As for derision, tend to it with the same treatment used for
arrogance, and with the knowledge that one's purpose in
[derision] is to humiliate someone.
Yet by doing that, a person actually humiliates himself with
God and is recompensed with misfortune.
Also treat it by knowing the severe warning that has come in
Sahib Muslim about showing contempt for any Muslim.
Definition and Treatment
The next disease is derision, ridiculing people, making jest at
their expense. Musa pbuh told his people that
God had commanded them to sacrifice a cow. They replied, "Are you mocking
us?" Musa pbuh then told them, "I seek refuge in God from being
ignorant" (QURAN, 2:67). Mocking people is therefore a form of ignorance,
whether it is lampooning, caricaturing, or name calling. Humor and levity are
important in human life. But levity as a way of life harms the spiritual heart.
And laughter and amusement at the expense of the dignity of others is wholly inappropriate,
although it is the staple of the comedians of our day.
Imam Mawlud says that the cure for the psychology and practice
of mockery is similar to that of arrogance, since a person who mocks another
most likely sees himself as superior to his victim. Ali ibn Abi Talib said,
"Do not belittle anyone, for he may be a saint of God." Even if one
sees a man inebriated and bellicose, vomiting in the street, one should not
ridicule him, for one does not know what his future holds. Imam al-Qurtubi once
said, "When he was bowing down to idols in Makkah, Umar ibn al-Khattab was
still beloved to God." Only God knows the seal of people and their
destinies. Moroccan proverb says, "Never mock any creature of God, for it
might be beloved to He who created it."
In the Quran, it is said, O you
who believe, do not let people mock another people; for it may be that these
are better than them; nor should women mock other women, for it may be that
these are better than them. And do not taunt one another nor insult each other
with nicknames (QURAN, 49:11). God also commanded, Do not revile those who call
upon others apart from God, for they may then revile God out of ignorance
(QURAN, 6:108). This Quranic ethic guards against inciting people to do things
that are sacrilegious and harmful to their own souls, for if people start to
curse God the Exalted, they invite the worse kind of harm. Even in the context
of triumph, being boastful and exulting is ignoble. The Prophet pbuh in his victories was never boastful. He was
completely magnanimous and grateful to God the Exalted. When he entered Makkah
in the final conquest of his beloved city—whose people tortured, mocked, and
reviled him—he entered with his head bowed and granted clemency to its inhabitants.
He was entirely beautiful in character and compassion.
Supplicating God against one's enemies is not forbidden; in
fact, it is recommended that people ask for victory when under attack, siege,
aggression, or occupation. Regarding the situation in occupied Palestine, its
people are under great stress and awful occupation. It is their right to ask
God to relieve them of the tyranny that takes away their sons and daughters.
But there is a problem in creating enmity with world Jewry and falling into the
habit of cursing them outright and calling them names. In fact, many Jewish
thinkers have condemned the occupation and are among the most vociferous
critics of Israeli injustice.
The opponents of the Prophet pbuh were particularly vicious against
Muslims. Hind bit into the liver of Hamza when he was martyred at the Battle of
Badr. But she later became Muslim, a Companion of the Prophet pbuh —a member of that special
generation of humanity. She, in fact, narrated hadith that can be found in the
well-known compilations. Repentance is a recourse that the Lord of the Worlds
has given humanity. Reflecting on the ethic that the Quran communicates to us
in the aforementioned passages reveals that there is strength in dealing nobly
with people. It is simply a better way to live. The treatment for derision is
to realize that the essence of mockery is to humiliate people. Those who mock
people in this life shall be mocked in the Hereafter, for it is a divine law
that God recompenses people with the like of what they have done.
