QURʾĀNIC REFLECTIONS

Personal Reflections

What’s in Your Heart? — III

November 5, 2019

A high īmān gets you through the small every day as much as it gets you through the bigger and unexpected circumstances.

It is usually the small every day that is a good gauge of where your īmān is.

If you find yourself easily frustrated and quick to anger, chances are whatever aroused it was not warranted, rather it is a low īmān that is the culprit.

Consider a person driving home from work, for example. When a person who has been cultivating their īmān through knowledge and acts of worship finds themselves stuck in traffic at the end of a long day, they remind themselves that perhaps this traffic is a way by which Allāh has averted some harm from them. They tell themselves that maybe Allāh is giving them an extended opportunity to contemplate on His Ayāy on the drive back. Or a chance to do more of engaged Dhikr. Or a chance listen to more of the Qurʾān or to hear a beneficial reminder in the quiet of the drive back.

When a person who might have been negligent of their īmān, by disregarding Allāh’s commands and prohibitions or by being passive in implementing them, finds themselves in such a situation they may anger quickly. They may express a great amount of frustration. Upon arriving home they may continue to unload their negative emotions on their family.

It is in the same vein, that my beloved teacher Ustādhah Anāhīd, a mother, grandmother and a faqīhah, constantly iterates that if your family or children start to provoke bigger reactions from you—if the trivial things have caused big reactions, then step back and consider the state of your heart.

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