We ask the Almighty to bless him and his entire household; those who supported him from day one. And we ask Allāh to bless all his companions as well as every single one of us and our offspring to come up to the day of qiyāmah. Not forgetting those who have struggled and strove through the years, in order to preserve this deen in a way that today it has come to us. May Allāh use us to do the sam
e for the future generations. Beloved brothers and sisters in Islām, this evening we will be talking about the purification of the soul. The believer as you know is only successful if he develops his link with his maker and cleanses his heart. We refer to the heart, we refer to the soul. Allāh speaks about cleansing oneself from the sins that are apparent as well as those that are hidden. So in the Qur'ān he says,
“Watharoo thāhira alithmi wabātinah” [Surah Al An'am ; 120]
“Leave and abandon all sins whether they are outward or inward.”
And I'm sure we all know that the outward sins are quite clear for everyone to see. Those which are inside are sometimes completely invisible to the rest. It is only through interaction that some of them can be picked up and sometimes even with interaction some of these sins can not be picked up. So it is up to us to purify not only the soul but the heart, knowing that some of the scholars refer to the heart and the soul using the same term and some have separated the two. If the heart is pure and good, the whole body will be pure and good
What we do need to understand is that the heart is described in the hadith of halāl and harām which appears in Sahīh Muslim, narrated by an-Nu'man ibn Bashir “Halāl is quite clear and harām is also quite clear”. And between the two there may be a grey area where people may not know is this halāl or is this harām.” So the hadeeth continues to say “Whoever stays away from that which is doubtful has protected himself and his religion and whoever falls into that which is doubtful has fallen into harām.” If I can stop there for a moment and quickly explain. If a person were to be told that this particular piece of food that you're about to eat is poisonous and as soon as you put it in your mouth you will die. And twenty people are saying that to him and another twenty say “No don't worry it's fine, it's okay, we've checked it out and so on and you can eat it.” That is a very clear example of what we are saying today, meaning in this hadeeth. If you were to put it in your mouth, it's as though you've committed su***de. You've killed yourself, because twenty are saying this and twenty are saying that. And if you were to leave it, you would save yourself completely. So there is no risk involved by leaving it and yet by taking it you are definitely risking your life. This is as far as a food stuff goes which may be poisonous. But when it comes to the deen and what Allāh has revealed and sent down, there are things that are clear, things that are not clear for some and the clarity is either this way or that way. You know this is permissible and this is not permissible. That is clear. But sometimes there is a debated issue in the center. If you are to protect yourself from it, perhaps you will be able to safeguard your deen. And in this particular narration some may say that this is speaking more about food stuff and so on, but the wording of Rasoolullāh goes far beyond anything that can be termed halāl or harām is included in this particular narration. Then the hadith continues to say “Similar to a shepherd who has allowed his flock to graze upon the border of his land not knowing whether it has gone onto the land of the neighbor because the demarcation is not so clear.” So there is a point up to which he knows this is my land. Beyond that he is not so clear. Is this my land or is it not my land? So when he goes to that grey area, he doesn't know whether it's his or not. What a big risk. He is now grazing his sheep, as a shepherd, on land that may not be his. And this is why the narration continues to say “Behold every king has limits. Limits beyond which you are not allowed or you will not be allowed to cross. Every king has rules, regulations and indeed the limits of Allāh are those things he has made prohibited.” Don't go there! Subhān Allāh. Then it continues making mention of the heart and this is what we are trying to get to “Behold in the body there is a piece of flesh. If it is pure and clean and good, the entire body will be pure and clean and good. And if it is dirty, impure and not good, then the whole body will be dirty, impure and not good. Behold, that organ or that piece of flesh is the heart.” Subhān Allāh. So if your heart is clean, everything else will be okay. If your heart is dirty, everything else will be dirty.