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Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
E-Book Acknowledgements
Translator’s Introduction
Translation & Commentary
·Introduction to
Purification
·Miserliness
·Wantonness
·Hatred
·Iniquity
·Love of the World
·Envy
·Blameworthy Modesty
·Fantasizing
·Fear of Poverty
·Ostentation
·Relying on Other than God
·Displeasure with Divine
Decree
·Seeking Reputation
·False Hope
·Negative Thoughts
·Vanity
·Fraud
·Anger
·Heedlessness
·Rancor
·Boasting & Arrogance
·Displeasure with Blame
·Antipathy Toward Death
·Obliviousness to
Blessings
·Derision
·Comprehensive Treatment
for the Heart
·Beneficial Actions for
Purifying the Heart
·The Root of All Diseases
of the Heart
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On the Day of Judgment no one is safe
save the one who returns
to God with a pure heart. (QURAN26:88-89)
Surely in the breasts of humanity is a lump of flesh, if sound
then the whole body is sound, and if corrupt then the whole body is corrupt. Is
it not the heart? (Prophet Muhammad)
Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God. (Jesus)
"Whoever has not thanked people, has not thanked God,"
said the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. This work is the result of the collaboration of
many people. I am honored to have studied the meanings of this poem with my
friend and pure-hearted teacher Abdallah ould Ahmadna. I also thank the eminent
scholar and spiritual master, Shaykh Muhammad Hasan ould al-Khadim, for giving
me license to teach and translate the poem and whose outstanding commentary on
it was my constant companion during the classes and remains so today. Thank
you, Feraidoon Mojadedi, for your continued love and support and for having the
zeal to organize the classes and the small, blessed school that would become
Zaytuna. More gratitude than can be expressed goes to Doctor Hisham al-Alusi,
who humbly sat on the floor against the window to attend the original classes
that would become this text. He saw from the start the importance of this work
and, through his extraordinary efforts, helped realize more than I had hoped to
with the Zaytuna Institute. I also thank my sister Nabila, who has worked
tirelessly through her Alhambra Productions to spread this message. I'm
grateful to Hisham Mahmoud for his careful editing of the translation of the poem,
and to my friend and artist Abdul lateef Whiteman for his beautiful design of
the cover. Special thanks and appreciation to Ibrahim Abu sharif, whose editing
makes the book as much his as it is mine. Great thanks also to Osama Osman, who
saw the importance of a book on this topic and took the work to its completion.
Finally, my immense gratitude goes to the mother of my children, Liliana, whose
pure heart is fortunate enough not to need the contents of this book.
E-Book
Acknowledgements
This ebook was created manually after hundreds of hours of
digitizing and proof reading. It is important to be mindful of the flaws and be
cautious of any words or phrases that seem off. Some special characters are
missing, which may alter the pronunciation of certain Arabic words. Characters
such as Ḽ, a, u, and ᚠdid not properly translate into this PDF, although we are
working on fixing these minor details in future revisions inshaAllah. As a result
the transliteration key is not entirely helpful for some words that use these
special characters. Secondly, the book contains an appendix, a Quranic index,
and a subject index, all of which are not included in this PDF unfortunately.
If you find any errors, please email admin@mylifeisislam.com and we will do our best to correct them immediately.
Translator’s
Introduction
Almost universally, religious traditions have stressed the
importance of the condition of the heart. In the Muslim scripture, the Day of
Judgment is described as a day in which neither wealth nor children shall be of
any benefit [to anyone], except one who comes to God with a sound heart (QURAN,
26:88-89). The sound heart is understood to be free of character defects and
spiritual blemishes. This “heart” is actually the spiritual heart and not the
physical organ per se, although in Islamic tradition the spiritual heart is
centered in the physical. One of the extraordinary aspects of the modern era is
that we are discovering aspects about the heart unknown in previous times,
although there were remarkable insights in ancient traditions. For instance,
according to traditional Chinese medicine, the heart houses what is known as
shen, which is spirit. The Chinese characters for thinking, thought, love, the
intention to listen, and virtue, all contain the ideogram for the heart.
In nearly every culture in the world, people use metaphors that
directly or indirectly allude to the heart. We call certain types of people
“hard-hearted,” usually because they show no mercy and kindness. Likewise,
people are said to have “cold hearts” and others yet who are “warm-hearted.” We
speak of people as wearing their “hearts on their sleeves” because they do not
(or cannot) conceal their emotions from others. When someone’s words or actions
penetrate our souls and affect us profoundly, we say that this person “touched
my heart” or “touched the core of my being.” The Arabic equivalent for the
English word core (which originally in Latin meant heart) is known as lubb, which
also refers to the heart, as well as the intellect and the essence of
something.
The most ancient Indo-European word for heart means “that which
leaps,” which is consonant with the idea of the beating heart that leaps in the
breast of man. People speak of their hears as “leaping for joy.” People also
say that their heart “skipped a beat” when they come upon something startling
that elicited from them a very strong emotional response. When people fall in
love, they speak of “stealing one’s heart.” There are many other metaphors involving
the human heart, owing to its centrality in life. These phrases – however
casually we may utter them today – have roots in ancient concepts.
