as-Sadiq

Below is the third part of notes from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s lecture series entitled “The Poor Man’s Book of Assistance.” The lecture series is named after a book written by  ninth century Moroccan scholar Sidi Ahmed Zarruq. Shaykh Hamza translates and gives commentary on this book in this series of 16 CDs.

There are 3 types of heart:

1. saheehun (sound)
2. mayyitun (dead)
3. mareedun (diseased)

From the diseased heart, there are 3 types:

1. soundness greater than the disease
2. disease greater than the soundness
3. soundness and disease are about equal

(the latter two are in dangerous conditions)

How to know whether the heart is healthy or diseased:

1. by knowing the signs and symptoms
2. by knowing the ideology
3. by knowing the desires and the aversions

(outward medicine looks at the very same things)

3 ways to treat the heart:

1. himyat al-badan, which is some type of regime or diet and hunger (not to the point where you harm yourself)
2. inshaaq as-sidq, which is su7bah, keeping the company of good people so you inhale their fragrance
3. isti’maal ad-dawaa’, which is actually using medicine, and the medicine is tadhakkur

Why these 3 are important, and what to remember:

1. remember that you are a stranger in the dunya, alienation of the soul even from itself
2. struggle of the soul at the time of death
3. stand in the presence of Allah swt

By diminishing your appetites, your heart becomes pure and more lucid, and by keeping company with the people of good, your innermost core actually begins to gain yearning. For instance, people who spend a lot of time with musicians will desire to take up an instrument, and the people who are around rich people will desire to make money. The people you keep company with, you’ll desire to do what they do if they are good at it. This is the nature of company. So if you’re in the company of awliyaa’, you actually begin to desire to achieve the states that they achieve, and there’s a desire to get close to Allah. And through the remembrance of Allah, Allah will actually help you because Allah helps the servant in accordance with his intention, so the greater the intention, the greater the help. And Allah will give you spiritual opening and intellectual opening based on your himmah.

In a book on the patience that scholars had in gaining knowledge, it’s mentioned that Ibn Sina read Aristotle’s book of metaphysics 50 times before he had his opening in it. And the point is it’s himmah. If you have himmah in anything, the opening you’ll get will be in accordance with it. For athletes, there is natural talent and there’s work, and there will be people who will have natural talent who don’t do the work. So sometimes people will see a master pianist and think it’s just a musical gift, but they don’t see the 8 hours that person puts in 6-7 days a week. And the mediocre musician is practicing maybe 2 hours a day. Even in the dunya, the openings come from the himmah of the person. What the servant has to do is take the means to the openings, but leave the openings to Allah.

If the nafs has aversion to being reminded or you see that the heart is neglectful about these means about bringing about inner sight, like dhikr of Allah, then you have to force yourself to do those means that will remind you and then intend to do those things that strengthen you and strengthen your reflection. If you find difficulty, and your nafs is not inclining to the 3 things above, here’s another 3 things you could do:

1. wujood al-khalwa, which is to go into a leisurely retreat (doesn’t mean wasting your time) which means that you don’t have anything to do, you are not occupied with the world, you have time to study, and do this even if you’re not doing dhikr. Literally be in a state of khalwa because you’re forced to look at your nafs.
2. visiting the graveyards alone, even if you’re not reflecting, because even just being in the graveyards will have an effect on you. These will remind you of the akhirah (at-Takathur).
3. istighfar wa salat `ala an-nabi, do istighfar and salat on Muhammad saws. Why do we say istighfar right after you pray salah? Because of the deficiency of your prayer. When the nafs is in this state of deficiency, then saying a lot of istighfar is beneficial for the nafs, even if you’re just staying it on your tongue, it’s a good thing to do. For the prayer on the Prophet saws – it has many benefits. One of them is that the path on the sirat is made easy (from a hadith). It draws you closer to the Prophet saws, and love will enter into your heart for him just by saying the prayer. It purifies the heart; it’s considered a shaykh when there is no shaykh. Do this in all matters. The Prophet saws would visit the graveyards at least once a week. Visit a Muslim graveyard in your area if you have one, and make du`a for them and give them your salam.

A hadith says, “Whoever is continuous in his istighfar, Allah will make for every anxiety that he has some release of it, and for every constraint/difficulty that he has He’ll give him some outlet, and He will provide for him from where he’s not expecting.”

Another hadith related by Abu Bakr RA (rarely relates hadith) says, “Prayer upon me is noor in the heart, noor in the grave, noor on the sirat, and it is greater in its extinguishing wrong actions than cold water is to fire.”

Now Sidi Zarruq relates that if you’re having problems with the other 3 things listed above, and your nafs is refusing to follow that pathway, either because it’s too weighty for the nafs (doesn’t want to think about its wrong actions or think about death) or because you’re too preoccupied with the dunya, then this is a sign of stupidity and forsakenness, a sign that you are in khidhlaan (the opposite of tawfeeq, which is your wanting what Allah wants for you), which is that you want something that’s bad and Allah leaves you to it. You’re in deep trouble. This is a proof in the weakness of your certainty and your faith.

