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.
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 the Imam writes about is wantonness (baṭar), along with excessiveness, an unbridled desire to need and want more. The word baṭar has several meanings: “the inability to bear blessings; bewilderment; dislike of something undeserving of dislike; and reckless extravagance.” Imam Mawlūd says that according to the people of knowledge, it is defined as “excessive mirth and exuberance.”
The Qur’an 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 baṭar [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” (QUR’AN, 8:46–47). And, “How many cities have We destroyed that exulted in their livelihood? Here are their homes now uninhabited after them except for a few” (QUR’AN, 28:58). The world of ancient 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. When one visits these ruins, one notices the utter silence of these towns. Each soul that lived there is now in another state, awaiting 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 intentionally experience hunger and to reflect seriously on death and the Hereafter. Experiencing hunger can be achieved through voluntary fasting (ṣawm) 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 believed that people who eat in abundance become hardhearted. Those who consume an abundance of rich foods may literally become “hardhearted” with arterial sclerosis, the hardening of the arteries. (“Sclerotic” means “hard, rigid, or stiff.”) Likewise, what happens to the physical heart may parallel what occurs to the spiritual heart.
Scholars of various religions often expounded on hunger as an important sensation that feeds spiritual growth. Feeling emptiness in the stomach, they said, is excellent for the body as well as the soul. According to Imam Mālik, fasting three days out of the month is the best way to maintain a regular engagement with hunger. The fasting regimen known as the Fast of David (Dāwūd) consists of fasting every other day, with the exception of religious holidays. Fasting Mondays and Thursdays is also an excellent regimen. 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
. 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 recalls a fact without any reflection. (In fact, no spiritual 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 such as wantonness requires remembering 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 (Ṣirāṭ), over which people must cross and behold below the awesome inferno of the Hellfire. Consistent reflection of this nature lessens the apparent value of extravagance and, in general, all the fleeting enticements 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” (QUR’AN, 28:76), whether it is in their wealth, status, or anything else. Images glorifying 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 with exaggerated smiles and gaping mouths, showing off their supreme happiness because they own a particular type of car or smoke a certain brand of cigarettes or guzzle a special brand of beer—alcohol that destroys lives and minds. According to advertising theory, 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 billboards and all those who aim their glances toward them will inevitably die someday and stand before their Maker. This is the ultimate destiny of all human beings. It is this realization that is the slayer of wantonness.
slip-sliding away..... 
Interesting how it’s now medically proven that intermittent fasting is healthier for most of us, too!
I love the ways all of these isolated diseases and remedies are interrelated and truly support a healthy, balanced physical, emotional, and spiritual life.