Continuing our Ramadaan series, this post continues the book entitled “Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart” – Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson‘s translation and commentary of Imam Muḥammad Mawlūd’s didactic poem “Matharat al-Qulub” (purification of the heart). The Imam was a 19th century Mauritanian scholar. For notes on the copyright status of the book, as well as links to purchase your own copy, please see the introductory post of the series.
Introduction to Purification
POEM VERSES 1–8 I begin by starting with the heart of beginnings, for it is the highest and noblest of beginnings. Have courtesy with God, the High and the Majestic, by practicing modesty and humility— Dejected out of shame and humility humbled in awe, imploring Him— By giving up your designs for His, emptied of covetousness for what His servants have, By hastening to fulfill His commands, and by being wary of the subtle encroachment of bad manners. If you—the spiritual aspirant—realize your attributes of servitude, you will then be assisted with something of the attributes of the Eternally Besought. Realize your abject character and impoverishment, and you will gain dignity and wealth from the All-Powerful. There is no salvation like the heart’s salvation, given that all the limbs [and organs] respond to its desires.
Courtesy: the Heart of Purification
Imam Mawlūd begins his Arabic didactic poem with a play on words that is lost in translation. “Beginning” in Arabic is bad’u, and the word for “heart” (qalb) also means, “to reverse something.” Reversing the letters in the word bad’u results in the word adab, which is the term for “courtesy”—and that is where this treatise begins, since courtesy is the portal to the purification of the heart.
Adab in Arabic holds several meanings, in addition to “courtesy.” Adīb (a derivative of adab), for example, has come to mean “an erudite person, someone who is learned,” as high manners and courtesy are associated with learning and erudition. However, the idea of courtesy is firmly established at the root of the word adab. Imam Mawlūd starts his treatise with courtesy, since excellent behavior and comportment are the doorkeepers to the science of spiritual purification. One must have courtesy with regard to God— behave properly with respect to His presence—if he or she wishes to purify the heart. But how does one achieve this courtesy? Imam Mawlūd mentions two requisite qualities associated with courtesy: modesty (ḥayā’) and humility (dhul).
Ḥayā’, in Arabic, conveys the meaning of “shame,” though the root word of ḥayā’ is closely associated with “life” and “living.” The Prophet stated, “Every religion has a quality that is characteristic of that religion, and the characteristic of my religion is ḥayā’,” an internal sense of shame that includes bashfulness and modesty.
As children, many of us had someone say to us at times, “Shame on you!” Unfortunately, shame has now come to be viewed as a negative word, as if it were a pejorative. Parents are now often advised to never cause a child to feel shame. The current wisdom largely suggests that adults should always make the child feel good, regardless of his or her behavior. However, doing so eventually disables naturally occurring deterrents to misbehavior.
Some anthropologists divide cultures into shame cultures and guilt cultures. According to this perspective, shame is an outward mechanism, and guilt is an inward one which alludes to a human mechanism that produces strong feelings of remorse when someone has done something wrong, to the point that he or she needs to rectify the matter.
Most primitive cultures are not guilt-based but are shame-based, which is rooted in the fear of bringing shame upon oneself and the larger family. Islam honors the concept of shame and takes it to another level altogether—to a rank in which one feels a sense of shame before God. When a person acknowledges and realizes that God is fully aware of all that one does, says, and thinks, shame is elevated to a higher plane, to the unseen world from which there is no cover. At this level, one feels a sense of shame even before the angels. So while Muslims comprise a shame-based culture, this notion transcends feeling shame before one’s family—whether one’s elders or parents—and admits a mechanism that is not subject to the changing norms of human cultures. It is associated with the knowledge and active awareness that God is all-seeing of what one does—a reality that is permanent. The nurturing of this realization in a person deters one from engaging in acts that are displeasing and vulgar. This is the nobility of prophetic teachings.
Imam Mawlūd also mentions that one should have dhul, which literally means, “being lowly, abject, or humbled.” The Qur’an mentions that people who incur the anger of God have this state of humiliation thrust upon them. This humility or humbleness assumed before God is required for courtesy. Interestingly, the word munkasiran is translated as “dejected,” though it literally means, “broken.” It conveys a sense of being humbled in the majestic presence of God. It refers to the awesome realization that each of us, at every moment, lives and acts before the august presence of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one God besides whom there is no power or might in all the universe.
When we seriously reflect on God’s perfect watch over His creation and the countless blessings He sends down, and then consider the kind of deeds we bring before Him, what can we possibly feel except humility and shame? These strong feelings should lead us to implore God to change our state, make our desires consonant with His pleasure, giving up our designs for God’s designs. This is pure courtesy with respect to God, a requisite for spiritual purification.
The Prophet said, “None of you [fully] believes until his
desires are in accordance with what I have brought.” Being aligned and at peace with the teachings of the Prophet
, which embody the legacy of the prophetic teachings of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus , entails striving to free oneself of greed and refusing the ethic of doing something for an ulterior motive that is essentially selfish and dissonant with the teachings of God’s prophets . A person should not seek anything from God’s servants. If one wants anything, one should seek it from God, the Sovereign of the heavens and the earth. The basic rule is to ask God and then work; that is, one should utilize the means (asbāb) that one must use in order to achieve something in this world.
Imam Mawlūd then says that one should hasten “to fulfill [God’s] command” and be “wary of the subtle encroachment of bad manners,” namely, faults that one is unaware of. A hadith states, “One of you will say a word and give it no consideration, though it will drag the person [who uttered it] through Hellfire for 70 years.” People often become so disconnected from prophetic teachings that they unwittingly inflict great harm upon themselves. It is comparable to a heedless person who finds himself in diplomatic circles laden with protocol, yet he makes horrendous breaches of protocol without realizing it. With regard to God, the matter is obviously much more serious, as one’s soul may be harmed by one’s own breaches. In this case, the protocol involves knowledge of God and what He has enjoined and proscribed.
Freedom and Purification
Imam Mawlūd speaks next about freedom, which is achieved when one realizes the qualities of shame and humility, and empties oneself of their opposites (shamelessness and arrogance). With these qualities come true freedom, wealth, and dignity, which require manumission from the bonds of one’s whims. People may claim to be “free,” yet they cannot control themselves from gluttony in the presence of food or from illicit sexual relations when the opportunity presents itself. Such a notion of freedom is devoid of substance.
Freedom has real meaning when, for example, a situation of temptation arises and one remains God-fearing, steadfast, and in control of one’s actions. This holds true even when the temptation produces flickers of desire in a person who nonetheless refrains from indulging. Imam al-Ghazālī speaks at length about the desires of our limbs and organs and refers to the stomach and the genitals as being the two “dominators”; if they are under control, all other aspects of desire are kept in check. The tongue is also a formidable obstacle. There are people, for example, who appear incapable of refraining from backbiting and speaking ill of others, and they often do so without realizing it.
It is common for people to dislike impoverishment or humility because they perceive them as abjectness. Yet the Prophet chose poverty over wealth; he did not have money in his home; he did not have jewelry; he slept on the floor upon a bed made of leather that was stuffed with palm fibers; and he had two pillows in his room for guests. In much of today’s culture, living this way would be considered extreme poverty. Imam Mawlūd stresses that dignity with God comes to those who are humble before Him, those who place prime value on how they are received by their Maker and not by how they will be judged by the ephemeral norms of people. Dignity and honor are gifts; the Qur’an says about God, “You exalt whomever You will, and You debase whomever You will” (3:26). Proofs of this divine law abound. There are many accounts, for example, of people who were once in positions of authority and wealth but now find themselves as paupers, completely stripped of their former glory, reduced, in many instances, to wards of the state. God is powerful over all things, and all good, authority, and provision are in His hand, not ours.
From this, we derive an important principle: if one ignobly pursues an attribute, he or she will be donned with its opposite. God humbles and humiliates the haughty ones, those who arrogantly seek out rank and glory before the eyes of people. The Qur’an gives the examples of Pharaoh and Korah and their abject fall and disgrace. Conversely, if one is humble before God, He will render him or her honorable.
Imam Mawlūd goes on to explain that there is no salvation “like the heart’s salvation, given that all the limbs [and organs] respond to its desires.” If one’s heart is safe, so too are the limbs and organs, for they carry out the deeds inspired by the heart. The limbs and organs of the corrupt become instruments through which corruption is spread, as the Qur’an states: “Today, We shall set a seal upon their mouths; and their hands will speak to Us and their feet shall bear witness to what they have earned” (QUR’AN, 36:65); “And spend [on the needy] in the way of God. And do not throw yourselves into ruin by your own hands” (Qur’an, 2:195); “And We shall say, ‘Taste the chastisement of burning! That is for what your hands have forwarded [for yourselves]. And God never wrongs [His] servants’”(Qur’an, 3:181– 82); “They shall have immense torment on the day when their tongues and their hands and their legs bear witness against them for what they had been doing” (QUR’AN, 24:23–24).
