Purification of the Heart
Signs, Symptoms and Cures of
the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart
Translation and Commentary of
Imam Mawlud's Maášharat al-Qulub
by Hamza Yusuf
Wantonness
POEM VERSES 30-31
As for [the disease of] wantonness, its definition is excessive
mirth, which, according to the people of knowledge, is having
excessive exuberance.
Treat it with hunger and the remembrance of the Hereafter,
reminding yourself that [God] says He does not love the
excessively joyful— which alone is a deterrent.
Definition and Treatment
The next disease is wantonness (batar), along with excessiveness, an unbridled desire to need and want more. The word batar has several meanings: the inability to bear blessings; bewilderment; dislike of something undeserving of dislike; and reckless extravagance. Imam Mawlud says that according to the people of knowledge, it is defined as excessive mirth and exuberance. He then says that its cure is intentionally engaging in hunger and reflecting on death.
The Quran says, Obey God and His Messenger, and dispute not among yourselves lest you falter and your strength departs from you. And be patient, for God is with the patient. And do not be like those who leave their homes batara [filled with excessive pride about their state], showing off before people and preventing others from the way of God. And God encompasses what they do (QURAN, 8:46-47);
How many cities have We destroyed that exulted in their livelihood? Here are their homes now uninhabited after them except for a few (QURAN, 28:58).
The world of the classical civilizations is full of ruins of once grand structures and communities that used to be teeming with life, inhabited by people who exulted in their wealth and accomplishments. Visit these ruins and notice the utter silence of these towns. Each soul that lived there is now in another state, waiting God's final judgment.
Wantonness is a disease to which the world's affluent societies are particularly vulnerable. In societies that are extremely pleased with their standard of living, their extravagance and hubris are obvious. One sign of these conditions is the ease with which people enter into debt and live contentedly with it. People are consciously living beyond their means in order to maintain the appearance of affluence. This is a product of wantonness, willingly falling headlong into debt in order to achieve a certain material standard of living.
The Imam posits that the treatment of wantonness is to willfully experience hunger and to reflect seriously on death and the Hereafter. Hunger can be achieved through voluntary fasting (sawm) or by simply reducing what one eats. One aspect of traditional medicine related to a spiritual cosmology—whether this tradition was Greek, Chinese, or Arab—is the belief that too much food harms the spiritual heart and, in fact, could kill it. It was commonly held that people who eat in abundance become hard-hearted. Those who consume an abundance of rich foods literally do become hardhearted with arterial sclerosis, the hardening of the arteries. (Sclerotic means hard, rigid, or stiff.) Likewise, the spiritual heart may experience what occurs to the physical heart.
Scholars of religion often expounded on hunger as an important sensation that feeds spiritual growth. Feeling emptiness in the stomach, they say, is excellent for the body but also the soul. According to Imam Malik, fasting three days out of the month is the best way to maintain a regular engagement with hunger. There is also a fasting regimen known as the Fast of David (Dawud ), which consists of fasting every other day, with the exception of religious holidays. Fasting Mondays and Thursdays is also excellent. Whichever pattern of fasting one chooses, it is important to maintain it, for fasting is an excellent form of worship that is beloved by God and praised by the Prophet pbuh. It also is a protective shield against wantonness.
The second aspect to the remedy is to remember death and the Hereafter. What is meant by remember here is not the common function of memory, in which one merely calls up a fact without reflection. (In fact, no remedy mentioned in this book involves a flaccid process. Each requires exertion and a true desire to achieve success in its fullest sense.) Freeing the heart of diseases like wantonness requires the remembrance of the Hereafter and its various states and tumultuous scenes. For example, one should reflect on the state of the grave, which will be either a parcel of Paradise or a pit of Hell. Once a person dies, his journey in the Hereafter begins. Meditation on the Hereafter requires learning more about its various stations and passages, including the Traverse (sirat), over which people must cross and behold below the awesome inferno of Hellfire. Consistent reflection of this nature lessens the value of extravagance and, in general, all the fleeting things this world has to offer, whether it is wealth, prestige, fame, or the like.
The Imam cites the verse, God does not love those who exult (QURAN, 28:76), whether it is in their wealth, status, or anything else. Images of wantonness are ubiquitous in our times. Even as one drives, he or she is accosted by billboard advertisements that show the faces of wantonness, people in ecstatic postures and exaggerated smiles and gaping mouths—showing off their supreme happiness because they own a kind of car or smoke a certain brand of cigarettes or guzzle a special brand of beer—alcohol that destroys lives and minds. It is part of advertising theory that when people are constantly exposed to such images, they not only incline toward the product but desire the culture associated with it. Advertisers sell a lifestyle that glorifies wantonness and subtly dissuades reflection. All those smiling people on these billboards and all those who aim their glances toward them will someday die and stand before their Maker. This is the ultimate destiny of all human beings. This realization is the slayer of wantonness.
Source: Purification of Heart
to be continued ....
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