Purification of the Heart
Heart needs God's air or it dies. Daily reminder amid my ADHD chaos.
philosophyIt is to actively and sincerely seek purification of the heart by removing four things: love of praise; fear of blame; desire for worldly benefit from people; and fear of harm from people.
AQ's take: Crave praise, dread blame? That's my marketing poison. Purification hurts good.
Oct 21, 2025The Prophet said: Be mindful of God, and God will protect you. Be mindful of God, and you will find Him in front of you. If you ask, ask of God. If you seek help, seek help from God. Know that if the whole world were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something that God had already prescribed for you. And if the whole world were to gather together to harm you, it would harm you only with something that God had already prescribed for you. The pens have been lifted, and the ink has dried.
AQ's take: World can't harm without God's say. Prophet frees me from paranoia.
Oct 21, 2025One 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).
AQ's take: Modesty and humility? My ego's the barrier I've ignored too long.
Oct 12, 2025awesome 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.
AQ's take: That presence awareness crushes my distractions. Living watched changes everything.
Oct 12, 2025When 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.
AQ's take: Shame hits when I tally my deeds against His gifts. Time for real dua.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet said, “None of you [fully] believes until his desires are in accordance with what I have brought.”
AQ's take: Desires aligned with Prophet? Mine are still pulling me off track.
Oct 12, 2025A 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.
AQ's take: No begging humans—straight to God. Stopped my networking addiction cold.
Oct 12, 2025The 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.
AQ's take: Pray then hustle. My lazy prayers without action wasted years.
Oct 12, 2025Imam 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.”
AQ's take: One careless word drags to hell? My loose talk haunts me now.
Oct 12, 2025Freedom 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.
AQ's take: Real freedom's resisting temptation. My slips prove I'm still chained.
Oct 12, 2025According 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.”
AQ's take: Tongue controls everything? Mine's been the devil's puppet too often.
Oct 12, 2025Engaging 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.
AQ's take: Dhikr guards my mouth from trash talk. Silence was my weak fix.
Oct 12, 2025The 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.”
AQ's take: Black spots from sins? Explains my hardened heart after years ignoring.
Oct 12, 2025Purity of heart never survives a passive relationship. One must always guard his or her heart.
AQ's take: Passive heart dies fast. Guarded mine too late after burnout.
Oct 12, 2025Imam ʿAlī said, “The worst person is the miser. In this world, he is deprived of his own wealth, and in the Hereafter, he is punished.”
AQ's take: Miser's curse fits my hoarding phase. Gave more, felt freer.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet once asked some clansmen about their leader. They mentioned his name and said, “But he is a bit of a miser.” The Prophet said, “A leader should never be a miser.” Then he added, “Do you know of any disease that is worse than miserliness?”
AQ's take: Miserly leaders fail. My stingy phases tanked early teams.
Oct 12, 2025The cure for hatred is straightforward. One should pray for the person toward whom he feels hatred, making specific supplications that mention this person by name, asking God to give this person good things in this life and the next. When one does this with sincerity, hearts mend. If one truly wants to purify his or her heart and root out disease, there must be total sincerity in carrying out the treatments and conviction that these cures are effective.
AQ's take: Praying for haters mended my grudges. Weirdly liberating.
Oct 12, 2025Envy is a rejection of God’s apportionment in the world. Thus, one is opposing how God meted out sustenance in accord with His wisdom. Therefore, one must oppose his own ego’s desires and seek treatment for this disease with the healing force of acceptance of the divine decree and prayer on behalf of one’s enemies in a way that suppresses the ego [nafs].
AQ's take: Envy fights God's plan. Stopped resenting rivals, focused on mine.
Oct 12, 2025The great Muslim scholar, Ibn ʿaṭā’allāh (d. 709/1309), said, “If you desire immortal glory, seek glory in the Immortal.”
AQ's take: Seek glory in God. Chasing worldly fame left me empty.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet said, “Remember often the destroyer of pleasure,” that is, death.
AQ's take: Death reminder kills my distractions. Procrastination's enemy number one.
Oct 12, 2025Someone once asked ʿĀ’ishah j, the Prophet’s wife, about the most wondrous aspect she observed of the Prophet . She said, “Everything about him was wondrous. But I will say this: when the veiling of the night came, and when every lover went to his lover, he went to be with God.”
AQ's take: Night distractions own me. Prophet chose God. Brutal mirror to my scrolling shame.
Oct 12, 2025“And you will think that you tarried [on earth] only for a short while” (QUR’AN, 17:52).
AQ's take: My life feels eternal till it doesn't. Quran slaps that delusion hard.
Oct 12, 2025An Islamic tradition attributed to Jesus states, “The world is a bridge; so pass over it to the next world, but do not try to build on it.”
AQ's take: World's temporary. I build mansions here. Jesus calls bullshit on my attachments.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet said, “Whoever is not thankful to people will not be thankful to God.”
AQ's take: Forget to thank people? God notices. Hit my ungrateful ass directly.
Oct 12, 2025A blessing (niʿmah) is something that God bestows. One of God’s names is al-Munʿim, the Bestower of Blessing. Envy, then, is to desire that a person lose whatever blessing God has given him or her. It is tantamount to saying that God should not have given this person a blessing or, worse yet, that He was wrong to do so “because I deserve it more.”
AQ's take: Envy wishes God's gift revoked. That's me resenting smarter founders daily.
Oct 12, 2025God is all-wise in what He gives to people. If one questions the blessing a person has received, then he or she is actually questioning the Giver. This makes envy reprehensible and forbidden.
AQ's take: Questioning blessings questions God. My petty gripes just got exposed.
Oct 12, 2025Resentment may prevent one from accomplishing significant achievements. A person who shuns envy, even when others around him seem to be passing him by, is motivated to excel, unimpeded by depression and resentment.
AQ's take: Resentment tanks my hustle. Time to ditch it for real wins.
Oct 12, 2025Imam al-Ghazālī makes a distinction between various strains of envy. He states that if one hates envy and is ashamed that he or she harbors it, the person is not essentially an envious person. It is important to be aware of the feelings that reside in one’s heart. This self-awareness is essential for the purpose of purification.
AQ's take: Catch envy, feel shame? Still salvageable. My heart check just passed... barely.
Oct 12, 2025“Whoever is safe from the covetousness of his own soul, he is truly successful” (QUR’AN , 59:9).
AQ's take: Covetous soul's the real enemy. Quran nails my endless wanting.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet said, “There is a tree in Paradise reserved for one whose own faults preoccupied him from considering the faults of others.”
AQ's take: Tree in Paradise for minding my mess? Sign me up, I qualify.
Oct 12, 2025“And whoever fears God, He will make for him a way out. And He will provide for him in a way he never expected. And whoever trusts in God, He is sufficient for him” (QUR’AN , 65:2–3).
AQ's take: Fear God gets unexpected outs. My control freakery just crumbled.
Oct 12, 2025The Prophet said, “Contentment is a treasure that is never exhausted.”
AQ's take: Contentment's endless treasure. Chasing more leaves me broke inside.
Oct 12, 2025The 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.
AQ's take: Hits hard—my heart's wheezing without dhikr. Revived it this Ramadan.
Sep 30, 2025One can say that Islam in essence is a program to restore purity and calm to the heart through the remembrance of God.
AQ's take: Nailed it. Islam fixed my chaotic heart through constant God reminders.
Sep 30, 2025