According to a hadith, the tongue is the “interpreter of the heart.” Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in our speech, which is a gauge of the heart’s state. According to a prophetic tradition, each morning, when the limbs and organs awaken in the spiritual world, they shudder and say to the tongue, “Fear God concerning us! For if you are upright, then we are upright; and if you deviate, we too deviate.” Engaging in the regular remembrance of God (dhikr) safeguards the tongue and replaces idle talk with words and phrases that raise one in honor. The tongue is essential in developing courtesy with God, which is the whole point of existence.
POEM VERSES 9 –15 After firmly grasping this foundation, then mastering the heart’s infirmities is the second stage, Knowledge of the heart’s ailments, what causes each of them and what removes them, is an obligation on everyone. This is the ruling of al-Ghazālī. However, this does not apply to one who was already granted a sound heart, As scholars other than al-Ghazālī opine, for al-Ghazālī reckoned the heart’s illnesses as inherent To humanity. Others deemed them predominant in man— not qualities necessarily inherent to his nature. But know that obliteration of these diseases until no trace remains is beyond the capacity of human beings. Nonetheless, here I give you what you need to know of their definitions, etiologies, and cures.
The Purification Process
Purifying the heart is a process. First, one must understand the necessity of having courtesy with God and the importance of fulfilling its requirements, as noted above. Second, one must be aware of the diseases of the heart—aware of their existence, their ailments, and the deleterious complications and troubles that ensue from them, and recognize that these diseases prevent one from attaining this courtesy. Knowledge of the diseases of the heart, their causes, and how to remove them is an obligation on every sane adult human being.
Imam Mawlūd cites Imam al-Ghazālī (an eleventh century master scholar of the science of purification) holding the position that it is indeed an obligation on everyone to learn about the ailments of the heart and their cures. Imam Mawlūd then states that some scholars hold that this is not an obligation per se for everyone, particularly for a person who has already been blessed with a sound heart and has been spared these maladies. Imam al- Ghazālī dissents and says that these diseases are inherent to the human condition. One can observe, for example, greed, jealousy, hatred, and the like in children, though the diseases do not necessarily endure. But how does this compare with “Original Sin,” the Christian concept which states that people are corrupt by nature?
In short, though Muslim scholars of the caliber of Imam al- Ghazālī do say that diseases of the heart are related to human nature, they would also say that this manifests itself as human inclination. However, Muslims do not believe that this inclination is a result of Adam’s wrongdoing or that Adam brought upon himself, and transferred to his descendants, a permanent state of sin that can only be lifted by sacrificial blood. Adam and Eve erred, no doubt, but they then turned in penitence to God, and God accepted their repentance and forgave them both. This is the nature of God’s forgiveness. There was no blemish passed on to their progeny. The Qur’an declares that no soul bears the burden of sin of another soul (QUR’AN, 6:164). However, this fact does not negate the existence of base instincts among humans.
This matter relates to the fact that the heart is a spiritual organ.
The unseen aspect of the heart contains a bad seed that has the potential of becoming like a cancer that can metastasize and overtake the heart. The bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, for example, lives latent in the lungs of millions of people. When its carriers age or succumb to another disease that weakens their immune system, tuberculosis may start to emerge. This analogy illustrates that there is a dormant element in the human heart that, if nurtured and allowed to grow, can damage the soul and eventually destroy it. The Prophet stated, “If the son of Adam sins, a black spot appears in the heart. And if the person repents, it is erased. But if he does not, it continues to grow until the whole heart becomes pitch black.” (Incidentally, this notion of associating the color black with sin is not racist in its origins. The attribution has been long used, even among black Africans who refer to a person who is wretched as “black-hearted.” The Qur’an says about successful people on the Day of Judgment that their “faces become white” (3:106). This does not mean “white” as a hue of skin; rather it refers to light and brightness, which are spiritual descriptions not associated with actual color. A black person can have spiritual light in his face, and a white person can have darkness, and vice versa, depending on one’s spiritual and moral condition.)
Imam al-Ghazālī considers ailments of the heart to be part of the Adamic potential. He believes one is obliged to know this about human nature in order to be protected. Other scholars simply consider these ailments to be predominant in man; that is, most people have these qualities, but not necessarily everybody.
It is interesting that Imam Mawlūd says it is impossible to rid oneself of these diseases completely. This implies that purification is a lifelong process, not something that is applied once and then forgotten. Purity of heart never survives a passive relationship. One must always guard his or her heart.
There is a well-known hadith which states that every child is born in the state of fiṭrah. Many Muslims translate this into English as, “Every child is born a Muslim.” However, the hadith says, “fiṭrah,” which means that people are born inclined to faith, with an intuitive awareness of divine purpose and a nature built to receive the prophetic message. What remains then is to nurture one’s fiṭrah
and cultivate this inclination to faith and purity of heart.
slip-sliding away..... 
Thank you, Yacoob. Very interesting.