On this blessed day of Jumu'ah, I counsel myself and my fellow believing brothers and sisters to be mindful of Allah ﷻ, to have taqwa of Allah, surrender inwardly and outwardly, privately and publicly. This is the most important thing of all, is that we be people of taqwa here in this world, and to meet our Lord ﷻ in a good state.
Part of the understanding that we need to meet Allah ﷻ in the proper state is to understand the centrality of the heart in relation to our religious practice. Your heart is what really matters.
The heart is the maḥal nadhar al-ḥaqq - it is the locus of the gaze of the Real ﷻ. And the question that you and I need to ask ourselves is, what is the state of our heart? One of the ways that you know the relative health or thickness of the heart is to look at the thoughts that come to it.
They say you don't truly become righteous until were you to put all of the thoughts that cross your heart in a day on a platter before people and to have them come see everything that's there. And if you are shy about anything that comes to your heart, we still have a long way to go to be considered to be from the righteous. Think about that.
From the time that we wake up in the morning until the time that we go to sleep at night, the vast majority of things that cross our heart we never utter. So the people next to us, even our closest friends, don't know what comes to our heart. So we're not truly approaching the degrees of the righteous until were we to expose everything and to lay it bare on a platter before people's eyes and they to see what comes to the heart from morning to evening, that we're not embarrassed about anything that was there.
The heart is the source of all action and this is the place that we need to be concerned with and to make sure that we beautify and adorn it for the sake of our Lord. And so when we talk about the heart, we need to speak about the heart's health. And of course, we are talking about spiritual health, which doesn't negate physical health.
Physical health is a part of spiritual health. But just as the number one killer in the country in which we live is heart disease, the real number one killer is spiritual heart disease.
And we live in a time of lahu, where modern technology is making it so easy to be completely preoccupied with different types of entertainment and amusement, until we meet our Lord ﷻ and regret deeply what transpired for the few moments that we spent here on earth.
The heart needs to be remedied. And I want to share with my brothers and sisters on this blessed day of Jum'uah, the five overarching remedies of the heart, according to one of the early pious people by the name of Sidi Ibrahim al-Khawass, who was a contemporary of Sayyid al-Ta'ifa, the great Imam al-Junaid al-Baghdadi.
And he said, رضي الله عنه, dawa al-qalbi khamsatu asha' The remedies for the heart are five. Dawa is medicine. Dawa is a remedy.
He said, the remedies of the heart are five. These five things, if you bring them into your life, and you persevere in them and do them continuously with sincerity, solely for the sake of Allah ﷻ, it will take care of your heart and to make your heart salih, and to make your heart rectified and righteous, such that you return to Allah ﷻ with a qalb salim, with a whole and purified heart.
These are the five overarching cures of your heart. And what is meant by pointing these out is, you and I have a regular staple of these acts as a part of our religious life.
This is how we want to be. And this great imam who came before us, Sidi Ibrahim al-Khawass, who was known to be from the elect of the righteous, from the elect of those who dedicated themselves to Allah. And was especially known for placing his trust in Allah.
And for so many of the blessed statements that he said, this is one of the gems that came from this heart that was radiant and illuminated with the light of the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Messenger ﷺ.
So the first of these five remedies is, qiraat al-Qur'an bil-tadabbur, let alone abandoning the Qur'an, reciting the Qur'an, but not just reciting the Qur'an, reciting the Qur'an with tadabbur, with contemplation. And the dhubr is something that is in the rear, and tadabbur is the active process that you go through to reflect and ponder deeply on the words of Allah ﷻ.
So the meanings appear to you, and settle and become fixated in your heart. And sometimes it's not difficult to understand what is being said.
What is the affair that's more important is that it becomes permanent in your heart. It becomes a part of how you view the world. And nothing, will clarify the path for the believer like recitation of Allah ﷻ book.
