A heart

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

The Prophet Muhammad (saw) said that: "Surely there is in the body a small piece of flesh; if it is good, the whole body is good, and if it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted, and that is surely the heart."

~ Imam Bukhari

A good heart is like a good fire alarm. A very high quality fire alarm can detect smoke and heat before a fire starts. A better one can even connect straight to some devices to put off the fire or alert the fire station. However, it doesn't mean that a fire alarm once is installed will be working like it intended to be. You need to make sure that it is put in a correct way, test it consistently, maintain it, clean the sensor after a while, put in the right place, don't dirty it, damage it, cover it, etc. It's not easy but the reward is very high. You save yourself, your property and your family & friends from fire if you have a good fire alarm. With a good fire alarm doesn't mean that you cannot cook in your house or lit a scent stick. A really good one will be programmed in a way that certain amount of smoke and heat should not be a case of fire. This needs hard work and good engineering (education).

The heart is the central of a human soul. Without it, a human has no soul. Dirty heart makes a person acts inhumanely, or worse to say, like an animal. Human can be achieve a rank higher than the angel and also a rank lower than the animal. Pure and clean heart is a measure to tell us what is right and wrong. It is sometime the instinct some people called when you think it is the right or wrong thing to do. A clean heart can easily weight out the wrong path. Many scholars believe that a clean heart is the central of learning because knowledge will only reside in a clean heart. That's why when we say we memorise something, we say we learn something by-heart. Imam Shafi'i said that

“I complained to Wakee` (his teacher) about my bad memory, and he taught me that I should keep away from sin. He said that knowledge of ALLAH is light, and the light of ALLAH is not given to the sinner (whose heart is filthy).”

How to maintain and take care of the heart? These are a few tips:

1. Avoid unnecessary talk or speech that will hurt others.

On the authority of Anas, the Prophet (saw) said: "The faith of a servant is not put right until his heart is put right, and his heart is not put right until his tongue is put right."

~ Al-Musnad

On the authority of Ibn Umar: "Do not talk excessively without remembering Allah, because such excessive talk without the mention of Allah causes the heart to harden, and the person furthest from Allah is a person with a hard heart."

~At-Tirmidhi

2. Avoid unrestrained glance.

It has been related that the Prophet (saw) once said words to the effect: "The glance is a poisoned arrow of shaytan. Whoever lowers his gaze for ALLAH, HE will bestow upon him a refreshing sweetness which he will find in his heart on the day that he meets HIM."

~ At-Tabarani

3. Avoid sinning and haram food. What we eat will certainly be part of our flesh and of course a heart is our flesh. If we eat halal and healthy food it can strengthen our memories. So, if we eat filthy and haram food, we are making the heart ill and lost its ability to make good judgement.

The food of the heart is remembrance of ALLAH. So, take care of that small piece of flesh in our body.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.