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

by Yasmin Mogahed

Our weight was only meant to be carried by God. We are told in the Qur’an: "…whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And God hears and knows all things." (Qur’an, 2: 256)

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

But how does Prophet Ibrahim (as) describe his journey to that point? He studies the moon, the sun and the stars and realizes that they are not perfect. They set. They let us down. So Prophet Ibrahim (as) was thereby led to face Allah alone. Like him, we need to put our full hope, trust, and dependency on God, and God alone.

Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13). And if you do this, you become unbreakable, because your hand-hold is unbreakable. You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfillment is unending and never diminishes.

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.

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. Gifts like marriage will be a means to bring you closer to God—so long as they remain a means, not an End.

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

Suppose your boss sent you to a new town to work on a limited project. Suppose he didn’t tell you exactly when the project would end, but you knew that you could be returning home, any day. How would you be in that town? Would you invest in massive amounts of property and spend all your savings on expensive furniture and cars? Most likely not. Even while shopping, would you buy cart-loads of food and other perishables? No. You’d probably hesitate about buying any more than you need for a couple days—because your boss could call you back any day. This is the mindset of a traveler. There is a natural detachment that comes with the realization that something is only temporary. That is what the Prophet in his wisdom, is talking about in this profound hadith. He understood the danger of becoming engrossed in this life. In fact, there was nothing he feared for us more.

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.

"No Muslim is afflicted with any harm, even if it were the prick of a thorn, but that Allah expiates his sins because of that, as a tree sheds its leaves." [Bukhari]

Reflecting upon this incident scholars have explained that the process of going from fifty to five was a deliberate one, intended to teach us the true place salah should hold in our lives. Imagine for a moment actually praying fifty times a day. Would we be able to do anything else but pray? No. And that’s the point. What greater way than that to illustrate our life’s true purpose? As if to say, salah is our real life; all the rest that we fill our day with…just motions.

There is only one thing that can cut or stab or hurt the soul. There is only one thing that can kill it: depriving it of its only need: to be close to its Originator, to be near God. And so we should not weep for the arriving soul—It isn’t dead. We should weep instead for the one whose body is alive, but whose soul is dead because of its alienation from that which gives it life: God.

Remember that Allah loves a small consistent action more than a huge inconsistent one.

Advice for life

Your prince is only a human being. God may send him to be your companion—but not your savior. The coolness of your eyes—not the air in your lungs. Your air is in God. Your salvation and completion are in His nearness—not the nearness to any created thing. Not the nearness to a prince, not the nearness to fashion or beauty or style.