Bismillahir Rahmaanir
Raheem
Hazrat Maulana Yunus
Patel Saheb (Rahmatullahi ‘alayh)
Like the needle of the
compass faces North when at rest, so the heart of the Mu’min faces in the
direction of Allah Ta’ala’s obedience and pleasure. In the obedience of Allah
Ta’ala do we find our peace, contentment and happiness.
When a compass is moved
or shaken, we observe how the needle is disturbed and begins to move restlessly
this way and that way – as if agitated. When it is placed down, it continues to
move about until finally it finds its rest in the direction of North.
SubhanAllah! We should
take lesson from this.
…When the heart of a
Mu’min is shaken with sins, with disobedience to Allah Ta’ala, then the heart’s
Sukoon is disturbed. The heart is in a state of restlessness and anxiety until the
person sincerely repents. On sincere Taubah, the heart settles back in Allah
Ta’ala’s pleasure and once again enjoys its Sukoon (tranquility).
Our Sheikh, Hazrat
Maulana Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar Saheb (Rahmatullahi ‘Alayh) would say that
Sukoon is an exclusive bounty and gift for the Muslim. It only descends on the
heart of a Believer, with the condition that there is obedience to Allah Ta’ala
and abstinence from sins.
Not only do sins disturb
and disrupt the tranquility of the heart; it blemishes the heart with ugly
black marks.
Rasulullah (1) explained: “When a Mu’min (believer) sins, a black dot
appears on his heart. If he repents and seeks Allah’s forgiveness, his heart
becomes cleansed and polished. If he continues to commit more and more sins
(without repenting), the spot continues to spread and ultimately covers all of
his heart.”[1]
I have given the following
analogy many a time: The person who is wearing a white Kurta and he is always conscious
of his cleanliness, will be very uneasy and uncomfortable if a drop of black
ink falls onto his Kurta or if food stains his Kurta. He will make haste to wash
it off immediately – because the stain of ink spoils the whiteness of his
Kurta.
This is the condition of
the Mu’min who is obedient to Allah Ta’ala. His heart is like a white garment
or a white sheet. The moment he falls into any sin, mistakenly, he senses the dark, black spot of sin on his white
heart. He is very uneasy, uncomfortable
and unhappy and immediately seeks to clean his heart with sincere Taubah.
We find those who work in
garages generally wear dark overalls. This is because they handle oil and
grease and their work requires clothing which is practical. Because the
clothing is dark, if more oil and more grease soils and stains the overall, the
person will not really be aware of it and will not be bothered because his
garments are dark in colour anyway. So any amount of oil and grease and dirt
may soil his clothing, but it is not really apparent and does not worry him.
Similar is the condition
of the person whose heart is already soiled and dirtied with sins for which no Taubah
has been made. More sins do not affect him because the heart is already dark
and black.
This does not mean that a
person sits content with such a heart. It
is absolutely necessary that he quickly begins a full scrub and wash of his
heart with Taubah and Istighfaar.
Sincere Taubah, Zikrullah
and the effort in the direction of obedience to Allah Ta’ala will most
certainly remove all the blackness and dirt of sins from that heart. The heart
will then be in its original state of whiteness and cleanliness, Insha-Allah.
Nabi (Sallallaahu
‘alayhi wasallam) taught us a Dua that facilitates this washing and purification of the
heart:
“O Allah, wash off my
sins with the (melted) water of ice and snow, and purify my heart of sins, even
as white clothes are cleansed of filth.”
Hazrat Maulana Shah Abdul Ghani Saheb (Rahmatullah ‘alaih) had explained that the
quality of ice is its coolness and
the outward characteristic of snow is its whiteness.
Thus, the whiteness removes the darkness
of sins and the coolness eliminates the heat of sins. …SubhanAllah
Nabi (Sallallaahu ‘alayhi wasallam) used the word ‘white’
cloth because black cloth does not make apparent the stains or marks of dirt.
White clothes reveal the slightest trace of dirt.
Together with sincere
Taubah, it is essential to dissociate oneself from bad company and bad
environments and to seek out good and pious companions who will encourage and
inspire in the direction of obedience to Allah Ta’ala and Rasulullah
(Sallallaahu ‘alayhi wasallam), as well as find and keep to those environments
which make easy practising on Deen.
Hazrat Maulana
Jalaluddeen Rumi (Rahmatullahi ‘Alayh) had related an incident of a tanner who
was one day passing by some perfume shops. Since most of his time was occupied
with tanning animal skins, he was used to strong bad smell. While passing
the perfume shops, the pleasant fragrances did not agree with him and
he fell down unconscious.
The people around him made
every effort to revive him but no one was successful. When his brother was
informed, he went to where the tanner lay unconscious and on smelling the
fragrances wafting in the air, he understood the cause of his brother’s
condition. He immediately went away and returned after a while, bringing in his sleeve, some faeces of a
dog. He held his sleeve near his brother who was revived immediately.
All were astounded and
bewildered as to what was so effective and so helpful in reviving the tanner,
when there were so many perfume shops in the vicinity and all sorts of fragrances
were used in the effort to revive the tanner.
This is just a story but
with great lesson.
That person who spends
his life in sins, becomes accustomed to dirty environments and dirty deeds.
Good deeds are unfamiliar and foreign to the person. The person can even reach
a stage where there is an aversion to good and thus he stays far away from
those places and gatherings where the perfume of Allah Ta’ala’s love is
distributed and shared.
Our Shaykh, Hazrat
Maulana Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar Saheb (Rahmatullahi ‘alayh) had explained that like
the tanner, the sinner is unable to appreciate the gardens of Allah Ta’ala’s
remembrance. However, if the person is sincere, makes the effort, and begins to
spend time in the environments of purity and virtue, then a time will most
certainly arrive when the person will acknowledge, and with great regret, that
his life was wasted in filth and evil. Now
that he is accustomed to and enjoys the fragrance of Allah Ta’ala’s love in
these beautiful gatherings, he does not ever want to return to a life of sin.
May Allah Ta’ala grant us
the Taufeeq of sincere Taubah and enable us to appreciate the opportunities to
attend the Majaalis of Deen and enjoying the beautiful gardens of Zikrullah and
maximizing on this.
[1]
Tirmidhi