As for being preoccupied with the world, that is due to the fact that your own desires have overcome you. Allah has taken care of your dunya (he’s not insinuating that you shouldn’t work), so don’t continue to worry about it and to be obsessed with it. As for the former (too weighty for the nafs), there are two treatments for it:

1. you force yourself to do it even though you may not want to do. You have to force yourself in spite of yourself to do it, and then preoccupy the self in those things that are mashkoora (things that Allah encourages us to do and tells us we will be rewarded for it), and don’t concern yourself with the benefit. Just think of it as khalas, I have to do it. Just do it as an exercise, as if you know you have to run every day or floss every day. And don’t look at whether you’re doing it in the best way or not; concern yourself simply with doing it. Don’t be obsessed with you’re not doing it right or that you’re not doing enough; just do it and be consistent in it. For example, when you’re driving in your car, just force yourself to do 100 salat an-nabi. Why? Because this activity will force the nafs to come to its senses whether it likes it or not, and it will preoccupy the nafs from what it has been accustommed and grown up doing (which is your ghaflah).
2. you have to repeat this stuff over and over without the proofs, without all of the commentary, and study these meanings and just simply reciting them, until they’re completely fixed in you so you know. Get to know this material, your deen really well. Get to know what we’re taught about reality really well. When something goes wrong, you don’t get upset (one sign of someone with weak iman is that they become upset when something goes wrong) by it because who made everything go wrong? Allah did. Why did He make it go wrong? One of 2 reasons: because you were doing things wrong and He pulls the carpet out from under you so you can stop in your tracks and ask yourself what you were doing that would make Allah do this to you OR because He’s elevating you in degrees. He’s either calling attention to your stupidity so you can stay astaghfirulLah, or He’s giving you tribulation in order to raise you up and elevate you, so why are you getting upset? Both scenarios are good. One brings you back to the right track, and the other ensures that you’re on the right track and are improving. So when trials come, you should say subhan’Allah, alhamdulilLah. In knowing all these things, your strengths are going to become energized and lively, and reality is going to protect you from your hawaa and desires. Because for every human being, even if he is a weak human being, there is a way of breaking things down to where his certainty will increase and this is through repetition because through repetition, meanings become confirmed and the substance of that meaning becomes manifest. Through repetition, even a weak human being by nature will get stronger in the understanding of the meanings. All little children start with 1+2 = 3, etc. The only way the children progress is through repetition.

As for your preoccupation and your lack of leisure, this is an excuse that is unacceptable and unpalatable because either you’re preoccupied with something that has some element of the truth in it, like seeking knowledge which has a danger of arrogance, elitism, vanity, egoism, OR what by its nature necessitates sincerity and it either has some immediate benefit or some later benefit, and none of that should negate the ability to reflect and to be reminded. No matter who you are, you have time. Don’t tell me you’re too busy because you were drinking coffee, watching movies, playing ping pong, etc. Quit fooling yourself; you have time, but you’ve chosen not to utilize your time. Don’t delude yourself. Whenever people say “I don’t have time,” it’s always a lie.

One thing that Marcus Aurelius said he learned from one of his teachers was, “Never use the excuse of preoccupation in an avoidance of responsibility.” Don’t ever say you’re too preoccupied to do what you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t do anything that isn’t a necessity, even if it’s a mandub because if you’re doing a mandub instead of doing a necessity, then you’re doing something wrong. That’s the same with anything; you learn to prioritize things. Where you put Allah and His Messenger saws on your list will show how sincere you are. Some people’s tops of the lists with either be dunya, family, leisure time (sculpting your body and ignoring your inner character, which is funny because your body will decline but your morals should get better and you can develop your virtue as you get older but the physical things are just downhill). If indeed you did spend all your time in this preoccupied state, then you’re taking your reality to what you’re preoccupied in, and therefore the Haqq cannot be firmly established because of what you’re negating by it (what you’re leaving by not prioritizing these things).

And now there are 3 treatments:

1. take some portion of your day and night, one sa`ah (any portion of time), where you’re alone with yourself and you look at what you did today and what you did yesterday. What did I do for my deen, my heart, my family, my parents? And then reflect on death preparation for you. Death is preparing to attack you, lurking somewhere. Prepare for your death, my brother, and don’t extend your hopes because your heart will become hard (don’t think you have a lot of time), and be constant in your reflection on the seriousness of death, and quickly hasten to action because your life is dissipating. Even the Buddhists say that the best meditation to take your life into account is the meditation on death. That will cause you to take action. The strangest thing about human beings is that they see death all around them and no one thinks it’s coming to them (a Hindu tradition).
2. if you’re not capable of doing the first thing because of the previous exhaustion and you’re preoccupied with the world, then at least steal a day out of all these days in the week, just one day or two days out of the week, or three days out of the month, and make it like a debt you have to pay. These are all different spiritual exercises that you can do; you can put these on your calendar. It’s encouraged to fast 3 days a month, so you can fast on 3 days and then sit and reflect on those days. Think about where you are going (fa ayna tadhhabbun).
3. if you’re not able to do that because you’re so overwhelmed, then make the day of `Arafah, once a year, a day to reflect.

Death is a powerful thing, and you can actually experience your mortality in a meditation of death, which causes you to assess what you’re going to do with your life. Nobody on their death bed wants to do anything other than right actions; no one thinks that they wish they spent more time at the office or that they would have watched more TV. People will always say that they wish they went to the masjid more, prayed more, read more, etc.