All entries for Sunday 16 November 2008

The Heart

The body has a morsel of flesh, which, when in humility then the limbs have humility, and when it is corrupt then the limbs are corrupt. The scholars have said that the body is the kingdom of the self and its city. The heart is in the middle of the kingdom. The members are like servants and the inner faculties are like landed estates in the city. The intellect is like a concerned minister (wazir) who advises him (the king).

Appetite is a seeker of the servants’ provisions. Anger is a policeman and a foul cunning slave who assumed the aspect of a counsellor but who advice is deadline poison, and whose untiring habit is always to quarrel with the counselling minister (i.e. the intellect). The faculty of imagination is at the front of the brain like a treasurer, the faculty of thought is in the middle of the brain and the faculty of memory is in the rear of the brain.

The tongue is an interpreter. The five senses are spies. Each one of them has been entrusted with making one of the arts, so the eye has been entrusted with the worlds of colours, hearing with the worlds of voices, and so on for all the others, for they are means of information. Then it is said that they are doorkeepers which bring that which they have grasped to the self.

It has been said that the hearing, sight and the faculty of smell are like capabilities from which the self looks. The heart is the king, so that if the shepherd is sound, the flock will be sound and if he is corrupt, the flock will be corrupt. His soundness is only obtained by his safety from inner sicknesses such as malice, spite, greed, miserliness, pride, ridicule, showing off, seeking reputation, deceit, covetousness, ambition and discontent with the decree.

There are many illnesses of the heart amounting to almost forty, may our Lord heal us of them and make us of those who come to Him with a sound healthy heart. Ameen

: 16 Nov 2008 20:20 |  Tags: Health Heart Islam |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem