Excerpted from the book 'Some
Points of Benefit' ‘al-Fawai’d’ by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah
What Happens to Your Heart When It Loves Something?
The possibility of putting something inside a place depends on the emptiness of the place. This fact applies to tangible things as well as intangible things, such as beliefs and intentions.
When the heart is full of falsehood, believing and loving it, then it will have no room for believing and loving the truth. Similarly, when one’s tongue is occupied with unbeneficial talk, it will be unable to utter beneficial talk unless it stops uttering falsehood. Likewise, when one’s limbs are occupied with acts of disobedience, it will be impossible to make them do acts of obedience unless they stop doing the opposite.
In the same way, when the heart is occupied with loving, desiring, longing for, and feeling cordiality with other than Allah, it will be impossible to make it occupied with loving, desiring, and longing for meeting Allah unless it stops being attached to other than Allah.
Similarly, the tongue cannot be occupied with remembering Allah, and the limbs cannot be engaged in serving causes pleases Allah unless they stop remembering and serving other than Him.
When the heart is occupied with thinking about the created beings and unbeneficial knowledge, then it will have no room for thinking about Allah and knowing His names, attributes, and rules.
The secret behind all these things is the fact that the heart listens in the same way the ear listens. If the heart listens to speech other than the speech of Allah, it will have no room for listening to or understanding the speech of Allah. Likewise, if the heart inclines to the love of other than Allah, it will have no room for loving Allah. Moreover, if the heart remembers other than Allah, it will have no room for remembering Allah, just like the tongue.
Therefore, Messenger Muhammad [peace be upon him] said, ‘It is better that the heart of a person is filled with pus than to be filled with poetry.’ [Sahih al-Bukhari] The narration refers to the fact that a person’s heart may be full of poetry.
In the same way, the heart may be filled with doubts, suspicion, fantasies, and estimations that do not exist, as well as unbeneficial knowledge, jests, jokes, stories, and so on.
When the heart is filled with these things, and facts of the Quran and knowledge whereby it attains perfection and happiness try to enter it, they will find no room nor acceptance therein. Thus, they will pass by it and go to another place. It is like giving advice to a heart that is full of its opposite, it will find no way to enter it. It will not accept the advice, nor allow it to enter. However, the advice will pass by it without settling therein.
Source Al-Fawai'd
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