* Excellence of Actions depends on one's Heart:
"Actions are distinguished, one from the other, with respect to their excellence in the Sight of Allah in accordance with the condition of the heart, not by their number or form, but rather due to the strength of the caller, his or her truthfulness, his or her sincerity and the extent to which he or she prefers Allah over himself or herself." -Ibn Qayyim* The heart is the leader of the body:
"The heart has been singled out for this because it is the leader of the body, and through the purification of the leader the subjects become purified, and with his corruption they become corrupted. So if you, O servant of Allah, wish to cure your heart then it is upon you to be truthful with regards to seeking refuge with Allah and putting your trust in Him, to pray a great deal of supererogatory prayers, to perform the actions of obedience to Allah frequently, to pray the night prayer while the people are sleeping, and to treat your heart by making it continuously stick to the remembrances and by befriending only the righteous ... and to frequently recite the Qur'an. May Allah allow all of this to be preserved by him." -Ibn Hajr al-Asqalani* "The hearts are three types:
- The correct heart that is secure from all desires that oppose the command of Allah and His prohibitions, and it is secure form all doubts that contradict what He informs. Just as it is secure from worshiping anything else besides Allah and from seeking judgment from any person other than His Messenger.
- The dead heart, this being the opposite of the correct heart containing no life, neither knowing its Lord nor worshiping Him.
- The heart that has some life but also has a defect. So it contains love of Allah, faith in Him, sincerity and trust towards Him from those things that are essential to it remaining alive. It also contains the love of vain desires and preference for them, despicable morals and manners from those things that cause it to die, and it is continuously wavering between these two conditions." -Ibn Taymiya
* The Life Of The Heart:
In a dua the Prophet (SAWS) supplicated,
"Make the Quran the nurturer (rabi) of our hearts and the light of our chest." [Ahmad]
Rabi means the rain that descends from the sky and nourishes the plants. The Arabs call the season in which the rain first descends al-Rabi due to the fall of rain which causes growth (of produce). The non-Arabs call the season that follow winter al-Rabi because in this season the plants from which fruit is produced blossom and the leaves on the trees appear.
* "The life of the heart and its illumination is the cause of all good to be found in it and its death and darkness is the cause of all evil to be found in it."
* "The heart can never be alive and correct except through cognizance of the truth, loving it and preferring it to everything else. There can never be any happiness, joy or correction for it, unless it makes its sole object of worship and desire Allah alone.
This can never be perfected except through purification of heart, repentance, and its relinquishing itself from all types of false love and despicable manners. This can never be attained except through striving hard against one's soul that incites towards evil, and bringing it to account and combating the satans from among the jinn by holding fast to Allah; knowing their plots and objectives, and safeguarding oneself from them through remembrance of Allah, the Exalted, and seeking refuge with Him from them." -Ibn Taymiya
* Between Sickness And Death of the Heart:
""All of the diseases of the heart are founded upon desires and doubts.
Sickness is of a lesser level then death, so the heart dies due to total ignorance but becomes ill due to having fragments of ignorance, and in this case there can be either death, sickness or healing for the heart. Its life, death, sickness and the cure is greater and more vital then the life, death, sickness and cure of the body. This is why the heart becomes sick when presented with doubts and desires, or the sickness becomes more acute. If wisdom and goodly exhortation occur then theses are routes to its correction and cure." -Ibn Taymiya
* "Allah has made the natural disposition of His servants to love Him and worship Him Alone, so if the natural disposition was to be left as it is without corrupting it, then it would be cognizant of Allah, loving Him Alone; but the natural disposition does become corrupted due to the sickness of the heart..." -Ibn Taymiya
* Tazkiya or Zakah of the Heart:
"Zakah (purification) in the language means: growth and increase in correction, it is said, 'something has zakah', when it has grown in correction. The heart is in need of being nurtured so that it may mature and increase until it becomes complete and correct just as the body is in need of nourishment that is good for it, but along with this there is a need to prevent anything from harming it. So the body will not grow until it gains that which will benefit it and is prevented from that which will harm it, likewise the heart will not become pure such that it may grow and become complete with respect to its correction, until it attains that which benefits it and represses that which harms it - just as the flower will not grow without these two factors."
"So the zakah of the heart means its growing and becoming complete."
"Tazkiya (purification), even if its basic meaning is growth, blessing and increase in goodness, is only attained by removing the evil, and this is why purification has come to combine both these matters (i.e., performing good and avoiding evil)." -Ibn Taymiya
* The Quran Is A Cure For The Hearts:
"The Quran is a cure for that which is within the heart, and for the one who has the sickness of doubt and desire in his heart, for it contains clear proofs that distinguish the truth from falsehood, and remove the sickness of false doubts to leave certain knowledge, correct perception and understanding such that the heart sees things in accordance to their reality. It contains wisdom, goodly exhortations both encouraging good and deterring from evil, and stories which contain lessons that necessarily lead to the correction of the heart by making the heart desire what is good for it and detest what is harmful to it. Hence the heart is left desiring that which will guide it hating that which will deviate it after it used to desire that which would deviate it and hate that which would guide it.
The Quran removes all the sicknesses that invoke false desires until the heart becomes pure and therefore its desires become pure and it returns to the natural state (fitrah) that it was created in, just as the body returns to the natural state upon being treated. The heart will be nurtured with faith and the Quran such that it will become strong - for indeed the purification of the heart is like the growing of the body." -Ibn Taymiya
* Leaving Indecent Actions Are A Cure For The Heart:
"Similarly abstaining from indecent actions and sins leads to purification of the heart, for these are of the same level as leprosy of the body or thorns on a flower. So when the body is freed of this leprosy by releasing the additional blood for example, the natural strength of the body emerges and it can find relief and thereby grow. Likewise when one seeks repentance from sin, the heart is released from contamination - whereby it mixed the righteous actions with evils actions, so when one repents from sins the strength of the heart emerges as does its desire to perform righteous actions and it finds relief from these false and corrupt matters that it was submerged in."
* The Effect Of Sins Upon The Purity Of The Heart:
"Adl (fairness and justice) is Itidal (balance), and in balance lies the correction of the heart, just as in zulm (imbalance/ oppression) lies its corruption. This is why for every sin that the person has committed he has oppressed his self (zaliman Ii nafsihi). The opposite of zulm is Adl, so this sinful person has not been just to his self rather he has oppressed it. The correction of the heart lies in Adl and its corruption lies in zulm. Therefore, when the servant oppresses himself he is the oppressor and oppressed at the same time, likewise when he is just then he is the one who is just and the one upon whom the justice is carried out.
The person does an action and he will receive the fruit of this action, be it bitter or sweet.
Aml (actions) have an effect upon the heart, either of benefit, harm, or correction, before they effect the external body. The good and pure actions constitute justice for the soul whereas bad actions oppress the soul.
Allah the Most High, said,
Whoever does righteous deeds it is for the (benefit of) himself, and whosoever does evil, it is against his own self. [Surah Fussilat (41) : 46]
If you do good, you do good for your own selves, and if you do evil, you do it against yourselves. [Surah al-Isra (17) : 7]
Some of the Salaf said, 'Indeed good actions are a light in the heart, a strengthening for the body, a glow on the face, a cause for extensive provisions and love in the hearts of the creation. Indeed bad actions are a darkness in the heart, a blackness on the face, a weakness for the body, a cause for decrease in provisions and hatred in the hearts of the creation."
* Some Cures For The Heart:
From those things that nourish the heart are supplication at the end of the night, the times of Adhan and lqamah, in his prostration, at the ends of the prayers - add to this repentance. For indeed the one who repents to Allah and then in turn Allah forgives him, He will then give him enjoyment for an appointed time. That he takes to reciting the reported adhkar for the day and at the time he sleeps. That he bears with patience what he is enticed with that would divert him from all of this, for Allah will immediately aid him with a spirit from Him and write faith in his heart. That he be eager to complete the obligatory duties such as the five prayers inwardly and outwardly for they are the pillars of the religion. That his words of recourse be:
'la hawla wala quwwata illa billah'
for by them heavy burdens can be borne, horrors can be over come, and the servant be gifted with the best of conditions to live in. That he should not give up the supplication and seeking help from Allah, for the servant will be answered as long as he is not hasty, saying:
'I have supplicated and supplicated but I have not been answered.' [Muslim]
That he should know that help comes with patience, that relief comes after anxiety and distress, that after every period of difficulty there follows a period a period of ease. [Ahmad and Tirmidhi]
That he knows that no prophet or one less than him was rewarded with a good end except as a result of his being patient."
Quotes Extracted from - 'Diseases of The Heart and Their Cures' based on Fatawa of Ibn Taymiyyah
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