I can no longer feel it.

It is certainly inside me, but I have not felt it for so long now. In fact, I do not know when, where or even how it happened. What I know now is that I do not feel it. I have lost it. It was inside me. I truly felt it. Nevertheless, it has died. 


I remember when it was alive and energetic. I felt then that I was alive. Whenever I came to do an act of obedience, my living heart was full of joy and happiness. However, now it is completely darkened by acts of disobedience and covered with drapes that never allow light to penetrate it. 


Ibn Al-Qayyim  said, 


The sick heart is a heart with both life and illness. The former sustains it at one moment, the latter at another, and it follows whichever of the two that manages to dominate it. It has love for Allah, belief in Him, sincerity towards Him and reliance upon Him and these are what give it life. It also has a craving for desires, preferring them and striving to experience them. It is full of envy, arrogance, self-conceit, love of superiority and tendency to cause corruption on earth which can lead to its own destruction. It is motivated by two callers: one calling it to Allah, His Prophet  and the Last Day; and the other calling it to this worldly life. It responds to whichever of the two that happens to be closer. That sick heart wavers between its safety and its ruin. 


Nevertheless, I did not surrender. I did not feel comfortable with my heart wavering between light and darkness. I do not know whether my self loves darkness or is fond of light. Wavering between these two can make a person feel mad. Once he reaches the highest degree of obedience and closeness to Allah. As such he feels as if everything is all right and that he will remain straight. Nevertheless, darkness soon calls him and drags him to its circle. As such one can not flee from the custody of darkness. In fact, he falls into the traps of disobedience and moves down to the deepest degrees in challenging Allah The Almighty. Then he regains consciousness after having been dumbfounded by the horrible fall and gravity of being away from Allah The Almighty. Therefore, he quickly moves to Allah The Almighty asking Him to save him from darkness. 


While one wavers between this and that, he gives free hand to himself leaving it to drag him to darkness. Meanwhile, his reason calls him to stand up, to wake up before it is too late! But he does nothing to save himself. Rather, he keeps on falling and falling and falling… 


When he reaches the bottom, it is as if he does not feel his heart. He killed it by his own hand. He no longer feels the pain of disobedience or the sweetness of obedience. He lost the ability to feel anything around him. He even lost the taste of life itself. 


My heart died 


He shouted loudly with a cry that echoed around the place, “My heart died. It no longer feels anything. Can the dead come to life again? Can it come back? How can it, when it is lifeless? How can it, when I have killed it by my own hand?” 


The opposite of the healthy heart is the dead heart. It neither knows its Lord nor worships Him according to what He commands, loves and approves. It clings instead to its lusts and desires, even if these are likely to incur the displeasure of Allah and His wrath. It is enslaved to other than Allah The Almighty in terms of love, fear, hope, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, exaltation and humbleness. 


He loves, hates, gives and withholds motivated by his personal desires. His personal desires are preferable and dearer to him than the satisfaction of Allah. He is led by passion, motivated by lust, driven by ignorance and carried by heedlessness. His heart is immersed in its concern with worldly objectives. His heart is drunk with its own fancies and love for this worldly life. It is called to Allah The Almighty and the Last Day from a distance but it does not respond to advice, and instead it follows any scheming, cunning devil. Life angers and pleases it, and passion makes it deaf and blind to anything except what is evil.


Reflect on the meaning of the following Hadeeth (narration). The Prophet, , said:

"There was among the people who came before you a man who killed ninety-nine persons. Then he asked about the most knowledgeable person on earth, and was directed to a monk, so he went to him, told him that he had killed ninety-nine people and asked if his repentance could be accepted. The monk said, 'No.' So, he killed him and completed one hundred. Then he asked about the most knowledgeable person on earth and he was directed to a scholar. He told him that he had killed one hundred people and asked whether his repentance could be accepted. The scholar said, 'Yes, what could possibly come between you and repentance? Go to such-and-such land, for in it there are people who worship Allah. Go and worship Allah with them, and do not go back to your own land, for it is a bad place.'

So, the man set out, but when he was halfway there, the angel of death came to him, and the angels of mercy and the angels of torment began to argue over him. The angels of mercy said, 'He had repented and headed wholeheartedly to Allah.' The angels of torment said, 'He never did any good thing.' An angel in human form came to them and they asked him to decide the matter. He said, 'Measure the distance between the two lands (his home town and the town he was heading for), and to whichever of the two he is closer is the one to which he belongs.' So they measured the distance and found that he was closer to the town for which he was heading, so the angels of mercy took him." Qataadah said,"Al-Hasan mentioned that the man, while dying, turned his chest towards that village (where he had hoped his repentance would be accepted)." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

Scholars mentioned many benefits in this noble Hadeeth. The following points show these benefits: 


1- He killed ninety-nine persons: 


Do you think that such a person had a healthy or sick heart? He killed the monk to whom he came to ask about repentance. He was pathologically bent upon killing. After killing the monk, he did not experience the least feeling of regret for his action. Strangely, he killed the monk and then went out asking about the most knowledgeable person on earth. He was still looking for repentance. He took a decisive decision to revive his heart. His decision was subject to neither delay nor change whatever the reason may be. He was determined to revive his dead heart. 


Do you not wonder how he did not even stop for a moment after killing the monk to say to himself, "You have been disobedient (to Allah) again. You have done what you used to do. You will never repent and Allah will not accept you!" He did not utter these frustrated remarks. Rather, he moved forward looking for his goal, which was repentance. 


2- Repentance wipes out even the gravest of major sins: 


This story stands as great evidence that Allah The Almighty accepts repentance from a wrongdoer, even if his sins are grave. Having a sincere intention to repent is the crucial factor here.


This is also supported by evidence from the Quran and the Sunnah. Allah The Almighty says (what means): {Say, "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the Mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful."} [Quran 39: 53] 


Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that the Messenger of Allah, , said: "By the One in whose Hand my soul is, if you were not to commit sins Allah would remove you and replace you withpeople who would commit sins and then ask for forgiveness, and He would grant them forgiveness." [Muslim] 


3- The vastness of the Mercy of Allah and the danger of despairing of it: 


The story with its several narrations indicates that the Mercy of Allah is vast and that it overcomes His wrath. It also indicates that when the slave of Allah sincerely repents to Him, not only does Allah The Almighty accept his repentance but He also grants him success and guidance to the straight path. The other narrations of the story indicate that Divine Care played a role which signifies the vastness of the Mercy of Allah and His Bounty on the repentant slave. 


Another narration reads: "Allah ordered the land (towards which he was going) to come closer to him, and ordered the land (from whence he had come), to go far away, and then He ordered the angels to measure the distances between his body and the two towns. He was found to be one span closer to the village (he was going to). So he was forgiven." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]


Ordering the town (towards which he was going) to come closer and ordering the town (whence he had come) to go far away indicates that Allah The Almighty not only accepts repentance from His slaves, but He also gives them of His bounty. 


In a Hadeeth Qudsi (sacred narration), Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet, , quoted Allah The Almighty as saying: "I am just as My slave believes Me to be, and I am with him when He remembers Me. So if he remembers Me within himself, I too remember him within Myself. If he remembers Me in a group of people then I remember him in a group that is better than them. If he comes one span nearer to Me then I go one cubit nearer to him; if he comes one cubit nearer to Me then I go a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to him; and if he comes to Me walking then I go to him running." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] 


Commenting on the verse, Ibn ‘Abbaas, may Allah be pleased with him, said, 


Allah invites all to His Forgiveness; those who claim that the Christ is Allah, those who claim that the Christ is the son of Allah, those who claim that ‘Uzayr is the son of Allah, those who claim that Allah is poor, those who claim that the Hand of Allah is tied up, and those who say that Allah is the third of three (Trinity). Allah says to all of these (what means):{So will they not repent to Allah and seek His Forgiveness? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.}[Quran 5: 74] He calls to repentance the one who says something even worse than that, the one who says (what means):{"I am your most exalted lord."}[Quran 79: 24] and (what means): {I have not known you to have a god other than me.}[Quran 28: 38] 


Ibn ‘Abbaas, may Allah be pleased with him, added, "Anyone who makes the slaves of Allah despair of His Mercy after this has rejected the Book of Allah."[Tafseer Ibn Katheer] 


If you think that your heart is dead and that it will never revive, then what about the hearts of the disbelievers and atheists which are destroyed with denial of the existence of Allah The Almighty?


Let us try to revive our dead hearts.