Consult Your Heart

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

We, the sons and daughters of Adam, are very special. We have many senses within us. It means that if we are not corrupted by our societies and if people are nurtured to grow in accordance to their first creation of man (the original way of man, Fitrah in Arabic), we would grow with an innate appreciation of what is true.

The Truth is that God created us and that we must submit to Him. If we are nurtured to grow in accordance to our Fitrah, we will have a sense of God, a longing for God, and a hollowness without God. It is this feeling that there is something I ought to be doing and there is something I ought not to be doing. These questions are ingrained within us. We are perfected for this purpose. The teachings of Islam enhance this natural appreciation of the Truth.

The Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, "Five are from the pure natural disposition: clipping the nails, shortening the moustache, plucking the armpit, shaving the pubic region and circumcision." [Bukhari]

Clipping the nails and plucking the armpit are from the natural way but it seems counter intuitive. It seems that had you left the nail or armpit hair to grow, that is more natural. So the natural way is not about letting things take the course. It is about something active which you do and it feels that is what you should be doing. Our physical body has a tendency to become smelly and to go towards unpleasantness. The pure human way is preserved by removing this unpleasant things to stay pleasant. When someone performs ghusl (ritual bath) or wudu' (ablution), he feels wholesome and feels right.

In gender interaction, if you pull someone out of a non-Muslim society and put them in a Muslim society and tell him don't do this and don't do that, men sit with men and women sit with women, at first he will say "What's this?" "This is wrong!" But if he were to live like that for a while, he feels the wholesomeness that he did not feel before. The freeness that he had before no longer feels right.

Prostration for someone who have never done it before, he would feel weird. But after he did it a few times, it just feels right--I was meant to prostrate and being lowly before God; I feel whole; My body was looking for this prostration. Going around the Ka'bah seven times during hajj doesn't make sense to the mind, as opposed to prostration which does, but when you do it, it is magical.

A questioner asked the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, about righteousness. "You have come to ask about righteousness." "Consult your heart. Righteousness is what the soul finds peace and the heart finds peace in. Sin is what stirs in the soul and go to and fro in the breast even if the people pronounce it okay." [Ahmad]

We have something within us, a moral compass, and Islam confirms what we have been looking for. The real truth is not in our minds. It is not subjective. The real Truth is in the revelations of God. Good and bad are only known to Allah. If you submit to Islam, your body will say this is the right thing. Your body will feel wholesome and it feels good.

It is not easy to submit because our body has been taken off course. You might be 50, 70, 120 degrees off course, so to come back is going to be a struggle because your ruler says that is not right. But you surrender because you understand your pure way is corrupted by the corrupt societies around you. You realign yourself through submission. You change what you think. When you do that, Allah's gifts start to kick in, which means you have returned to the first creation, the original way of man. You are now like a plant that has been put in the garden with soil, fertilizers and water. You grow and you flourish.

Now you are a functioning conscience and all your faculties are in place. You then are that person, who the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to "Consult your heart." For example, if there is something inside you that feels uncomfortable with interest loans, even if there is a fatwa saying it is permissible to buy your first home with interest loan, you follow your heart. You don't follow the fatwa. This is righteousness.

The hadith is not for everyone. The hadith is for someone who is aligned with revelation, who submit to the Will of God. That is the one whose conscience is his guide. Everybody else has been corrupted by their societies. Their sense of right and wrong has been completely flipped.

Our sense of right and wrong is in constant flux. At one time, some things feels right and at another time, the same things feels wrong to us. About 50 years ago, long skirts and head cover were the dress code for Western women and anything less was shunned by society. Nowadays, you are viewed strange (or stopped, questioned or persecuted) if you are covered from head to toe. Nowadays, it is normal to see women with scanty and tight clothing while in the olden days these types of clothing separate call girls and prostitutes from the noble and the elite women. So our senses cannot be the ruler for right or wrong, good or bad. Only Allah knows what is right, wrong, good or bad.

These are challenging times for Muslims as individuals and as an Ummah. But we need to remember that both the Qur'an and Prophetic guidance tell us that our collective condition is the result of a disconnect from the way of Mercy -- the way of knowledge, the way of the shining light of the beloved Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace).

May Allah guide us and the Ummah. Ameen.

Please don't forget us in your night prayers. JazakAllahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam