Avoid The 25 Destructive Diseases of the Heart

What is the Spiritual Heart? How can it be diseased? And if it can, what are the diseases of the heart, and what are their symptoms and cures?

The Spiritual Heart

How do we know that there is in fact a “spiritual” heart?

The physical heart that pumps blood through our bodies of course does not have the faculty of sight, so how can it be blind? There must be another type of heart which is not physical, that has faculties including sight, as indicated in this verse: this is the spiritual heart that perceives things the physical eyes cannot. We know this to be intuitively true: we often use the phrase “what does your heart tell you?” How could that make sense if our heart was incapable of some alternate form of perception? And so, given that we do in fact have a spiritual heart, what do we know about the possibility of it being healthy or sick?

This verse clearly shows that the heart can in fact be sick, because what is it, if it isn’t sound? It is un-sound, or sick. What is this “sound heart” (qalb saleem – قلب سليم) that God speaks of as being a requirement for salvation? Is it the physical heart in our bodies? Our physical heart of course dies and rots away along with the rest of our body after our death. So what type of heart is this that we must come to God with? It is in fact the “spiritual heart”, one of the inner dimensions of the human being which consist of the qalb (heart), nafs (self), ruh (soul), and aql (intellect).

What is a Sound Heart?

Here we see the centrality of the spiritual heart. The health of our entire body depends on it being sound. So we must ensure that it is un-spoilt: that it is kept clean. In fact the very word “saleem” (سليم) contains within it in Arabic, the idea of a continuous activity; that is, we are told that only a heart that is continuously kept clean and free from the diseases of the heart, is the one that will be allowed to come to God. Sh. Mokhtar introduces the concept of a spiritual heart in this video:

So the question naturally comes to mind: What makes a heart dirty? What is it that spoils a heart and how can we actively avoid it?

The Heart can be Diseased

In this comprehensive hadith, Prophet Muhammad himself tells us about how when we sin, we darken our hearts; that is, our heart becomes less “sound”.

As our heart becomes darker due to persistent sins, it loses its ability to perceive, and so becomes diseased. Instead of being clear and a source of light, commanding our bodies to do good, it becomes filled with the diseases of the heart, encourage us to behave in ways that take us away from the obedience of God.

• As we live our lives and commit various sins, openly or in secret, large or small, we darken our hearts, and this prevents us from getting close to Allah.
• Through various techniques we can cleanse our hearts
• we know that only a “sound heart” can reach Allah

The 25 Destructive Diseases of the Heart

The diseases of the heart and their symptoms and cures are presented in alphabetical order. The most important to deal with are highlighted as #19 and #8: Love of the World (root cause of all other diseases), and Excessive Speech.

1. Anger
2. Antipathy towards Death
3. Blameworthy Modesty
4. Boasting, Arrogance, Pride
5. Displeasure with Blame
6. Displeasure with Divine Decree
7. Envy
8. Excessive Speech – The 20 Sins of the Tongue
9. Extravagance
10. False Hope
11. Fear of Poverty
12. Fraud
13. Greed
14. Hard-Heartedness
15. Hatred
16. Heedlessness
17. Ingratitude
18. Iniquity
19. Love of the World (root cause of all other diseases)
20. Miserliness
21. Mockery
22. Ostentation
23. Relying on Other than Allah
24. Seeking Reputation
25. Vanity

For a much more detailed discussion of how the spiritual heart connects us with the Divine, see the #1 international bestseller “Secrets of Divine Love” by A. Helwa.

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