Guarding Your Heart From Dunya

May Allah Almighty give us from his divine wisdoms, because we may have knowledge, but if no wisdoms, knowledge is going to do nothing. We are in need of wisdom, and a little wisdom is more important than all of this world’s knowledge. Knowledge cannot push or pull you, but wisdom may pull you or push you. In wisdoms there is power. Therefore, knowledge without wisdoms never gives benefit.

If knowledge could give benefit to anyone, it would have given it to Satan. He is the first in knowledge, knowing the Injil1, the Gospels, the Torah and the Psalms and the Holy Qur’an. No one among scholars can compete with him; he comes first, he knows so much. But without wisdom. He had so much knowledge without wisdom and then he fell. Therefore, it is not important to learn so much, to know so much, but it is important to ask for some wisdoms from Allah Almighty. Even one wisdom is going to be enough for you forever, to take you to happiness and peace here and Hereafter, to our Lord’s pleasure.

Allah Almighty sent 6,666 verses in the Holy Qur’an. Each verse is like an endless ocean, and the oceans are full of precious pearls. But if pearls could be had easily, they would be cheap. Why are pearls precious, valuable? Because pearls can be found in the deepest places in the seas, and dangerous places, also. Allah Almighty always makes something valuable precious, protected, so that it is not easily reached. A rose without thorns and a treasure without dragons – no! Everything that you can get easily is cheap. You can buy tomatoes, potatoes, onions, everywhere, but rubies, diamonds, pearls you cannot find everywhere, although you can find so many of glass. Therefore, from oceans you may take fishes, you may take shells; the sea throws shells on the beach but it never throws pearls. Every verse of the Holy Qur’an is like endless oceans; the one who makes himself dive in may take. How would a person dive into the sea without clothes? No one dives into the deep sea wearing clothes; they like to take off as much as they can for diving. For “Verse Oceans,” for the oceans of the Holy Qur’an, you must take off everything and then you may dive into them.

What are you going to take off? Not things like these clothes. You must take from your heart everything belonging to this world; you must take away from your heart dunya, this world’s pleasures. And you must know what dunya is. Everything that engages you or occupies you from your Lord and you have enjoyment from it is dunya; everything that occupies a servant from his Lord, that is dunya.

This is the most important point for everyone, for every believer, whether his faith may be Jewish or Christian or Muslim: when Allah Almighty looks at their hearts, by whom are their hearts occupied? Allah Almighty does not look at our titles that we put here – no. He looks at our hearts and sees by whom they are occupied. Is that heart just engaged by Himself alone, or by dunya?

You must know that Allah Almighty gives permission for all of your body that it may work, may be engaged by this life, except your heart. You may be occupied in your body; doesn’t matter, because we live in this life and we have some responsibilities. Allah Almighty gives permission for our organs to go, to come, to look, to do, but He says, “Only your heart: don’t let it be engaged by dunya.” Keep your heart for your Lord alone and He is gong to be pleased with you. And when He is pleased with you, He is going to make you pleased with Him. That is s’adat al kubra, the highest happiness; you will have been given endless happiness when Allah Almighty makes you pleased. We are asking His pleasure with us, we are trying to make Him pleased with us. Everything except that does not give our Lord pleasure with us. Complete pleasure from Allah Almighty with His servants is when His servants give their hearts to Him Almighty.

But it is not easy. It is the most difficult of commands and the most important of worships. And every worship and prayer that we do with our bodies, bodily worship2, is only for that purpose: to transfer from our bodies into our hearts, because worshiping is giving our respects to our Lord. We give our respects with our organs and that is going to be within limits, but for one who gives his respects with his heart, it is going to be unlimited. And we have been ordered to worship our Lord unlimitedly, without limits. You can’t do that with your bodies but you can do it through your hearts.

That is the wisdom to know and to work on. And it is enough for us rather than learning thousands and thousands of books, to make stores of knowledge. Then you can’t carry it; that is too heavy a burden. But it is brief wisdom that makes us move toward our Lord. He is inviting us, and we must go to Him.

Allah Almighty chooses among His servants for giving His divine wisdoms. When He looks at His servant’s heart and sees Himself, He gives that person from His divine wisdoms. But if anyone keeps his heart for dunya, for his nafs, he may be given so much knowledge but without benefit. Therefore the Prophet asked from his Lord Almighty “ilman naf’ian,” knowledge that gives benefit – and that is hikmah, that is wisdom.

