Mirza Yawar Baig – Whats the nature of the Qalb
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Bismillah wa alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala
Rasulullah wa ba'ith.
So, what's the next question?
He said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
Lahum qulubun la yafqahuna biha.
They have hearts, but they have no understanding,
they don't understand Him.
And then, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
the hadith where He said that, fil jasad
budqa.
He said, in the body there is a
lump of flesh.
And if that is salim, if that is
good, then the whole body is good.
And if that is corrupted, the whole body
is corrupted.
And then we have also, where Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala mentions, illa man atallaha biqalbin
salim.
la yanfa'u maalun wa la banu.
It's not your wealth and it's not your
children which will benefit you.
What will benefit you is, atqalbun salim.
Now, question therefore, Omar said this, so therefore
does the heart, as in, what is pumping
him, does it have the capacity to understand
and to differentiate and to love and so
on and so forth?
Does it have all these capacities?
Or is there some allegorical metaphorical meaning?
My understanding of Allah alam, and of course
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best.
My understanding is, first of all, today medical
research tells us that the heart has neurons.
And the heart does understand, that the heart
does remember, there is memory in the heart
and so forth.
So there is actually physical research.
But we don't need that physical research.
Alhamdulillah, this confirms what we know already.
Now, on a side note, this is something
very important to always keep in mind and
to make sure that people understand.
And before people that we understand, that whenever
we talk about the creation of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, whatever it is, we don't
use the creation to prove the truth about
the karam of Allah.
We don't use the creation, we don't say,
well, you know, we have the Big Bang
Theory, and because of that we know that
this ayat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is true.
No, it's the other way around.
The ayat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is true, whether there is a Big Bang
Theory or not.
Because very simple question, when the ayat was
revealed, there was the Big Bang Theory, so
what is the ayat not true at that
time?
So what's the point of saying Big Bang
Theory?
Big Bang Theory is a theory.
So tomorrow if the Big Bang Theory for
whatever reason is disproved, so what do we
say to the Qur'an?
The Qur'an is false.
So don't fall into this trap.
By all means, use the signs from the
creations of the heavens and the earth.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Inna fi
qalqil samawati wal ardi waqtila fil layli wal
nahari al ayati li ulil albab.
But let us be true ulul albab, who
know as Muslims that the kalaam of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is the final confirmer
of what we see as our experience in
life.
The life experience and scientific research and whatever
does not confirm the kalaam of Allah.
Allah's kalaam confirms that.
So having said that, we also have this
research, which has been published to say that
the heart has neurons, the heart has memory,
the heart feels and so on and so
forth.
So it's not just a mechanical muscle which
is pumping blood.
It's more than that.
Number one.
Number two, however, is to understand that the
word that is used in the Qur'an
is qalb.
Right?
It's qalb.
It's qalb.
It is translated as the heart, but does
it just mean the lump of muscle, the
lump of life?
The qalb, the concept of the qalb in
Islam is a combination of intelligence and intellect,
of emotions and intellect.
Emotions and intellect.
And this is true to human nature.
And this kind of differentiation that we have
made, which you normally hear, things of the
heart, things of the head.
So we have separated, at least in Western
thinking, and therefore all English people, English-speaking
people are prone to that.
We separate these functions as if a human
being is capable of living in compartments.
So there is an intellectual part of the
human being and then there is a emotional
part of the human being and these two
are unconnected, disconnected, and they can operate separately,
discreetly, differentially, without affecting each other.
This is a completely false premise.
So I would ask you to remove this
from your minds.
Now, to give you an experiential or an
example of this stuff, to prove what I'm
saying.
Imagine that you are a very highly qualified
professor, dean and president of a university.
You have three PhDs in psychology and sociology
and mathematics and you are one of the
most intelligent human beings that ever lived on
the face of the earth.
Your IQ is 300 or something and so
forth, right?
Now, you went to work, you're returning from
work, and as you get close to your
house, you find there is smoke and you
find there are flashing lights of fire tenders
and police cars.
And as you get close to your house,
you turn down your street, you find the
police have cordoned off a house and people
are standing there and you realize it is
your house.
You say, my God, what happened?
And you find that your house is on
fire.
So you jump out of your car and
you try to run to the house and
the policeman stops you and he says, no,
don't go inside there.
You say, this is my house.
Policeman says, don't worry, your family is safe.
And here they are and you find your
wife and two children who are standing on
the pavement.
Of course, everyone is traumatized, everyone is very
upset, but they are safe.
But suddenly you hear a little voice screaming,
Daddy!
And you find that on the balcony of
the house, upper floor, is your little two
-year-old who has seen you and he
is yelling for you.
Daddy, save me!
Now, what would you do?
What would you do?