The ancients were aware of spiritual diseases of the heart. And
this understanding is certainly at the essence of Islamic teachings. The Quran
defines three types of people: al-mu’minun (believers), al-kafirun (scoffers or
atheists), and al-munafiqun (hypocrites). The believers are described as people
whose hearts are alive and full of light, while the scoffers are in darkness:
Is one who was dead and then We revived [with faith] and made for him a light
by which to walk among the people like one who is in darkness from which he
cannot exit? (QURAN, 6:122).
According to commentators of the Quran, the one
who was dead refers to having a dead heart, which God revived with the light of
guidance that one may walk straight and honorably among human beings. Also, the
prophet Muhammad pbuh said, “The difference between the one who
remembers God and one who does not is like the difference between the living
and the dead.” In essence, the believer is someone whose heart is alive, while
the disbeliever is someone whose heart is spiritually dead. The hypocrite,
however, is somebody whose heart is diseased. The Quran speaks of certain
people with diseased hearts (self-inflicted, we understand) and, as a result, they
were increased in their disease (QURAN, 2:10).
The heart is centered slightly to the left of our bodies. Two
sacred languages of Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left, toward
the heart, which, as some have noted, mirrors the purpose of writing, namely to
affect the heart. One should also consider the ritual of circumambulation or
circling around the Ancient House (or Ka’ba) in Makkah during the Pilgrimage.
It is performed in a counterclockwise fashion, with the left side of the
worshipper facing the House – with the heart inclined towards it to remind us
of God and His presence in the life of humanity.
The physical heart, which houses the spiritual heart, beats
about 100,000 times a day, pumping two gallons of blood per minute and over 100
gallons per hour. If one were to attempt to carry 100 gallons of water (whose density
is lighter than blood) from one place to another, it would be an exhausting
task. Yet the human heart does this every hour of every day for an entire
lifetime without respite. The vascular system transporting life-giving blood is
over 60,000 miles long – more than two times the circumference of the earth. So
when we conceive of our blood being pumped throughout our bodies, know that
this means that it travels through 60,000 miles of a closed vascular system
that connects all the parts of the body – all the vital organs and living
tissues – to this incredible heart.
We now know that the heart starts beating before the brain is
fully fashioned, that is, without the benefit of a fully formed central nervous
system. The dominant theory states that the central nervous system is what
controls the entire human being, with the brain at its center. Yet we also know
that the nervous system does not initiate the beat of the heart, but that it is
actually self-initiated, or, as we would say, initiated by God. We also know
that the heart, should all of its connections to the brain be severed (as they
are during a heart transplant), continues to beat.
Many in the West have long proffered that the brain is the
center of consciousness. But in traditional Islamic thought – as in other
traditions – the heart is viewed as the center of our being. The Quran, for
example, speaks of wayward people who have hearts with which they do not
understand (7:179). Also the Quran mentions people who mocked the prophet pbuh and were entirely insincere in listening to
his message, so God placed over their hearts a covering that they may not
understand it and in their ears [He placed] acute deafness (6:25). Their inability
to understand is a deviation from the spiritual function of a sound heart, just
as their ears have been afflicted with a spiritual deafness. So we understand
from this that the center of the intellect, the center of human consciousness
and conscience, is actually the heart and not the brain. Only recently have we
discovered that there are over 40,000 neurons in the heart. In other words,
there are cells in the heart that are communicating with the brain. While the
brain sends messages to the heart, the heart also sends messages to the brain.
Two physiologists in the 1970s, John and Beatrice Lacey,
conducted a study and found that the brain sent messages to the heart, but that
the heart did not automatically obey the messages. Sometimes the heart sped up,
while at other times it slowed down, indicating that the heart itself has its
own type of intelligence. The brain receives signals from the heart though the
brain’s amygdala, thalamus, and cortex. The amygdala relates to emotions, while
the cortex or the neocortex relates to learning and reasoning. Although this
interaction is something that is not fully understood from a physiological
point of view, we do know that the heart is an extremely sophisticated organ
with secrets still veiled from us.
