Hardness of the Heart and its cure: part 2*

 

What are the causes that make our heart soft?

• The first cause of softness of the heart is Tawheed of Allaah Azza Wa Jal. Have your heart attached to Allaah Azza Wa Jal alone. You love Allaah with the most complete and perfect form of love. You love Him more than any form of Allaah’s creation. You lower yourself before him completely. Allaah Azza Wa Jal says, ‘He whoever Allaah wishes to guide open his heart to Islaam. And the one He wishes to misguide, He makes his heart compressed.’ So worship Allaah alone and have complete love for Him along with complete humility and submission towards Him. Look for the things that are going to make you attached and make you love Allaah Azza Wa Jal. Think about the attributes of Allaah until that point you love Him. Think about the blessings and bounties of Allaah until you come to love Him.
• Read the Qur’aan frequently. Listen to the Qur’aan with the beautiful voice.
• Repent to Allaah Azza Wa Jal for your sins and seek Allaah’s forgiveness.
• Do great deal of remembrance of Allaah.
• Be good to other people.
• Seek beneficial knowledge. Come close to Allaah Azza Wa Jal by learning Sharee’ah. Allaah will come close to you. Allaah Azza Wa Jal says in Hadith Qudsi, ‘whoever remembers Me to himself, I remember him to Myself. And whoever remembers Me in a gathering, I remember him in a gathering better than it. And whoever comes close to me by a hand span, I come close to him by a length of forearm. And whoever comes close to me by a forearm, I come close to him by full arms length. Whoever comes to me walking I come to him running.’
• Read the seerah of the Prophet (SAW), the companions and tabi’een.
• Do a lot of good deeds (optional prayer, night prayer, fasting on Monday & Thursday, charity). Take out the negative attributes out of your heart (jealousy, hatred).
• Read about the bounties and the pleasure of paradise and the punishment of Jahannam.
• Abandon speaking unnecessarily, abandon listening unnecessarily. Leave extra sleep that you don’t need.

 *excerpt taken from the lecture titled “Causes of a Heedless Heart”  by Shaykh Adnan Abdul Qadir 

Hardness of the Heart and its cure: part 1*

 What’s the reason why hearts are hard?

• The first reason for why heart is hard is having lot of sins and disobedience to Allaah. Sins are the poisons of the souls. They cause the soul to die. Allaah Azza Wa Jal says, “Do you think that We are going to make those people equal who have committed sins like those people who believed and do good deeds?”“Are We going to make equal those who are alive amongst them and those who are dead? Evil is how they judged.” Tirmidhi narrated that the Prophet (SAW) said, “The believer when he commits a sin, a black dot is placed upon his heart. So if he repents and stops it what happens is that this black dot is wiped away or cleaned away from his heart. If he continues doing this sin, what happens is that these black dots increase until the point where they cover the entire heart.

• From the greatest of the sins that causes the heart to be hard is the trial of women. For this reason when Allaah Azza Wa Jal mentions the trial of women in Surah Noor, He mentions fornication. Not being chaste and falling into this problem leads to darkness on the face and hardness in the heart. Thus one of the pious people said, “I used to go to see Uthman Ibn Affan (RA) when he was in charge of the Muslims. One day before I was about to go see him, a young girl came past. I began to look at her and I continued to follow her with my eyes until she went into her house. Then I went to the Chief of the believers Uthman (RA), he looked at me and he lowered his head. He said, ‘what is the matter with some of you that you committed fornication outside and comes to see me?’ I said, ‘Subhaan’Allaah! Has anyone had revelation happened to them after the Prophet (SAW)? How has he come to know this?” This was because there was a darkness appeared in his face.

• The third reason that causes the hardness of the heart is to see the sins insignificant. The Prophet (SAW) said, “Keep away from those or be careful of those sins that you think insignificant. For indeed they gathered around a person until they destroy him.”

• Not engaging with the laws of sharee’ah and always looking for excuses for yourself if u falling into sin. When Musa (AS) said to his people, ‘Indeed your Lord commands you to slaughter a cow.’ They got into long discussion with him. So Allaah Azza Wa Jal said after it ‘Then your heart become hard after this.’

• Continue to doing that sin: Allaah Azza Wa Jal said, “We has sent messages to nations before you and We afflicted them with hardships and difficulties in the hope that they would turn with repentance to Allaah. So if only when the hardship from Us had come, they would have done so. But instead they hearts become hard. And the shaytaan beautified and adorned for them what they used to do.

• Not remembering Allaah Azza Wa Jal, not reciting the Qur’aan, not reflecting upon it. Allaah Azza Wa Jal said, ‘Owe to those whose hearts are hard because of not remembering Allaah.’

• Being hard and harsh hearted with other people, not forgiving and overlooking other peoples’ mistakes, demanding every single one of your rights even if it is only something insignificant.

• The eighth reason why heart is hard is not looking at own faults. Always trying to advice other people but not looking at ownself.

• Not being attached to Allaah Azza Wa Jal and being attached to other than Allaah Azza Wa Jal. This is to making your heart busy with remembrance of other than Allaah.

• Eating food that is haraam and having wealth that is haraam (gambling, riba).

 *excerpt taken from the lecture titled “Causes of a Heedless Heart”  by Shaykh Adnan Abdul Qadir 

Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Ash-Shinqitee recitation