Reclaim Your Heart: Personal insights on breaking free from life's shackles

by Yasmin Mogahed

Yet the people who broke me were not to blame any more than gravity can be blamed for breaking the vase. We can’t blame the laws of physics when a twig snaps because we leaned on it for support. The twig was never created to carry us.

We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what’s eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal. So the yearning for that type of life is a part of our being. The problem is that we try to find that here. And so we create ageless creams and cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to hold on—in an attempt to mold this world into what it is not, and will never be.

Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13).

"because this life isn’t perfect; for if it was, what would the next be called?"

The ayah is saying WITH hardship comes ease. The ease is at the same time as the hardship. This means that nothing in this life is ever all bad (or all good). In every bad situation we’re in, there is always something to be grateful for. With hardship, Allah also gives us the strength and patience to bear it.

what is taken by Allah is never lost. In fact, it is only what is with Allah that remains. Everything else vanishes. Allah (swt) says, "What is with you must vanish: what is with Allah will endure. And We will certainly bestow, on those who patiently persevere, their reward according to the best of their actions." (Qur’an, 16:96)

Allah gives us gifts, but then we come to love them as we should only love Him. We take those gifts and inject them into our hearts, until they take over. Soon we cannot live without them. Every waking moment is spent in contemplation of them, in submission and worship to them. The mind and the heart that was created by Allah, for Allah, becomes the property of someone or something else. And then the fear comes, the fear of loss begins to cripple us. The gift—that should have remained in our hands—takes over our heart, so the fear of losing it consumes us. Soon, what was once a gift becomes a weapon of torture and a prison of our own making. How can we be freed of this? At times, in His infinite mercy, Allah frees us…by taking it away. As a result of it being taken, we turn to Allah wholeheartedly. In that desperation and need, we ask, we beg, we pray. Through the loss, we reach a level of sincerity and humility and dependence on Him which we would otherwise not reach—had it not been taken from us. Through the loss, our hearts turn entirely to face Him.

"Inna ma’iya rabee sa yahdeen…Truly my Lord is with me, He will guide me through." (Qur’an, 26:62)

We think that the more intensely we want something, the more likely we are to get it. And when we don’t get it, we become angry—so angry—at God Himself. As though the *intensity* of my wanting, somehow makes me entitled to having.

Once you begin to see everything beautiful as only a reflection of God’s beauty, you will learn to love in the right way: for His sake.

"What is the life of this world but amusement and play? But verily the Home in the Hereafter- that is life indeed, if they but knew." (Qur’an, 29:64)

Why do some people who have nothing find no reason to complain, while others who have ‘everything’ find nothing but reasons to complain?

"Nothing is difficult if you seek it through your Lord, and nothing is easy if you seek it through yourself."

Who are we compared to Allah? And yet, Allah, Master of the universe, forgives by day and by night. Who are we to withhold forgiveness? If we hope to be forgiven by Allah, how can we not forgive others?

The greatest good is nearness to God, in this life and the next. And it is only ‘good’ people who are blessed with this.

"Nor strain your eyes in longing for the things We have given for enjoyment to parties of them, the splendor of the life of this world, through which We test them: but the provision of thy Lord is better and more enduring." (Qur’an, 20:131)

We feed our bodies, because if we didn’t, we’d die. But so many of us starve our souls, forgetting that if we are not praying our soul is dead. And ironically, the body that we tend to is only temporary, while the soul that we neglect is eternal.

"Say: O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah. For Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Qur’an, 39:53)

The goal of this life is to realize the Truth of God’s greatness and my own insignificance and need before Him. The goal is to take myself out of the center and put Him there instead.

tell the world that you are a slave to nothing—not to fashion, not to beauty, not to men. You are a slave to God and God alone. I ask you to tell the world that you’re not here to please men with your body; You’re here to please God.

Moses) said: ‘By no means! My Lord is with me! He will guide me through!’" (Qur’an, 26:62)