The Prophet of Islam pbuh
spoke of the heart as a repository of knowledge and a vessel sensitive
to the deeds of the body. He said, for example, that wrongdoing irritates the
heart. So the heart actually perceives wrong action. In fact, when people do
terrible things, the core of their humanity is injured. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
expresses brilliantly in Crime and Punishment that the crime itself is the
punishment because human beings ultimately have to live with the painful
consequences of their deeds. When someone commits a crime, he does so first
against his own heart, which then affects the whole human being. The person
enters a state of spiritual agitation and often tries to suppress it. The root
meaning of the word kufr (disbelief) is to cover something up. As it relates to
this discussion, the problems we see in our society come down to covering up or
suppressing the symptoms of its troubles. The agents used to do this include
alcohol, drugs, sexual experimentation and deviance, power grabs, wealth,
arrogance, pursuit of fame, and the like. These enable people to submerge
themselves into a state of heedlessness concerning their essential nature.
People work very hard to cut themselves off from their hearts and the natural
feelings found there. The pressures to do this are very strong in our modern
culture.
One of the major drawbacks of being severed from the heart is
that the more one is severed, the sicker the heart becomes, for the heart needs
nourishment. Heedlessness starves the heart, robs it of its spiritual manna.
One enters into a state of unawareness – a debilitating lack of awareness of
God and an acute neglect of humanity’s ultimate destination: the infinite world
of the Hereafter. When one peers into the limitless world through remembrance
of God and increases in beneficial knowledge, one’s concerns become more
focused on the infinite world, not the finite one that is disappearing and
ephemeral. When people are completely immersed in the material world, believing
that this world is all that matters and all that exists and that they are not
accountable for their actions, they effect a spiritual death of their hearts.
Before the heart dies, however, it shows symptoms of affliction. These
afflictions are the spiritual diseases of the heart (the center of our being) –
the topic of this book.
In Islamic tradition, these diseases fall under two categories.
The first is known as shubuhat or obfuscations, diseases that relate to
impaired understanding. For instance, if somebody is fearful that God will not provide
for him or her, this is considered a disease of the heart because a sound heart
has knowledge and trust, not doubt and anxiety. Shubuhat alludes to aspects
closely connected to the heart: the soul, the ego, Satan’s whisperings and
instigations, caprice, and the ardent love of this ephemeral world. The heart
is an organ designed to be in a state of calm, which is achieved with the
remembrance of God: Most surely, in the remembrance of God do hearts find calm
(QURAN, 13:28).This calm is what the heart seeks out and gravitates to.
It yearns always to remember God the Exalted. But when God is not remembered,
when human beings forget God, then the heart falls into a state of agitation
and turmoil. In this state it becomes vulnerable to diseases because it is
undernourished and cut off, Cells require oxygen, so we breathe, If we stop
breathing, we die, The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart
is none other than the remembrance of God. Without it, the spiritual heart
dies. The very purpose of revelation and of scripture is to remind us that our
hearts need to be nourished.
We enter the world in a state the Quran calls fiášra, our original
state and inherent nature that is disposed to accept faith and prefer morality.
But we soon learn anxiety mainly from our parents and then our societies. The
heart is created vulnerable to anxiety and agitation (QURAN, 70:19).Those
who are protected from this state are people of prayer, people who establish
prayer and guard its performance with a humble and open heart connected with
God, the Lord of all creation. The highest ranks among people are those who do
not allow anything to divert them from the remembrance of God. They are the
ones who remember God as they are standing, sitting, and reclining on their sides
(QURAN, 3:191).
The second category of disease concerns the base desires of the
self and is called shahawat. This relates to our desires exceeding their
natural state, as when people live merely to satisfy these urges and are led by
them. Islam provides the method by which our hearts can become sound and safe
again. This method has been the subject of brilliant and insightful scholarship
for centuries in the Islamic tradition. One can say that Islam in essence is a program
to restore purity and calm to the heart through the remembrance of God.
This present text is based on the poem known as Maášharat al-Qulub
(literally, Purification of the Hearts), which offers the means by which
purification can be achieved. It is a treatise on the “alchemy of the hearts,”
namely, a manual on how to transform the heart. It was written by a great
scholar and saint, Shaykh Muhammad Mawlud alYa’qubi al-Musawi al-Muratani, As
his name indicates, he was from Mauritania in West Africa. He was a master of
all the Islamic sciences, including the inward sciences of the heart. He stated
that he wrote this poem because he observed the prevalence of diseased hearts.