Nothing treats the great disease of ghurur, of deception, like reciting the book of Allah ﷻ. And this is why we need to do this on a regular basis. This is a must for every believer.
Every believer should learn how to recite Allah ﷻ book. And it is not just for the Arab. The Quran is for everybody.
And it is a wonder how you see in so many places in the Muslim world, schools that were established that were not in places where Arabic was spoken as the native language. But people learned how to recite Allah ﷻ book at the earliest age, at age 7, at age 8, by age 10. Even though that being thousands of miles away from the Arab lands, they knew how to recite Allah ﷻ book properly.
And this is how you and I have to be. We have to learn ourselves how to recite Allah's book. And from the earliest age, we need to teach our children how to recite Allah ﷻ book.
And this is how we begin. We begin with learning the letters. Then we begin with learning all of the different ways those letters are pronounced with the various vowels that go on them.
And then we start connecting the letters. And then we can start making out words. And then we know how to connect words.
And then we know how to recite even better. And we learn the rules of tajweed. All of this is related to the outward.
And that takes a little bit of time. But it's not hard for those who Allah ﷻ blesses to embark upon the endeavour. The Qur'an is muyassar - it is facilitated by Allah ﷻ.
And then after we can recite the Qur'an, and ideally that we're able to read a page in about a minute or a minute and a half. We should work on ourselves till we can read a juz of Quran in about 20 to 30 minutes, so we accustom ourselves to reciting a portion of Allah ﷻ book daily.
The people before us understood the importance of recitation of the Qur'an. Read what Imam al-Nawawi says in the Kitab al-Adhkar. The book is translated for those who want to read it in English. And he says the most that has reached us from the Salaf about their regular recitation of the Qur'an are those who would do a complete reading four times in one day. Four khatams in one day.
Now someone might think that's impossible. The fastest that I can recite a juz is in 12 to 15 minutes. So if you do the math, how could you even fit that into one day? This is if you look at it in terms of post-industrial revolution time and thinking it in terms of seconds and minutes and so forth and so on.
If Allah ﷻ places barakah in your time, time will expand for you. Imam al-Shafi'i is known that in Ramadaan he would do two khatams every single day. Every single day.
Time expands for these people. Especially when you are immersed in the meanings. Time slows down outwardly.
So that you can spend time in the oceans of meaning of Allah ﷻ book. But I'm not saying that we have to reach the point where we do four khatams a day. The point there is the Salaf, the people who came before us, especially the righteous predecessors because the Salaf is defined as those first three blessed generations.
They gave the Qur'an its haqq. They gave the Qur'an its right. And all of the subsequent generations until this day and age, there are still places in the Muslim world where there are common folk that work by day that do an entire khatam of the Qur'an every single week.
In traditional societies, they place the Qur'an as a part of religious practise. And in the cities that I spent studying in, they would recite one-7th of the Qur'an, so really one-14th of the Qur'an from before Fajr until sunrise and then from Maghrib until a little bit after Isha. So one-14th, one-14th, ome-7th of the Qur'an they're reciting every single day.
And they do a khatam every week. And there were people that would do this for 50, 60, 70 years. So there's no wonder why then the wonderful things that we know about some of our parents and grandparents and the stories that we hear and how resilient they were and the way they were able to bear tribulation and their religious perspective and how they faced the vicissitudes of life.
There's no wonder then why they were able to do that - because of their connection to Allah's book. But when was the last time we did a khatam? Did we even do a khatam in Ramadaan? Since last Ramadan, have we even done a khatam? Have we ever done a khatam in our entire life? There's a beautiful custom that some people have where they have what's called a fatihah where they start reciting the Qur'an.
And then when they do their first complete recitation they have a celebration. This is a beautiful custom that we should bring into our community where we encourage our children from the time that they're able to start reading on their own without making too many mistakes that we then celebrate their start. And then we celebrate their finish their first khatam of Allah's book encouraging this in our community.
