“Don’t worship Allah so He may give you. Rather, worship Him so He may be pleased. For when He is pleased, He will astonish you with His Gifts.”
By the dawn
And the ten nights
And the even and the odd
O you tranquil soul!
Return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing
[al-Fajr: 1-3; 27-28]
Loftiness is attained in accordance to one’s struggles,
And whoever seeks nobility, remains vigilant by night.
Whoever wishes to achieve without due effort,
Will waste their life seeking what’s impossible.
You search for glory and yet you sleep at night,
It’s only the seeker of pearls who dives deep into the sea.
– Imam al-Shafi’i, al-Diwan
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Locked Hearts
أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَمْ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبٍ أَقْفَالُهَا
“Then do they not reflect upon the Qur’an, or are there locks upon [their] hearts?” [Muhammad: 24]
Whenever I come across this verse, the word ‘aqfaaluha‘ (locks) seems to jump out at me. If you read the Arabic, you’ll notice the attached pronoun ‘ها’ on the word aqfaal and this pronoun means ‘hers‘, or in this case, ‘its‘. So the verse actually becomes: “…are there upon the hearts, its locks?”
If you re-read the verse, taking this particle (‘ha’) into consideration, a greater picture will emerge for you: that every heart has a lock, and those who cannot reflect or ponder over the Qur’an have fallen into a state where the locks of their hearts are closed. The contemplation of Qur’an is what breaks these locks, and sets the hearts free. And we can bring many a key to open our locked hearts, but only one key has been designed to break the locks of our hearts…
May Allah open up His Book for us, and grant us insight into its deep meanings, ameen.