Editorial

The Hearts of the Unburdened

The human heart is a precious gift and the giver of the gift, Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala), has created an endless wealth of wisdom within His creation for us to learn from. In order to guide the bearers of His gift and teach them to nurture it, He defined what would please and displease Him in His divine book, the Qur’an, and had His Messenger (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) shed light on what He required of us with the unmatched wisdom He granted him. By tending this gift like a gentle rose, pious Muslims, whose hearts tremble with the fear of displeasing Allah and who sway like willows in the wind when they mention His name, fulfill the role they are assigned with the bestowal of this miraculous essence.

When the heart is freed from the burdens of the world and the shackles of sin fall away, it begins to harbor different desires, wishes, and hopes. While a heart that yearns for this world cannot fathom the purity it would know if it only could cast off its chains, a heart that resonates with the brilliance of taqwa is emancipated from the restraints that keep it bound to worldly attachments. This heart transcends the base urges of the human nafs to such an absolute degree that it is praised in various ayahs of the Qur’an and hadiths and is promised an eternity in Jannah. 

In one such hadith, Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) likened such soft, sensitive hearts to those of birds in one of his hadiths and revealed that people with such beautiful hearts belong in Jannah, which gives us a noble goal to strive towards. It is this hadith that forms the premise of our feature article, “Like the Hearts of Birds,” in this issue.

Given the nature of the extraordinary transformation a believer’s heart experiences on this journey from a diamond in the rough to a precious jewel radiating with the effulgence of the divine gaze Allah directs at it, people who are possessed of such perfected hearts are only the finest in kindness, compassion, truthfulness, devotion and submission to Allah, and every virtue that is worthy of praise; they are of the highest moral fiber from every perspective applicable in Islam.

As we have left Ramadan behind us for this year, looking back on the past month should give us a clear picture of how our hearts changed over the course of this blessed month and how we can perpetuate this change and enshrine it as a permanent state of being that pleases Allah.

May Allah guide us on the path to attaining the heart He is pleased with and bless us with His Jannah. I hope to see you in the June issue inshallah.

M. Galip Dönmez