We oftentimes live in a dream world because we have all of these fanciful imaginations and the way that we think and that all of these things that we contrive in our minds distances us from reality as it truly is. The Qur'an obliterates all of that and makes truth right before our eyes clear.
We're all going to die. We have a job to do here on earth. Allah speaks about the nature of this world so we have to understand how this world is.
How much guidance is found in the Quran? Everything that we need. And as that one of the sadaf said is that the murid is not a murid. The seeker is not a seeker until he finds in the Qur'an everything huwa yurid - everything that he is seeking for. And in Allah ﷻ book is everything that you and I need. But we have to recite Qur'an with tadabbur.
We're not just reciting Qur'an outwardly. I focus much on the outward because I know that's where most of us are at. We still need to improve our ability of reading the Qur'an, and then we need to go beyond that where we start to learn the Arabic language.
We start to learn the meanings of Allah ﷻ book. And Alhamdulillah we have aids and some good commentaries even in English to help us do that. We have encyclopaedias that teach us that some of the great meanings of some of the concepts and some of the key words of Allah ﷻ book.
And we should have this all on our shelf and reference them regularly. When we read verses we should cross-reference them. We should look up that other verses that relate to them or are similar in meaning and so forth and so on.
Or explain them. We need to be active readers. Just as we should actively try to memorise the number of chapters and the names of chapters.
And then the mushaf that we read from is that what surahs are in the middle what are in the first, third what are in that last third and so forth and so on. And the true masters of Allah **ﷻ **book, if you see them is that they can think of a verse and then pick up the mushaf and go right to it without referring to an index. Because of their familiarity with Allah ﷻ book and how much they recite it.
But we need to bring the Qur'an into our life. This is the first and foremost most important thing of all to purification of the heart. The Qur'an.
And we're focussing only on here on purification of the heart. Otherwise, so much more could be said about the centrality of the book of Allah ﷻ.
The second thing that Sidi Ibrahim al-Khawass mentions is خلاء البطن Emptying the stomach.
What he really means here is cutting back on our food intake. Because we can't necessarily do what the people before us did. And how they approach food.
And I highly encourage everybody to get a copy. It has a red cover and it's translated by T.J. Winter, Sheikh Abdul Hakeem Murad. The two books of the Ihya.
Book number 22 and 23. Disciplining the Soul and Breaking the Two Desires. And read what Imam Al-Ghazali says about the importance of breaking the desire of food.
And when you read this, you'll be shocked. You're like, oh my God, where am I from that? It will seem that far fetched and far off from you. However, that doesn't mean that you don't do your part.
And as our teachers have said, you should start in our time with when you want to take two more bites that you refrain from just two more bites. So you've eaten. But you want to just take two more bites? Stop. Refrain. Hold back. Start there.
And then slowly over a period of years, cut back. Cut back. Remember the words of our Prophet ﷺ. مَا مَلَىٰ آدَمِيُّونَ In this narration, وِآءٍ شَرًّا مِنْ بَطْنٍ is that no آدمي, no human being.
In another narration, ابن آدم, no child of Adam, that fills a container more evil than his stomach. حَسْبُ ابن آدم لُقِيمَاتٌ يُقِيمْنَ صُلْبَةٌ It suffices the son of Adam to eat a few morsels to keep his back straight. فَإِنْ غَلَبَتْهُ نَفْسُ In this narration.
In another narration, فَإِنْ كَانَ وَلَا بُدْ If he must. But in this narration, it says that if his nafs overcomes him, فَثُرُثٌ لِلتَّعَامِ One third for food. One third for drink.
And one third for him to breathe. And you might think that, okay, how would you breathe? I actually heard a story from a gastronologist where he was called in for an emergency procedure. And they thought that something was lodged in this man's oesophagus.
But it turns out he had eaten so much food that it had filled up from his stomach all the way up until his throat. And there was nothing that they could do. Because there was so much food filled up to the point that it actually filled up all the way up into his throat.
