this in their popular culture, in terms of their songs or in their movies, about one night stands – how this extremely demented world has started around recently since the 2000’s including hook-ups and temporary friends or something like that

And, basically its a complete antiquation to love – a separate issue, entirely – the most animalistic, beastly form of lust. That is what Shaytan lures people to who don’t have the noor of iman in their heart

The Muslims, however, are going in a different direction. Let me tell you something honestly that: the more and more pure a person’s heart is then Shaytan will not give up on that person, what he does with that person is that  Shaytan presents him  with a more pure love and a person who doesn’t have the noor of iman in their heart, they can be taken away by Shaytan into an even animal type of love – and those who have iman in their heart, have ibadah, ‘ilm, taqwa [generally speaking] – Shaytan will tempt them with a pure love!

What does it mean? he won’t use animal type lust – he will first bring that person into a relationship of emotional love, of spiritual love – and that person will think that everything is fine because they don’t have any physical love. and they will think that since there is no physical love, physical attraction, its fine. But if they keep going further and further and further into the emotional love, they keep going further and further and further into the spiritual love then they will have blocked themselves into an area where Shaytan can actually tempt them – because now he had presented the completely opposite type of love, the other end of the stream – he doesn’t present them the animal-type, beastly love, he doesn’t present to them the raw and unguided type of love, he doesn’t present to them that which is separated from love – infact now when he brings a person to the height of emotional or spiritual love – now Shaytan will present to them “the beautiful type of love” – a love that is borne out of emotional and spiritual love——they keep going further and further and further into the emotional love and that is where the Muslims have fallen; that is where even the best of Muslims fall in this day and age and that is how Shaytan has even won them!

Either way when they end up committing a lustful act or even feels a lustful feeling or thinks a lustful thought – that is impermissible in Islam and it has an effect on their heart directly – you will find actually this is one of the most easiest ways for a person to track inside themselves that whenever they  they find a lustful feeling in their heart, whenever they think a lustful thought that will have affected their heart….

…These feelings of unlawful love cripple our heart in the sense that they make  us lazy in worship; sometimes they can make us even miss worship; it takes away the pleasure that we felt in worship; even more devastating effect than that – the biggest effect it has – is that it takes away love for Allah swt that we feel in our heart – the love is still there; it doesn’t mean that a mo’min will be barred from loving Allah swt – but they stop feeling that love.

Our own Shaykh sometimes explains it this way giving the example of a pot and food. He says it in Urdu like this that:

Handi ke ander saalun khatam nahi huwa hai, magar thanda hogya hai

that In the Pot, the food/ [dish that was being cooked] has not finished – i.e. it doesn’t mean that love for Allah swt has left, it cannot leave like that – this is in itself another topic for another time – this is one of the greatest gifts of Allah swt to this Ummah that whenever we get love for Allah swt, then we cannot loose that love but what can happen is that the love can go cold – just like when you leave food out or you put food in the fridge or leave it in the freezer, it becomes cold.

And so, this is a mission for that Muslim who has this but is otherwise trying to be a person of taqwa what they have to is that they have to turn off the fire of the unlawful love and turn back the fire of the lawful love – and they will again be able to heat up and warm up the flames and passions of love for Allah swt that are inside the heart.

So we showed this whole range and its not just in non-Muslims, but also Muslims who are extremely distant from Allah swt who have abandoned Salah, Prayer, Sunnah even they can be preyed into slavery by their nafs and the west. Even more sinister are the many sources of the media – be it western or eastern, be it hollywood or movies, music, fashion, culture and society, T.V., etc all of that can put feelings of lust into the heart of a Muslim. And, you find a lot of, specially college and university age going Muslims who are caught up in this. All of this has an effect on a person’s heart -[ these feelings are] one of the inner, interior windows to a person’s heart. And, the way a person can protect themselves from feeling such feelings and thinking such thoughts is in [having a] Shaykh – and there is no other solution to stop it —

…to be continued, iA

[This is NOT a transcript. Simply, a few highlights inspired from the CII Talk by Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed on 18th March 2011.. ]

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