Tazkiyah 15 – Softness of the Heart

Al Hamdulillah

salat wa salam, O Allah, Allah Allah He was heavy.

In our series

I want to remind myself when you about the importance of the softness of the heart.

The hardness of the heart is one of the diseases of the heart.

And that was one that I mentioned is in the Koran also where Allah subhanaw taala said that there are people whose hearts are as hard as stone as hard as rocks. And then he said that, actually the heart is harder than the rock, because the rock splits and springs of water come out of it.

Over the Llano in this narrated from the sort of asylum, he said that

loves Rihanna data will preserve will preserve and protect from the Hellfire two kinds of eyes,

the eyes will stay awake, for the protection of Muslims

and the eyes which weep, tears, for the glory and majesty of Allah.

So hardness of the heart is related to dryness of the eyes, these are two, the symptom of the hardness of the heart is the dryness of the eyes.

And the place to see whether the eyes are dry or not, is not in public. But in private. When we stand in the hedges, what is the stage?

Because sometimes that makes you cry in public.

And law protect us from Rhea. What this can be Allah Allah not saying I'm not saying that everyone who prays in public is doing it out of fear? Of course not. And a lot of people are sincere. But there is always a danger, anything that you do in public, one must always check linear, and z, what is the class of linear because there's always a danger, anyone who feels free from that danger is falling into a trap. But in private ramlila, where we're reading for and where we are contemplating thinking,

this is something which is in charlas sincere. So dryness of the eyes is a symptom of the hardness of the heart.

The hardness of the heart is a disease because it makes us forget our afra

the only way the heart can be hard is by forgetting the other. And that's why the solos are awesome. privated things like laughing very loudly. You know,

having a good sense of humor is part of the charm of a person environment, something which is good for Islam and good for yourself and good for your family. Sometimes we will seem to have no sense of humor, and that's a ridiculous thing, ridiculous way of living, but

laughing very loudly all the time, you know, all of those things are things which

harden the art, also indulging in all sorts of weird

useless things useless talk, all of these are hardness of the heart. The other big reason for the hardness of the heart, unfortunately, is the television. Because especially today,

the television has desensitized us completely to tragedy.

Actual tragedy a couple of days ago, we are able to see you know, murders and all sorts of horrible things,

decimation of populations and so on on television, without having any effect on us.

It has no effect. We watch it all the time. It's simply it's, it's to give you an example.

Somebody who is who wants to learn surgery, for example, medic medicine, surgery, especially surgery.

Most people whether they're in nursing or

studying to be surgeons, most people

have this experience that the first time they are in the operating theatre and they see blood, it has some effect on them, somebody might many people will actually fit and lose consciousness, otherwise they feel sick and so on and so on. But after a while, people who are you know, theater nurses, doctors and so on. They can amputated limbs and they can perform major surgery and you know, split up on the old body and everything else and see everything and all the blood and everything else. And they go they wash their hands they go to the cafeteria have a nice meal.

They have absolutely no problem their appetite is not affected. Nothing is absolute.

Like, they were desensitized to that. They were desensitized to that. Similarly, for example, if you say, if somebody you know, for withdrawal or something, the first time you want to sacrifice an animal, many people have a lot of problem with that, you know, it's not easy for us to take an animal and slit his throat and so on. But a butcher does it every is that is, that is that is his livelihood, that he doesn't think two seconds Also, before slitting the throat of the animal and cutting it open and chopping it up and everything, because the heart has got desensitized to that doesn't affect any more. And I think this is one of the biggest problems that we have with

television that television has on a global scale. It has desensitized people, I'm not even talking about Muslims around everybody, everyone has got a heart. It's not only the Muslims are not everyone has a heart. And people are kind and compassionate and so on whether you're Muslim or not. But because of this, watching those images the whole time, images of poverty, images of, you know,

poverty, the extent of abject poverty. This is a famous photograph that does the rounds. Every once in a while you see of this African little African boy,

Aloha, Aloha, Ahmed, Somali or something, and a vulture sitting next to him. Yet many of us have seen this photograph supposed to be a photograph which won the Pulitzer Prize or something like this. And then this is not to say that the photographer then committed suicide later on in when depression, whatever. But this photograph does around every once in a while, it comes around on the internet as absolutely horrible photograph of this little boy sitting there and the wheelchair sitting next to him. And the story goes that the photographer took the photograph and went away. He did not even pick up the little while to take him to a un, there was evidently a un MIT humanitarian

camp, a couple of kilometers away. But the man did not even pick up the little boy to take him to the camp. He just left him there and went away. And Allah Allah, maybe the vulture killed him or something. But the point i'm saying is that this photograph does around we see the photograph. And after that, what do we do?

How many of us took any step whatsoever to feed a poor person or to keep some money aside for for people who are in hunger or nothing? Absolutely, you see the photograph, you hit the send button, and you send it away again to somebody else, and all your mailing list or something, this is

apart from being a nuisance, this is one of the ways in which the heart gets desensitized by watching all of these images and doing nothing about it. That is the reason why

he said do not mention debts, when you are having your food is that when you are eating, don't mention that. So that is why should we not mention that at that time, he said, because if your heart is alive, then your appetite will go, you will not be able to eat. And if you are still eating, it means your heart is dead.

So he said Why do you want to, you know, test your heart at that directly to four copies really, and then go and talk about debts later on. Because I have the visual remember. And that is one of the most powerful ways of softening the heart which is to remember our debts. Remember that we can die at any time. Just yesterday, I received news of one of my very very dear friends in Dublin Ria Jamal who passed away my age

was the same age and I can still see the others beautiful smile every time the rhinos are real without a smile. And he had cancer and he passed away yesterday, may Allah subhanaw taala fill is covered with more and give general for those who are very is up and well as vannatta bless his family and and give them summer What a wonderful man and he was in involved in so many things of higher, so many good things. in Durban. He was in charge of Allons R and V radio and various things and always very, you know, in the forefront with regard to doing the work of the 911 Ls Raja rewarding and bless him. But we all die.

We all die, we all have to die. And there is nothing to say when we will die. We don't all die of old age, you know, these reminders are very bad. These these things come these reminders are very, very important for us to remember and to let them soften the heart Do not walk around with rocks in our in our just

the other thing. So one way of softening the heart is to think about our depth. Second way to soften the heart is not to watch these images the whole time.

What are we doing this whole issue of news I mean, it's such absolute, one of the traps of shutdown and one of the ways in which the world is being fooled. You know that news is broadcast what what is the good of what

That use, you can change it, you can do anything about it.

All that is happening is as long as you're watching that thing that you're curating those that show are going up and somebody's making money at your expense, nothing else.

There is nothing whatsoever that is useful in that, you know, and that is the reason why I'm not saying don't watch any news, but at least be selective and see what is useful. And you know, watch that and do something about it. Not just keep watching, sitting there with your jaw dropped. So not watching these things, is one way of solving that. remembering our debt very often. This is very important. Third thing is to reflect on the glory and majesty of Allah subhanaw taala.

That's another way of softening the heart, which is to read, did you read the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala understand the meaning and reflect on this. And the fourth way is to read the Sierra avasarala salaam reads a series of zero, the mayor in this era of the Sahaba, and so on, read our history of history is not the story of my life or my father's life. My our history is the story of the Muslims. And therefore it's very important for us to read that. Because then only we have an idea of what those people underwent, what can the hardship there and so on. And these also are things which soften the heart. So very important for us to be clear in our minds. And then of course, I think to

be that because right when you stand with our loss manager, we asked we make dua to Allah subhanaw taala to soften our hearts, because the heart will not allow us to do good deeds. And a hard heart is something that

will protect us but it can be a source of problem for us when when we meet a lot smarter. So we ask Allah subhanaw taala to soften our hearts, to his, to his vigor, to soften our hearts to what happens in the world. We ask Allah subhanaw taala to

make our hearts which are mega hearts responsive, responsive to his column responsive to the message of Mohamed Salah Salem. So that the heart then is not just a hard thing. And we ask Allah subhanaw taala to make our eyes water for his for His glory and His Majesty and make this connection between our heart and the tears in our eyes. which becomes a connection of fire for us in sha Allah, wa salam ala nabina Karim Allah Allah He was happy. I mean, we're happy together.