So usually when I ask this question, the
immediate answer of people is, I will rush
in to save the child.
I say, no, no, hold on, you didn't
listen to the story.
You have to take into account all the
data I gave you.
And the data I gave you began with
the statement that you are the president of
this university, you have three PhDs in psychology,
in sociology and mathematics, you are one of
the most intelligent human beings ever created and
so on and so forth.
So I don't think you will rush in
there and try to save the child, most
likely in the process killing yourself and the
child.
You won't do that.
You are an intelligent man, so I think
what you will do is, you will have
a conversation with the child.
And you will say to the child, you
know, my son, I'm really sorry but this
is the Qadr of Allah.
This is how much lifespan you came with.
And we know lifespan is fixed.
And Alhamdulillah, believe me, the fire is big.
You will probably get associated with the smoke
before the fire gets to you, so you
will be dead before, so you won't burn
alive and so on.
You won't feel the pain.
And you will go to Allah free from
sin.
And Inshallah Allah will give you Jannah.
And your mom and I, you know, we
can have another child.
I don't think it's really worth the risk
of me killing myself.
I think you will have this conversation because
after all, you have all this education, you
are an intelligent person.
So what's the answer to that?
You know the answer to that, I know
the answer to that.
You know what you would do, I know
what I would do.
Now, point therefore is that at the end
of the day, what is it that makes
the man take that action?
Is it that so-called intelligence and what
not?
Or is it the heart which is moving
out of love for this child?
And nothing and nothing can come in the
way of the love of the child in
the heart of his father.
And there's nothing that the father will not
do to try to save the child, no
matter how slim the chances might be.
So he will go in even when it
seems like certain death.
This is what Islam shows.
Islam shows that the heart is a combination
of the intellect and the emotion.
So the heart is not a hypothetical, it's
not a symbolic thing, it's not hypothetical, it's
not allegorical.
The heart is real.
Now you might say, well, if it's real,
where can I pinch it and poke it
and where can I take it from and
put it in my pocket?
From the same place where you can take
your intelligence, from the same place where you
can take your love, and so forth.
These are things which we give names to,
but say, what is the relationship of intelligence
to the brain?
Is it again this thing which sits in
your head?
And if it was in the head of
a sheep, it's a nice breakfast dish, in
Hyderabad at least.
Is the intelligence in there, those neurons and
the stuff which is in the head?
Or is intelligence something which is associated with
the brain in a way that Allah knows
best?
We don't understand that yet, which one it
is.
And my understanding is that this is the
relationship of the kalb to the pump of
the flesh, the heart, which is there in
the body of the human.
Again, science does not prove or disprove anything,
but we know today that people have heart
transplants, right?
So now, imagine you are this Muslim, and
you are this great faqih, and you are
a great somebody who loves Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala over and above everything else, and
you are an alim, and you are a
hafiz of the Qur'an, and your heart
decides to take a holiday, and they grab
you in time, they take you to the
hospital, and there is a heart there which
is available for transplant, and they transplant that
heart into your chest, and alhamdulillah, everything works,
your body doesn't reject it.
But later you discover that this heart was
the heart of a Hindu priest, and this
Hindu priest worshipped idols all his life, and
he died on that.
Or this heart was the heart of a
Christian priest, or of a rabbi, and they
did their thing all their lives, and they
died.
And this heart now is in your chest.
So what do you think happens to your
iman?
What do you think happens to your love
for Allah?
You know what I think happens to your
love for Allah?
It increases.
You gave me this new life, so to
speak.
It's the same life, Allah didn't decree that
you would die, so it's not a new
life.
So make me live this life in your
obedience.
This is what will happen.
Just because this pump got replaced, it doesn't
mean that everything that you associated with the
qalb also got replaced.
It doesn't get replaced like that.
It does not get replaced.
Because the qalb is the heart, and we
are saying this word heart and so forth
because we don't have any other word to
describe that, and we really don't understand what
is this supernatural, for want of a better
word, relationship between what is physically in my
chest and the meaning of the word qalb,
and meaning I don't mean as in tarjiwa
translation, meaning as in the all in-depth
understanding of what it means.
So we don't have a word to describe
that, so we're using the word heart, but
that is what it means.
So, walla halam, Allah knows what He said,
and the Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam knows what
He says, but by this qalb and this
corruption of the heart, it's really meant, not
that you have angina, or not that you
have a problem of too much biryani in
the arteries, but the fact that your connection
somewhere with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
missing, and that connection has got corrupted, and
the connection is getting interrupted.
So that is what is the corruption in
the heart, and that is what is meant
by the salama of the khan, inshallah.
And as I said, Allah knows best, sharing
with you my understanding.
Jazakallah Khair, wa salamu alaikum.