He saw students of religion spending their time learning abstract sciences that
people were not really in need of, to the neglect of those sciences that
pertain to what people are accountable for in the next life, namely, the
spiritual condition of the heart. In one of his most cited statements, the
Prophet pbuh said, “Actions are based upon
intentions.” All deeds are thus valued according to the intentions behind them,
and intentions emanate from the heart. So every action a person intends or
performs is rooted in the heart.
Imam Mawlud realized that the weakness of society was a matter of
weakness of character in the heart, Imam Mawlud based his text on many previous
illustrious works, especially Imam al-Ghazali’s great Ihya’ Ulum alDin (The Revivification
of the Sciences of the Religion). Each of the 40 books of Ihya‘ Ulum al-Din is basically
about rectifying the human heart.
If we examine the trials and tribulations, wars and other
conflicts, every act of injustice all over earth, we’ll find they are rooted in
human hearts. Covetousness, the desire to aggress and exploit, the longing to
pilfer natural resources, the inordinate love of wealth and position, and other
maladies are manifestations of diseases found nowhere but in the heart. Every
criminal, miser, abuser, scoffer, embezzler, and hateful person does what he or
she does because of a diseased heart. If hearts were sound, these actions would
no longer be a reality. So if we want to change our world, we do not begin by
rectifying the outward. Instead, we must change the condition of our inward. Everything
we see happening outside of us is in reality coming from the unseen world
within. It is from the unseen world that the phenomenal world emerges, and it
is from the unseen realm of our hearts that all actions spring.
The well-known civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. said
that in order for people to condemn injustice, they must go through four
stages. The first stage is that people must ascertain that indeed injustices
are being perpetrated. In his case, it was injustices against African Americans
in the United States. The second stage is to negotiate, that is, approach the
oppressor and demand justice. If the oppressor refuses, King said that the
third stage is self-purification, which starts with the question: “Are we
ourselves wrongdoers? Are we ourselves oppressors?” The fourth stage, then, is
to take action after true self-examination, after removing one’s own wrongs before
demanding justice from others.
We of the modern world are reluctant to ask ourselves—when we
look at the terrible things that are happening—”Why do they occur?” And if we
ask that with all sincerity, the answer will come resoundingly: “All of this is
from your own selves.” In so many ways, we have brought this upon ourselves.
This is the only empowering position we can take. The Quran implies that if a
people oppress others, God will send another people to oppress them: We put
some oppressors over other oppressors because of what their own hands have
earned (6:129), According to Fakhruddin al-Razi (a 12th century scholar of the
Quran), the verse means that the existence of oppression on earth may be caused
by previous oppression. By implication, often the victims of aggression were once
aggressors themselves. This, however, is not the case with tribulations, for
there are times in which people are indeed tried, but if they respond with
patience and perseverance, God will always give them relief and victory. If we
examine the life of the Prophetin
Makkah, it’s clear that he and the community of believers were being harmed and
oppressed, but they were patient and God gave them victory. Within 23 years,
the Prophet pbuh was not only free of
oppression, but became the leader of the entire Arabian Peninsula. Those people
who once oppressed him now sought mercy from him; and he was most gracious and
kind in his response. Despite their former brutality toward him, the
Prophet pbuh forgave them and admitted them
into the brotherhood of faith.
This is the difference between someone whose heart is purified
and sound and one whose heart is impure and corrupt. Impure people oppress, and
the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status
and character. In order to purify ourselves, we must begin to recognize this
truth. This is what this book is all about—a book of self-purification and a
manual of liberation. If we work on our hearts, if we actually implement what
is suggested here, we’ll begin to see changes in our lives, our condition, our
society, and even within our own family dynamics. It is a blessing that we have
this science of purification, a blessing that this teaching exists in the world
today. What remains is for us to take these teachings seriously.
So let us go through what is explained here by this great
scholar and learn of the diseases of the heart, examine their etiology (their
causes), their signs and symptoms, and, finally, how to treat them. There are
two types of treatments: the theoretical treatment, which is understanding the
disease itself, and the practical treatment, which focuses on the prescriptions
we must take in order to restore the heart’s natural purity. If we apply the
techniques that have been learned and transmitted by the great scholars of the
vast tradition of Islam, we will see results. But just like medicinal
prescriptions, the physician cannot force you to take it. The knowledgeable
scholars of spiritual purification have given us the treatment, as they have
gleaned it from the teachings of the Quran and the exemplary model of the
Prophet pbuh. The teachings are available. They are clear, and they work. It is then
up to us to learn and apply them to ourselves and share them with others.
