Enemies of the Heart

First of all, I’m sorry for the complete abandonment of my blog, especially to the 2-3 people who read it. Never again. I’ll try not to do it again.

On to the next lecture…

Listen Here: “Enemies of the Heart” by Shaykh Khalid Abdul Sattar

In this lecture Shaykh Khalid Abdul Sattar details the two enemies of the heart: the inner enemy (the nafs) and the outer enemy (the shaytaan). When a person commits a sin, a black dot appears on his heart and this darkness keeps growing as the person keeps sinning. However if he repents, it is cleared like it never existed.

• The Shaytaan (devil): A tricky manipulator who makes the sins we commit lesser and lesser in our eyes. He makes us lose our understanding of the gravity of the sin. He makes us think our sins are “not that bad,” and even makes us blame others for our actions (My parents keep annoying me, I had to speak disrespectfully to them). He also puts doubt in our minds (Did I do wudhoo?) When he whispers the idea of a sin and the person does not do it, the shaytaan will keep coming at the person with different variations and temptations.

• The Nafs: The nafs is the seat of our inner desires. It is not an inherently evil thing, it’s simply our most human desires. The nafs needs to be controlled and our desires need to be fulfilled in halal ways. When the nafs desires a sin, it will hold on to it firmly and no distraction will calm it.

Purity of heart will be the only thing that combats these enemies:

• Our silence should be for Allah, our speaking should be for Allah. We usually don’t know much about anything but we will be the first to speak about it. The constant use of “I think this…”
• “Speaking much without the mention of Allah is a sign of a hard heart and the one furthest from Allah is the one with the hard heart” – Ibn Umar
• Umar al Khattab (ra) said ” The one who speaks the most will have the most sins.
• The  Prophetصلی اللہ علیہ وسلم said “The one who guarantees me [the purity] of his mouth and private parts, I guarantee him paradise”
• There is great power in words, our outer and inner language should revolve around the remembrance of Allah Most High.