How to purify our hearts

How to purify our hearts


The prophet salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam tells us how to purify our hearts and indeed purification of the heart is one of the most important mission in Islam.

So many people focus on different things, some of them focus on making a lot of ibadah (forms of worship) which is by itself a good deed, others focus on making a lot of dhikr or paying money for charity, which is also a good deed, you may find people focusing on seeking knowledge and again this is one of the greatest task a Muslim does, but without any doubt one of the most important if not the most important is to clarify the heart and why is
that?

Because the prophet told us salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam that Allah the Almighty does not look at your body and He does not look at your wealth, He doesn’t look if you are black or white, if you are tall or short, if you are fat or slim, if you are old or young and He doesn’t look as well if you are rich or poor and if you have a good business going on or not or if you are an employee with the small salary.

The prophet says salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam: Allah looks at your heart and your deeds and Allah mentions also in the Quran that no wealth, no offspring would benefit a person on the day of Judgment except those who come with pure hearts.

And Scholars said that the characteristic of such a heart is to be pure of envy and pure of hatred, pure of associating others with Allah and to be pure from desires as well.

The hadith which I would like to talk about, is a hadith that was reported by Imam Muslim in the Sahih and it was narrated by Abu Huraira (May Allah be pleased with him). He says that the prophet salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam said:
”Do not envy one another and do not bit one another out for raising the price and don’t feel hatred or enmity and don’t’ give your back to one another and don’t enter into a transaction when others have entered the transaction and be as fellow brothers and servants of Allah. The Muslim is the brother of another Muslims. He does not wrong him, lets him down or look down upon him. Taqwa that is piety or the fear of Allah is here and he pointed to his chest (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) 3 times and he said: it is sufficient either for a man to look down upon his Muslim brother every Muslim is sacred to another Muslim, his blood, his property and his honor”
In this beautiful hadith the prophet salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam is telling us how we should deal with one another and if you look at this hadith you will find that has a lot of lessons that can be learned, yet they are difficult lessons in the sense that a lot of brothers and sisters would probably think that this is too much, it is too difficult and I would rather just pray and maybe wear the Hijab and so I can not have all of this and I can not see people in such of fashion well, brothers and sisters you have to have this within you to be a true believer and as we know that the branches of eman are divided into few and 60 or 70 branches, the highest is to say La Ilaha illa Allah and the lowest is removing obstacles from the rode of the people and bashfulness is one of the branches of Emaan as the prophet said salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam.

Now this hadith as we stated before it is narrated by Abu Huraira may Alah be pleased with him and it is recorded in sahih Muslim.
The first sentence in it or the first instruction is: do not envy one another and envy is the first sin ever to take place in the Heaven, when Allah instructed all the angels to prostrate to Adam and they did except Satan who was from the djin and he refused and when Allah asked him why did you not prostrate to Adam as I commanded you, he respond I m better than him! You created me from fire and You created him from clay, so this is why he refuse to prostrate to Adam because he was envious.
How is this that someone who was just created can come and be in such of position as Allah Azza wa Jal gave to Adam.


And it was also the first sin ever to be committed on the ground and that is when Allah Azza wa Jal accepted the sacrifice of one of Adam’s sons and did not accept the sacrifice of the other son, so he kill him.
Also we know what the brother’s of prophet Yusuf (Alaihi sallam) did to Yusuf by throwing him in the well and leaving him to die and the Muslims feel and sense this amount of envy in the people of the Scripture.
Allah the Almighty said: Verily the people of the Scripture wish that if they could turn you away as disbelievers after you have believed out of envy from their own selves even after the truth has became manifest on to them.


Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem