Reclaim your Heart

[Peace]

Salam to all,

I am reading through the book : "Reclaim your Heart" by Yasmin Mogahed and I found it so profound and touching and I would like to share with you in this thread some quotes from the book. I will be also sharing some of Ms. Mogahed quotes from other writings and talks

““To empty the heart does not mean to not love. On the contrary, true love, as God intended it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment. The process of first emptying the heart can be found in the beginning half of the shahada (declaration of faith).” .” ~ Yasmin Mogahed, Reclaim Your Heart

 

[Peace]

“This world cannot break you—unless you give it permission. And it cannot own you unless you hand it the keys—unless you give it your heart. And so, if you have handed those keys to dunya (the world) for a while—take them back. This isn’t the End. You don’t have to die here. Reclaim your heart and place it with its rightful owner:God.” ― Yasmin Mogahed, Reclaim Your Heart


Since this earthly life is ephemeral, one should keep it in the hands and not in the heart.

 

[Cordoba]

It's an excellent book

Thank you for sharing

Indeed, she has some very interesting ideas and philosophy on life

Jazakum Allah Kheir

 

[Peace]

It's an excellent book

Thank you for sharing

Indeed, she has some very interesting ideas and philosophy on life

Jazakum Allah Kheir

You're welcome brother
I ordered her book and have just started reading it and I really find it amazing and well written masha'Allah. Her style is so beautiful and I like even her talks, she is an eloquent orator. May Allah bless her!

 

[Peace]

“Allah gives us gifts, but then we come to love them as we should only love Him. We take those gifts and inject them into our hearts, until they take over. Soon we cannot live without them. Every waking moment is spent in contemplation of them, in submission and worship to them. The mind and the heart that was created by Allah, for Allah, becomes the property of someone or something else. And then the fear comes. The fear of loss begins to cripple us. The gift—that should have remained in our hands—takes over our heart, so the fear of losing it consumes us. 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.
As a result of it being taken, we turn to Allah wholeheartedly. In that desperation and need, we ask, we beg, we pray. Through the loss, we reach a level of sincerity and humility and dependence on Him which we would otherwise not reach—had it not been taken from us. Through the loss, our hearts turn entirely to face Him.”
― Yasmin Mogahed, Reclaim Your Heart

 

[Peace]

"We’re Home.
And then we aren’t. Torn away from our origin, we came across time and space to another world. A lesser world. But in that separation, something painful happened. We were no longer with God in the physical space. We could no longer see Him with our physical eyes, or speak to Him with our physical voice. Unlike our father Adam (`alayhi as-salam – peace be upon him), we could no longer feel that same peace.

So we came down. We were torn from Him. And in the pain of that separation, we bled. For the first time, we bled. And that tearing apart from our Creator left a gash. A deep wound that we are all born with. And as we grew, so did the agony of that wound; it grew deeper and deeper. But as time went on, we moved further and further away from the antidote, already in our fitrah (nature): to be near Him, heart, soul and mind.

And so with each passing year, we became more and more desperate to fill that empty space. But it is in this very quest to fill the hole that we stumbled. Each of us stumbled on different things. And many of us sought to numb the emptiness. So, some of humanity stumbled on drugs or alcohol, while some looked to other sedatives. Some of us stumbled on the worship of physical pleasure, status or money. Some of us lost ourselves in our careers.

And then, some of us stumbled on people. Some of us lost ourselves there.

But, what if every single stumble, every challenge, every experience in our life was only intended for one purpose: to bring us back to our origin? What if every win, every loss, every beauty, every fall, every cruelty, and every smile was only intended to unveil another barrier between us and God? Between us and where we began, and where we are desperately seeking to return?

What if everything was only about seeing Him?" ~Yasmin Mogahed, Reclaim your Heart


Yes, we do long to see Him. We do long to return back to our original home, the home of our father and mother, Adam & Eve, we do long to return back to al Jannah (Paradise).

 

[Peace]

"We must know that all that we experience in life has a purpose. And it is we who choose whether to realize that purpose or not. Take for example, beauty. Some people don’t even recognize beauty when it’s right in front of them. They can walk through a sunset or a brilliant forest of orange trees, and not even notice.

Other people see beauty and do appreciate it. They will stop and take it in. They may even feel overwhelmed by it. But it ends there. That person is like the one who appreciates art, but never inquires about the artist. The artwork itself was intended to communicate a message from the artist; but if the art lover loses himself in the painting—but never sees the message, that artwork hasn’t fulfilled its true purpose.

The purpose of the glorious sun, first fallen snow, crescent moons and breathtaking oceans is not just to decorate this lonely planet. The purpose is far deeper than that. The purpose is as Allah told us in the Qur’an:

“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding. (Those) who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], “Our Lord, You have not created all of this without a purpose. Exalted is You [above such a thing]; then protect us from the punishment of the Fire.” (3:190-191)

All this beauty was created as a sign—but one that can only be understood by a select group: those who reflect (think, understand, use their intellect) and remember God in every human condition (standing, sitting, lying down). ~Yasmin Mugahed - Reclaim your Heart

Indeed in the creation of the universe there are many signs for those who reason. The universe is an open book for humankind to read and meditate on.

 

[Peace]

" If we can look beyond and through everything that happens to us, everything we do—or fail to do—and see Allah, then we will have gotten the purpose. When something happens that you love, be careful not to miss the point. Remember that nothing happens without a reason. Seek it out. Look for the purpose Allah created in what He has given to you. What aspect of His Essence is He showing you through it? What does He want from you?

Similarly, when something happens that you dislike, or that hurts you, be careful not to get lost in the illusion created by pain. Look through it. Find the message in the bottle. Find the purpose. And let it lead you to glimpse just a little more of Him." Yasmin Mogahed - Reclaim your Heart

 

[Peace]

“There’s something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does that mean? It means that the breathtakingly beautiful rose in my vase will wither tomorrow. It means that my youth will neglect me. But it also means that the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won’t last forever but neither will my tears. We say this life isn’t perfect. And it isn’t. It isn’t perfectly good. But, it also isn’t perfectly bad, either.”
― Yasmin Mogahed

 

[Peace]

Dunya: is an Arabic word for "life", "the world"

 

[Peace]

“[A Letter to the Culture that Raised Me] I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.”
― Yasmin Mogahed, Reclaim Your Heart

 

[Peace]

"No one likes to fall. And few people would ever choose to drown. But in struggling through the ocean of this life, sometimes it’s so hard not to let the world in. Sometimes the ocean does enter us. The dunya (the world) does seep into our hearts.
And like the water that breaks the boat, when dunya enters, it shatters our heart. It shatters the boat. Recently, I was reminded of what a broken boat looks like, of what happens when you let everything in. I was reminded because I saw someone, just like me, fall in love too much with this life and seek to be filled by the creation. So the ocean of dunya shattered her boat, as it had shattered mine, and she fell out into the water. But she stayed down too long, and didn’t know how to come back up or what to hold on to.
So she drowned.
If you allow dunya to own your heart, like the ocean that owns the boat, it will take over. You will sink down to the depths of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor. And you will feel as though you were at your lowest point. Entrapped by your sins and the love of this life, you will feel broken. Surrounded by darkness. That’s the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light reaches it.
But, this dark place is not the end. Remember that the darkness of night precedes the dawn. And as long as your heart still beats, this is not the death of it. You don’t have to die here. Sometimes, the ocean floor is only a stop on the journey. And it is when you are at this lowest point, that you are faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up—stronger from the swim, and richer from the jewels."
~ Yasmin Mogahed - Reclaim your Heart


Yes, if we drowned in this worldly life, we shouldn't surrender and stay in its depths, we should know that it is a passing stage and we should learn from it and rise up to save our lives.

 

[Peace]

"Yesterday my 22 month old sought to exercise his independence. After climbing out of his car seat, he wanted to shut the car door like a big boy, so I stood there watching over him. Realizing that if I left him to shut the door, his little head would have gotten slammed in the process, I lifted him away, and shut the door myself. This devastated him, and he broke down in tears. How could I prevent him from doing what he so badly wanted to do?

Watching the incident, a strange thought crossed my mind. I was reminded of all the times this had happens to us in life—when we want something so badly, but Allah does not allow us to have it. I was reminded of all the times we as adults felt this same frustration when things just wouldn’t work out the way we so desperately wanted them to. And then suddenly, it was so clear. I had only taken my son away from the door to protect him. But he had no idea. In the midst of his mourning, he had no idea that I had actually saved him. And just as my son wept in his naivety and innocence, so often we too bemoan events that have actually saved us.

When we miss a plane, lose a job, or find ourselves unable to marry the person we want, have we ever stopped to consider the possibility that it may have been for our own good? Allah tells us in the Quran: “…But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.” (2:216)

Yet it is so difficult to look beyond the surface of things. It takes great strength to see beyond the illusions, to a deeper truth—which we may or may not understand. Just as my son could not understand how my depriving him of what he most wanted at that moment was in fact my looking out for him, we are often just as blind.

As a result, we end up staring indefinitely at the closed doors of our lives, and forget to notice the ones that have opened. When we can’t marry the person we had in mind, our inability to look beyond may even blind sight us from someone who is in fact better for us. When we don’t get hired, or we lose something dear to us, it’s hard to take a step back and notice the bigger picture. Often Allah takes things away from us, only to replace them with something greater."
~Yasmin Mogahed - Reclaim your Heart


When I read the first paragraph that's exactly what I thought of, when sometimes we want something or ask God for something and it is not granted. We should know that good is in what God has chosen for us since He is our Creator and He knows us better than we know ourselves.
May Allah strenghten our imaan to accept Allah's decree for us and be pleased with it.