The Pure Heart

Bismi Llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm

Maulana Sheikh Nazimق’s Suhbah

01 June 1985

A pure heart (qalbun salim) is the perfection that Allah Almighty desires for His servants.

In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, who created all universes and all things. The Lord of the Heavens, the Lord of the Worlds, the Lord of the sons of Adam. We are His weak servants. Every time we gather in such an assembly, we are asking for our Lord’s Divine Help for ourselves.

We are in need of His Divine Help at every moment. You cannot imagine a unit of time so small that it cannot be counted. You might say one millionth of a second, if a single second could be divided into a million parts. Even in such a tiny unit of time, the universe cannot be without the need of Divine Help.

If Divine Help is cut off, the support for all the universes in existence disappears. No one can bring it back except its Creator, its Lord, Allah Almighty. Therefore, you must ask for Divine Help for everything, at all times, and on every occasion.

As much as you are with Him, He will be with you. But people forget themselves and lose awareness. Then that Divine Help leaves them, and they are left in the hands of their egos. For this reason, we must always seek support from the Divine.

O my Lord, do not leave us in the hands of our egos. Our ego is proud, so proud, saying, “I am not in need of anyone,” when in truth it is always in need, never free of the need for support. That is why we say, “There is no might and no power except with God, the Most High, the Almighty.” (Lā ḥawla wa-lā quwwata illā billāh al-ʿaliyy al-ʿaẓīm)

Religion, especially Islam, brings belief to people. It asks you, first of all, to believe in your Creator who brings you into existence, because no one is able to do it by themselves. We appear, and then we disappear. That is the central point of Islamic belief, to believe in The One who brings them into existence, keeps them in existence, and then takes them away from existence.

Then He brings them to His Divine Presence. The most essential foundation of every religion, and especially Islam, is to believe that there is a God who created all things, including the children of Adam, and that He has the power to bring them back to life after death, to give them life again, and to bring them into His Divine Presence. That must be the core belief in every religion. 

Every religion teaches people to perform certain actions and to avoid others. Without such commands, it is not a religion. We act, we work, we do things as we please. The Lord Almighty gives us commands, and every command we have been ordered to fulfill is for our honor (karamah). 

Each command given to us is to make us more honored in the Divine Presence. We have also been instructed to avoid certain things for our own protection and safety. Anything from which our Lord tells us to abstain is for our safety in this life and for our protection in the Hereafter.

No one has the right to object to what Islam prohibits, claiming that something was useful but Islam prevented it. Whoever does so is either foolish, mad, or ignorant. Who knows humanity better than its Creator? Therefore, He alone knows what is truly harmful and dishonorable in this life and the next.

Every deed you perform in this world takes on a shape, a form, and it will come back to you after death. You must face everything you did in this life. Nothing is lost. All your deeds are preserved for you.

You will first meet them when the door of your grave opens. Then you will see everything you did, presented before you. No one else sees it except the owner of that grave. Allah Almighty will look at all your deeds and question His servant about them.

Imam al-Ghazali is one of the “King-sized” scholars and great Imams in Islam, known throughout the world. He wrote many books, perhaps one lifetime is not enough to read, understand, and act upon all of them. Among them is a collection called Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences). If all other Islamic books were destroyed and only this remained, it would be enough to explain Islam entirely.

Imam al-Ghazali, may God bless him, said that when a person dies and is placed in a coffin, and people are bringing the body for burial, Allah Almighty will ask the deceased forty questions. He said these are forty different questions asked before the burial, known only to the Lord and the soul of the deceased.

The first question Allah Almighty will ask is, 

“O My servant, you always adorned yourself for people. You were careful with your appearance, your dress, your hair, and many things. You wanted to look handsome, beautiful, and elegant for others, because they looked at you.

But did you ever adorn your heart for Me? You knew that I looked only at your heart, not at your outward appearance, not at your eye color or skin color, whether you were tall or short, black or white. No, I only looked at your heart. 

Did you ever say to yourself, ‘My Lord is looking at my heart, I must keep it pure and adorned with excellent qualities’?

Did you ever think of that? That I was watching, and you should have said, ‘My Lord is looking at my heart, I must keep it excellent for Him?'”

That is the first question. And it contains everything.

Is it enough for believers to try their best to purify and illuminate their hearts? Yes, that is enough for them in this world and in the Hereafter. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah Almighty will not ask about your wealth, children, property, or titles. No. 

He will ask, “Where is your heart? With what kind of heart have you come to Me? The purified heart, the golden heart (Qur’an 26:89) – Where is it? Give it to Me. That is what I was asking from you during your life.”

That is the main thing that will be asked of everyone. Keep your heart pure and excellent and bring it to your Lord.

Then, according to your heart and its purity, everything will appear to you in Eternal Life. You will see your Lord’s Endless Lights and Infinite Beauties through the mirror of your own heart. Through your heart, you will witness Divine Beauty. There are various degrees in the Divine Presence, first, second, third, and so on. 

The first rank is for Prophets (anbiya) and Saints (awliya), and those who attained true faith in their lifetime. According to the level of their faith, they enter the Divine Presence. Whoever wants to be in that first rank must begin by taking care of their heart.

Now we are fasting. We are keeping our stomachs from eating and drinking, but we are mostly allowing our other organs to do as they please. We fast only from food and drink, yet we often neglect to restrain our eyes, tongues, and thoughts. We do not say, “You must stop. You must guard yourself.” We are not telling them this.

There is another kind of fasting, the most important one, which is to free the heart from everything except the Lord. To be with your Lord in your heart. If anything wrong enters such a heart, it is said that one must purify oneself, just as a person in a state of impurity must wash themselves.

If thoughts of this world, or even paradise, enter the heart, it must be purified. This means the Lord is saying, “O My servant, you are occupying your heart with something other than Me. Your heart is for Me alone. I must always be there, and you must be there with Me. You may live in the world physically, but you must be with Me always in your heart.”

If you say this is impossible, your Lord does not speak anything but the truth. If it were impossible, He would not have said it or commanded it. It is possible. So He says to His servants, “O My servants, you may live in the world with your bodies, going about your work. But you must be with Me in your hearts. Because I do not leave you. If I leave you, you are nothing. If I am with you, you are everything. So do not leave Me.“

For this reason, when people of the first rank think of anything other than their Lord, they have been ordered to wash themselves – their bodies and their hearts – from every thought other than their Lord.

That is the perfection Allah Almighty desires for His servants. He wants to elevate them to that rank. Islam brings the complete way and guidance towards attaining it. Islam is perfection in every aspect. Whoever desires that perfection must follow the religion and its teachings. According to how much you are able to follow, you will benefit.

But you must make that perfection your goal. You must not settle for less. It is not honorable for a servant to remain beneath that rank when the Lord has given them the chance to rise. This is the honor Islam gives to people, and this is what it calls them to.

We ask forgiveness from Allah Almighty because we are always content to remain below, not striving upward. We say, “I seek forgiveness from God” (Astaghfirullāh al-ʿAẓīm) for everything we do that goes against the commands of our Lord. 

We praise Him with the highest praises because He made us candidates for that perfection. And we ask for His Divine Help in striving for that goal by saying, “Praise belongs to God and thanks be to God.” (Al-ḥamdu lillāh wa shukru lillāh)

May Allah Almighty grant us hearts that are pure and illuminated, hearts that are always with Him, and may He accept us among His beloved servants. Ameen.

Al-Fatiha.

• Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqaniق

01 June 1985 / 12 Ramadhan 1405 AH

Originally taken from ‘2,000+ Sohbats of Maulana Sheikh Nazim’ by Sufimus Online.

With love and intention, parts of this Sohbah have been carefully revised by SufiHub.com for clarity and contextual relevance.

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Wassalam.