The point here is we need to understand the importance of controlling our food intake for the spiritual path. And I want to make a few suggestions here because we don't necessarily want to jump into just dramatically cutting back our food intake. That's not what's being said here.
Let's start first and foremost with eating halal. And along with that are many of the shubuhat-the doubtful matters, and the doubtful substances that are in so many of the foods that you and I eat.
And I would recommend an app, and I'm sure others have other suggestions here. There's an app called Halal Scan where what they did is because sometimes you can't tell by the ingredients. If it says natural flavours, you don't know what those natural flavours are.
You actually have to call the company and ask them about those substances. And sometimes it seems like it's okay, but when you ask it turns out that it's something that is unlawful and a substance that we should not be putting in our bodies as believers. And so apps like this help us where things they seem to be permissible, but if you learn about them, you find that they're not.
So to the extent possible, this is where scrupulousness is. Scrupulousness really lies in our food intake. And unfortunately, in the average grocery store that contains, I think it's something like 47,000 products or whatever, a good percentage of them are not good for us to eat.
Not in the sense of being halal, and not in the sense of even if they are halal, that being good for us, i.e. healthy. But this is where we begin. Let's begin with food that is halal.
And let's put a little bit of research into it and take another step to make sure the ingredients that are in the food that we're putting into our bodies is halal. Because the problem is, in relation to the spiritual path, there's the two foundations of the spiritual path are halal income and halal food. If your income is haram and your food is haram, there's zero spiritual path.
Everything that you do will be tainted with haram. Everything. Everything that you do will be tainted with haram.
Your heart will be veiled with thick veils. A halal income and halal food. And again, this is not easy in our time.
This is not easy. But ideally that we have people opening up the doors for the young people in our society, Muslims who are committed to their deen, to help them find careers that are halal, that they can earn a living to take care of their family. And sometimes within one career that there's different ways of approaching that very career, some are fine and others become problematic.
In each career, it's important that we look into very carefully and find ways for people to attain and receive a halal income. But also in terms of halal food, let's start there and much more could be said there. But then you want to add something else before we even really focus on cutting back.
Let's also try to eat healthy. Let's also learn a little bit about the type of food that we are eating and how much we can spare ourselves from the states of sickness and illness such that we're not able to worship because we don't take care of ourselves. We should be eating healthy food and that could translate in a number of different ways.
Part of that conversation is trying to the extent possible to that eat organic food. But part of that also too is to be very careful about the types of food that we eat. Certain types of oils are terrible for you.
We should eliminate certain types of oils and not cook any of our food in certain types of oils even if it's more expensive to get another type of oil. There are certain types of substances that are simply not good for you. We should try to rid our lives of those.
And the point here is to encourage us in general, but this requires a little bit of reading. We need to be people that are wakeful and to understand the time which we live. If you want to be upright and you want to have your heart radiant, being careful about your food, this is a part of the spiritual path.
And then we can move into the conversation after we're eating halal food, after we're avoiding various types of doubtful matters, after we're eating good food that is healthy and seasonal and ideally local and fair trade and according to our temperament. And I know that sounds like it's a lot and it is at first, but after a little bit it becomes fairly easy. Then we start cutting back after all that.
We start cutting back. Little by little, small amounts. You want to take two more bites, you stop.
Making sure that you don't eat too late at night. It's not good for your physical body and it will prevent you from waking up at night as well. And so forth and so on.
So cutting back on our food intake. And this is the sunnah of our Prophet ﷺ. There's a hadith in Sahih Muslim that says is that where Abu Hurairah swore by Allah ﷻ is that the Messenger of Allah, the Prophet of Allah ﷺ and his family is that never satiated themselves for three straight days from bread until they left this world. And this was by the choice of our Prophet ﷺ. There was times where he could have provided a lot of food for his family, but he refrained from doing so ﷺ. And then there was times where he was forced into that situation.
