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.

And that’s why if we live in dunya with our hearts, it breaks us. That’s why this dunya hurts. It is because the definition of dunya, as something temporary and imperfect, goes against everything we are made to yearn for.

Just like the pain of being burned is what warns us to remove our hand from the fire, emotional pain warns us that we need to make an internal change. We need to detach. Pain is a form of forced detachment.

God says: "Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves." (Qur’an, 13:11)

But what does it mean to place your hope in dunya? How can this be avoided? It means when you have friends, don’t expect your friends to fill your emptiness. When you get married, don’t expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you’re an activist, don’t put your hope in the results.

We experience this emotional roller coaster because we can never find stability and lasting peace until our attachment and dependency is on what is stable and lasting.

Kita tidak akan menemukan kestabilan dan ketentraman sampai kita mendekatkan diri pada Dzat Pemelihara segala hal.

To attain that state, don’t let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with God. Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13).

The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts.

I thought this as if life was either all good or all bad. But that is not what the ayah is saying. 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.

Allah says: "… But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not." (Qur’an, 2:216)

Allah gives us gifts, but then we often become dependent on those gifts, instead of Him. When He gives us money, we depend on the money—not Him. When He gives us people, we depend on people—not Him. When He gives us status or power, we depend on, and become distracted by these things. When Allah gives us health, we become deceived. We think we will never die.

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.

So to the question, ‘once something is lost, does it return?’ the answer is, yes. It returns. Sometimes here, sometime there, sometimes in a different, better form. But the greatest gift lies beneath the taking and the returning. Allah tells us: "Say, ‘In the bounty of Allah and in His mercy—in that let them rejoice; it is better than what they hoard.’" (Qur’an, 10:58)

The purpose of the glorious sun, first fallen snow, crescent moons and breathtaking oceans is not just to decorate this lonely planet. The purpose is far deeper than that. The purpose is as Allah told us in the Qur’an: "Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding."

To run to anything else is to resist the irresistible. To seek other than The One (al Wahid), is to become scattered, but never filled. How can we find unity, completion of heart or soul or mind in anything other than Him?

On the contrary, true love, as God intended it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment.

But until we can break these false attachments, we cannot empty the vessel of our heart. And if we do not empty that vessel, we cannot truly fill it with Allah.

To succeed at freeing oneself from all other attachments, except the attachment to the Creator, is the truest manifestation of tawheed.

Five times a day, we detach ourselves from whatever we are doing of worldly life, and turn to God.

Through fasting we are forced to detach ourselves from our physical needs, desires, and pleasures.

By giving it away, we are forced to break our attachment to wealth.

A pilgrim leaves behind everything in his life. He gives up his family, his home, his six figure salary, his warm bed, his comfortable shoes and brand name clothes, all in exchange for sleeping on the ground or in a crowded tent and wearing only two simple pieces of cloth.

The tragedy of our choice is that we chain our necks with attachments, and then ask why we choke. We put aside our Real air, and then wonder why we can’t breathe.

We all have needs and we all have wants. Our true suffering begins when we turn our wants into needs, and our one true need (God) into a commodity we think we can do without. Our true suffering begins when we confuse the means and the End. God is the only End. Every other thing is the means. We will suffer the moment we take our eyes off the End and get lost in the means.

In fact, the true purpose of the gift itself is to bring us to God. Even the gift is a means. For example, does the Prophet not say that marriage is half of deen? Why? If used correctly, few other parts of this life can have such a comprehensive effect on the development of one’s character. You can read about qualities like patience, gratitude, mercy, humility, generosity, self-denial, and preferring another to yourself. But, you won’t develop those qualities until you are put in a situation in which they are tested.

Remember that whatever lives in the heart controls you. It becomes what you strive for and are willing to sacrifice anything to have. And to keep. It becomes what you depend on at a fundamental level. It, therefore, must be something eternal, that never tires, and never breaks. It must, therefore, be something that never leaves. Only one thing is like that: The Creator.

And whoever makes Dunya his preoccupation, then Allah places his poverty in front of his eyes, make his affairs scattered, and nothing of the Dunya comes to him except that which has been decreed for him." [At-Tirmidhi]

"…And for those who fear Allah, He (ever) prepares a way out, And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine. And if any one puts his trust in Allah, sufficient is (Allah) for him…" (Qur’an, 65:2-3)

That is the state of this type of believer, as the Prophet says: "Wondrous are the believer’s affairs. For him there is good in all his affairs, and this is so only for the believer. When something pleasing happens to him, he is grateful, and that is good for him; and when something displeasing happens to him, he is enduring (has sabr), and that is good for him." [Muslim]

The ocean is so breathtakingly beautiful. But just as it is beautiful, it is also deadly. The same spellbinding waves, which we appreciate from the shore, can kill us if we enter them. Water, the same substance necessary to sustain life, can end life, in drowning. And the same ocean that holds ships afloat can shatter those ships to pieces.

Nikmat ibarat pisau bermata dua. Apa yang menenangkan bisa juga menghancurkan.

"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)

Detachment does not even mean that we cannot own things of the dunya. In fact many of the greatest companions were wealthy. Rather, detachment is that we view and interact with the dunya for what it really is: just a means. Detachment is when the dunya remains in our hand—not in our heart. As `Ali (ra) expressed beautifully, "Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you."

Pemahaman yang salah: detachment = me-miskinkan diri dari segala hal (kalo gini yang ada malah nantinya kita menjual agama untuk keberlangsungan hidup.)

He said, "By Allah I don’t fear for you poverty, but I fear that the world would be abundant for you as it has been for those before you, so you compete for it as they have competed for it, so it destroys you as it has destroyed them." (Agreed upon)

The blessed Prophet recognized the true nature of this life. He understood what it meant to be in the dunya, without being of it. He sailed the very same ocean that we all must. But his ship knew well from where it had come, and to where it was going. His was a boat that remained dry. He understood that the same ocean which sparkles in the sunlight will become a graveyard for the ships that enter it.

Sometimes falling and coming back up gives you wisdom and humility that you may never otherwise have had.

He says: "Say, ‘O My servants who have transgressed against their souls [by sinning], despair not of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful,’" (Qur’an, 39:53).

This world cannot break you—unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys—unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya for a while—take them back. This isn’t the End. You don’t have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner: God.

It was this captivity that Ibn Taymiyyah radi Allahu `anhu (may Allah be pleased with him) spoke of when he said, "The one who is (truly) imprisoned is the one whose heart is imprisoned from Allah and the captivated one is the one whose desires have enslaved him." (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Wabil, pg 69)

But if having a child or a particular person in our life is our reason for being, something is terribly wrong. If something finite, temporary and fading becomes the center of our life, the raison d’etre (reason for existing), we will surely break.

It is of that freedom that Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "What can my enemies do to me? I have in my breast both my heaven and my garden. If I travel they are with me, never leaving me. Imprisonment for me is a chance to be alone with my Lord. To be killed is martyrdom and to be exiled from my land is a spiritual journey." (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Wabil, p.69)

Despite what we are taught in popular culture, true love is not supposed to make us like drug addicts.

Real love, as Allah intended it, is not a sickness or an addiction. It is affection and mercy.

One fail-safe way, is to ask yourself this question: Does getting closer to this person that I ‘love’ bring me closer to—or farther from—Allah? In a sense, has this person replaced Allah in my heart?

True or pure love should never contradict or compete with one’s love for Allah. It should strengthen it. That is why true love is only possible within the boundaries of what Allah has made permissible.

So often we think that Allah only tests us with hardships, but this isn’t true. Allah also tests with ease. He tests us with na`im (blessings) and with the things we love, and it is often in these tests that so many of us fail. We fail because when Allah gives us these blessings, we unwittingly turn them into false idols of the heart.

If they are not our spouses, we are sometimes even willing to fall into haram just to be with them. And if they were to leave us, our whole world would crumble. So now, we have shifted our worship from the Source of the blessing to the blessing itself.

But on the other hand, Allah warns: "O you who have believed, indeed, among your wives and your children are enemies to you, so beware of them." (Qur’an 64:14)

But the more we drown in this false equation, the more we fail at reaching our goal, and the more we miss the true–but simple–equation of love and life. That equation is clear: The more intensely we want the creation itself, the less likely we are to attain it. If it is love you need, and you seek it from the creation, you will never *truly* get it. Or get enough.

But if you run to God instead, happiness will run after you. If you run to God instead, the love of people will run after you. If you run to God instead, success will run after you. True success in this life, and the next. If you run to God instead, provision will run after you. This, brothers and sisters, is the secret formula for which tyrants have burned down cities, and kings have searched the world—but never found.

He said: "Detach yourself from the world, and God will love you. Detach yourself from what is with the people, and the people will love you." [Ibn Majah]