It is not going to be easy. We must work on it. And firstly you must cut your ego’s desires and you must put a limit on your ego, on its desires. If you leave your ego, your nafs, free, you can’t find any limit to its desires, so that it is always occupying you and making you its slave; no time for your Lord’s service, for your Lord’s worship. Therefore we must put a limit on our nafs, on its desires. And we live in a time and in a place in which everything urges our egos to ask more and more – unlimited desires.

Firstly, we must stop that. You must say, “That is your limit” – for eating, for drinking, for dressing, for working, because all the holy books came by divine orders to put limits for the Sons of Adam, and this is well-known as halal and haram, permissible and prohibited. Allah Almighty puts limits: don’t pass over them. Those are the limits; if you do not put up that barrier, you must exceed them. And the whole of the Shari’ah3 is for all people, for every Son of Adam; everyone has responsibilities for keeping that Shari’ah.

Allah Almighty knows our egos and their desires, He knows perfectly. If not putting a limit, it is dangerous and terrible. The first step is to know those limits. Don’t leave your ego to ask everything from you without limits.

Now we are in the holy month of fasting. That fasting teaches us how we may be able to put a limit on our egos’ desires. Therefore it is the most important worship. Without that worship it is impossible; without fasting, you will not be able to stand in front of your ego and address it, order it, “Do this, leave that.” If you can’t do that, you are weak and your ego is riding on you and leading you anywhere it wants, and it is dangerous and terrible. Therefore, fasting is the main door to every worship because it is useless to do worship while you are unable to stand in front of your ego and command it.

And when we move toward Allah Almighty, when servants ask for their Lord and go toward His Divine Presence, He also makes His divine will approach His servants. When you take one step, He orders your goal to come nearer ten steps. Sometimes our goal comes so near; we can reach it if we can move one more step, but our ego, our nafs, cuts our way. We do not take care about small things, but they give us so much harm, causing us to be as we were at the first step, falling down.

Therefore every believer, every Muslim, must know that when he moves toward his Lord there are four enemies around him to make him turn from his way. If you want to take one step, one hundred Satans come to prevent you from stepping; then one thousand attack you, to bring you back. You can’t do it without your Lord’s power. For this reason we say, “La hawla wa la quwwata illa bil-Lah-hil-‘Ali il-‘Adhim.”4 We say, “O our Lord, we can’t turn from the bad way to Your good path without Your power, without Your will. O our Lord, give us from Your divine power, to make our feet firm on Your path.”

These days and nights of Ramadan come once each year, and they are soon going to be ended. They are the days of ghanima, days of treasures, precious things, and also the days most open for divine Mercy Oceans. And our Lord is waiting for us to ask more and more of His divine mercies and powers, and more and more divine support for ourselves. You must ask, particularly during the last third of Holy Ramadan, during which one night is going to be the Night of Power, Lailat al-Qadr5 – particularly to search for that night. To find that manifestation in that holy Night – that is our goal throughout our lives, and the one to whom it is given to find that Night, Allah Almighty takes under His divine protection; whoever finds the Night of Power is granted by his Lord endless Mercy Oceans and endless favors, and he is protected. If prophets are innocent, the one who has found the Night of Power will have the attribute of being protected. And for the one who is protected by divine favors, it is impossible for Satan to come and take him out of our Lord’s protection.

We must try. We are such weak people in our faith for finding that Night, but yet we are asking our Lord to give us from that Night’s barakah, blessings. May that barakah also give us protection forever.

1 The name given by Islam to the scripture revealed to the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, the original of which was not preserved intact, although parts of it may be interwoven in the narratives of the four Gospels.

2 All the forms of Islamic worship – prayers, fasting, giving the poor-due, and pilgrimage – have physical or material as well as spiritual aspects.

3 The Divine Law, the body of God Almighty’s injunctions and prohibitions, as set forth in the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

4 “There is no might and no power except with God, the Most High, the All-mighty,” a phrase coming from the Prophet’s sunnah which Muslims often repeat to express awe or helplessness in the face of unusual or difficult circumstances.

5 The Night of Power is the night during which the Holy Prophet received the first revelation of the Qur’an in the cave of Hira, the annual observance of which is commemorated by Muslims with night-long vigils for worship. According to the hadiths, it falls on one of the odd-numbered nights during the last ten days of Ramadan.

From the book “Toward The Divine Presence, Book One London Talks, Summer 1984” by Sheikh Nazim Adil al-Qubrusi. This is one of his talks given during Ramadan.