And all of the benefits of hunger, Imam al-Ghazali has a beautiful section in the book that was mentioned, where he mentions I think ten benefits of hunger. The first is purity of heart. Hunger leads to purity of heart.
And one of the ten too is riqqat al-qalb. Your heart becomes soft. Such that then you can experience what is called the lazzat al-munajah.
The pleasure of intimate conversation with Allah and you're impacted by His remembrance. And then three, kasr shahwat al-maasi. Is that you break the desires that lead to disobedience.
These are three and there are seven more. And there are many benefits in hunger. And there are a multitude of narrations that he mentions that point to this.
So we have recitation of the Quran with contemplation. We have cutting back on our food intake. And then three, praying at night.
And literally, qiyam al-layl, standing in night at prayer. Standing in prayer at night. This is something that we have to bring in our lives.
Whether we pray before we go to bed, or whether we go to sleep and then wake up and then pray before dawn. We want to bring this into our life because our Prophet said, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, afdhal al-salati ba'dil maktubah, qiyam al-layl. The best prayer after the prescribed prayers, i.e. the obligatory prayers, are praying at night.
Qiyam al-layl, salat al-layl. We want to bring this into our lives. And when Sayyida Aisha radiallahu ta'ala anha was asked about the most amazing thing about the Messenger of Allah, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, she wept and she said, what wasn't amazing about him? But then she went on to recount how our Prophet prayed at night.
In other words, when at night, people go back to the ones that they love, they do what it is that they like to do. That's why so many people waste so much time at night because they actually have prayed their prayers, they don't have anything for a long time. And especially students of knowledge should not waste their time at night.
This is a time now you should go to sleep and wake up and pray, or pray and then go to sleep and then wake up or study. Don't waste your time on Netflix or watching movies or any of these types of things. This will get in the way of your studies.
And then in general, people in general, it will get in the way of you travelling the spiritual path. But bringing prayer at night into our lives, this is the da'ab al-salihin as our Prophet taught us, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. This is the way of the righteous before us.
This is how they were. And for the Prophet, it was an obligation, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Because the sunnah of our Prophet, he'd go to bed just after Salat al-Isha and he would wake up roughly around 11.30 to 12.30 and then he would pray all the way until the last six of the night and then he would rest a little bit more and wake up for Salat al-Fajr.
This is extremely healthy and it is one of the great things that uproots all different types of diseases from the heart. And then fourth, al-tadarra and al-sahar, turning to Allah and supplication the last portion of the night. Even if it's five minutes or ten minutes before Salat al-Fajr, waking up and turning to Allah.
And I recommend that you get a subha, that you get a set of prayer beads and you just repeat Ya Allah 40 times, 100 times, 200 times. Turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with all of your problems, with all of your concerns, all of your worries, all of your issues, everything that you fear, everything that you worry about. Turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and just say Ya Allah, Ya Allah.
Realising your absolute impoverishment before Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is one of the greatest things that we can possibly do to purify the heart. And then in closing, mujarrasat as-salihin.
Spending time with the righteous. This is one of the greatest things that we can do. Allah connects us to the righteous in the Fatiha itself, ihdi nas siraatal mustakeem... they are with them. This is how we want to be and there is extreme benefit in sitting before the righteous and if we can't find them outwardly, we try to be with the best people possible, but you can still be with them by reading their stories, by reading their biographies, this is a type of mujalasa even though you are reading it with a book and it is of the utmost importance when we bring biographies of righteous people into our lives our hearts, our behaviours change as result.
And if we do these 5 things consistently day in and day out we will find that the heart becomes more and more pure, and the thoughts become more and more pure . And we're able to concentrate more and we experience the sweetness of faith more and more. We experience the sweetness of Allah (swt) more and more.
May Allah bless us to bring these things into our lives,
أَلَا بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ ٱلْقُلُوبُ
"Truly in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest."