Assessing Our Hearts - Miftaah Circle - Chicago
By AbdelRahman Murphy | 2026-01-19T11:17:33.510903+00:00 | Topic: General
Assessing Our Hearts
Ustadh AbdulRahman Murphy | Miftaah Circle - Chicago
Opening
Welcome home. Alhamdulillah. It's good to see everybody here. We ask Allah Ta'ala to benefit us by this gathering and to make us beneficial to others.
InshaAllah. We ask Allah Ta'ala to write our names amongst the people that enter this gathering. Maybe with some sins and that we leave forgiven of those sins.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to allow us to be those people that the angels mention their names as those who have gathered here in a gathering of remembrance of Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala. We ask Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala to make us amongst those who love him and who are loved by those who love him and will be greeted by the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam on the Day of Judgment. The day when we will be rushing to find comfort that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam will be the first to take us by the hand.
Yeah, so I apologize for the dramatics of my crutch. I had ACL surgery two weeks ago. So I'm from Chicago, born and raised.
So out of my love for Derrick Rose, I had to follow, you know, exactly. I tore my left ACL eight years ago. And now I did my right ACL in December.
And I had surgery a couple weeks back. So make dua that Allah Ta'ala makes it easy for me. Make dua for my wife who's taking care of me.
Crazy how much you depend on people. Allah takes away like a three inch or four inch ligament. It's not even really, there's one of four.
And he takes it away from your knee and all of a sudden now you're helpless. And it's a reality, subhanAllah. My topic tonight inshallah is to open up our discussion on quite possibly the most important conversation in our tradition.
Gardens of the Righteous: The Sahaba
This is something that the Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke about very clearly many times. Tonight we're talking about Gardens of the Righteous. And it's referencing the Sahaba, the greatest generation of people who were gifted to be the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, but were also gifted to the Prophet, peace be upon him.
Meaning that the Prophet, peace be upon him, was given these wonderful people to help him and to support him and to be his followers and his students during this time of his life, peace be upon him. And those people, the Sahaba, were from a variety of different life circumstances. You had some companions that were like Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him.
You had Abu Huraira. You had others like Khadijah, may Allah be pleased with her. You had many individuals that didn't really have what we would consider to be like a checkered past.
They had a pretty relatively moral straight past. And when the Prophet, peace be upon him, was given the message by Jibril, peace be upon him, he came and these individuals, the Prophet, peace be upon him, he described Abu Bakr as not even thinking twice. He didn't even take a minute to hesitate or commiserate.
No, he said, I believe that you are the messenger of Allah. We know the story of Khadijah, our mother, may Allah be pleased with her. How quickly and beautifully she embraced a very difficult moment in the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and supported him.
And these are people that had hearts that were already arranged for and prepped for this goodness. But then you also had some other companions that their path to Islam was not so simple and was not so easy. You had the likes of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, may Allah be pleased with him, who was from the tribe of the Ghifar tribe.
And they were known, their reputation was being people that were like highway robbers. So if you were driving, they would, you know, hold you up driving. If you were riding your camel and you had your caravan with your materials, they would hold you up.
And this is what he grew up as and his harshness from that was something that the Prophet, peace be upon him, had to work on. You had other individuals like Khalid ibn al-Walid, you had Amr ibn al-As, you had Wahshi, you had Abu Sufyan, you had Hind, may Allah be pleased with all of them. That at one point in their life, all identified themselves as people that were enemies of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
And fought very, very, you know, tooth and nail against the messenger, against the believers. And even some of them took away people that were so beloved to the Prophet, peace be upon him, the battle of Uhud. If you've ever visited Umrah, Mecca, Medina, may Allah invite us again and again.
You stand on the ground, hollowed by history of a piece of land that the Prophet, peace be upon him, says:
We love Uhud. But it caused him so much pain that moment in that day, losing Hamza, may Allah be pleased with him, losing Mus'ab ibn Umair, may Allah be pleased with him. So all of these people had different stories.
All of these people had different hearts. And they all had to go through this one path, the path of the Prophet, peace be upon him. This singular way of adopting and submitting to Islam and adopting their
teacher and their mentor and their... The person who is going to purify them, the Prophet, peace be upon him.
The Prophet's Mission: Purification
And this is how Allah described him in the Quran. When he said that:
That the job of the Prophet, peace be upon him, was to recite the verses of the book to the people. Because you just saw, jazakallah khairan to our sheikh, the power of even just listening to the recitation of the Quran.
And we know Ramadan is very soon. May Allah grant us the ability to reach that month, to experience just immersing ourselves in the beauty that is Quran. And then after that (وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ) And as a means or as using of that Quranic message and that beautiful powerful message that we heard, a means of purification to cleanse ourselves.
Because only once a person is cleansed (وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ) Only through the cleansing of an engagement with the book of Allah, can a person really adopt and inculcate knowledge and wisdom, understanding of this faith. Many of us, we know things but we don't practice those things. Knowledge alone, as Imam Al-Ghazali writes about extensively, knowledge alone is not sufficient.
Right? Let me ask you a question. How many of us know what a good healthy diet looks like? Raise your hand. How many of us know that we should avoid sugar? How many of us know that we should avoid soda? How many of us know that we should avoid, I could just name all the delicious foods basically.
How many of us know that samosas are not the greatest thing? French fries, fried chicken. I'm not trying to get any restaurant owners here in trouble, right? Everyone's going to go from here to Whole Foods and spend their entire paycheck on three things. The point I'm trying to make is that we know these things.
We know these things. We know that we should avoid these things, but there's a disconnect between knowing and acting. And that's the challenge.
That's what the, on a greater level, that's what the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was sent to tell us and to address with us, that you might know something but you're not doing it. You're not acting upon it:
Why are you saying that which you don't do?
Allah mentions this in the Quran a lot. They say with their tongues what's not in their hearts, right? That's why the solution to this, Allah Ta'ala has given it to us beautifully in the Quran. But He outlined the problem very well for us. And so it's an out off.
I don't have too much time, but I want to give you something to take home. Besides me talking about delicious food. Now I want chocolate cake.
The Hearts Destined for Hellfire
Allah Ta'ala says:
أَعُوذُ باللهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّحِيمِ
Allah Ta'ala in this presentation of an idea, Subhana, He gives us like an outline that is perfectly done.
You don't have to... You know, the study guide is already done for you. You don't have to do a lot of research. So Allah Ta'ala says (وَلَقَدْ ذَرَأْنَا لِجَهَنَّمَ) That Allah Ta'ala created, or there are some people that will be destined for the hellfire.
(كَثِيرًا مِّنَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنسِ)
There are individuals from jinkind and mankind that will go to hellfire. May Allah protect us. You hear that and you naturally say, What? How do I protect myself from that? I don't want to be that person.
So what's the plan to remove myself from that group? Immediately following that description, it's almost like a colon. Allah Ta'ala says (لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ لَّا يَفْقَهُونَ بِهَا) The primary issue with these people that led them down the path of eternal damnation, may Allah protect us, was that they had hearts (لا يَفْقَهُونَ بِهَا) That the hearts were unable to process information for them.
They could not think with it. They could not think. (وَلَهُمْ أَعْيُنٌ لَّا يُبْصِرُونَ بِهَا) These people, they had eyes with which they could not see.
(وَلَهُمْ آذَانٌ لَّا يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا) And these people had ears with which they could not hear. The tafsir on this verse is beautiful. We don't have time to go over too many.
But in short, in summary, the heart, as Ali رضي الله عنه said, is the ameer, is the leader, the one in charge of the entire body. (أَمِيرُ الْبَدَنِ) The heart is there. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said:
(Sahih al-Bukhari)
That in the body there is this organ, this piece. If it's good, then everything will be good. So it's interesting that we think so much about every other aspect of our existence. We think so much about what we wear and how we appear and how we look.
:صلى الله عليه وسلم The hadith of the Prophet
(Sahih Muslim)
Allah will not look at the things that you wear on your body. He won't look at the figure, your image. (ولكن يَنْظُرْ إِلَى قُلُوبِكُمْ) What does Allah care about? What does Allah judge you by and assess you by? He assesses you by your hearts.
And in another narration (وَلَكِنْ يَنْظُرْ إِلَى أَعْمَالِكُمْ) By your deeds. So the Quran is very clear. And this is the difficult part.
Personal Responsibility for Heart Purification
Are you guys ready for this? I know I've just been kind of ranting. But let me tell you, this is the difficult part. The difficult part is that nobody can do this for you.
Nobody can do this for you. This job of purifying your heart, of getting all of your faculties in line, your eyes working properly. By the way, he's not talking about blindness.
He's not talking about the inability to see or the inability to hear. A person who has these ailments or has these conditions. That's not what he's talking about.
He's not talking about physical blindness or physical deafness. No. Allah Ta'ala is saying that the heart will be unable to recognize Allah.
When you're driving in a beautiful place and you witness a beautiful sunset. This is the only thing that Dallas, Texas has, by the way. Dallas, Texas, everyone's like, what kind of nature do you have there? I'm like, we have a lot of gas stations.
But we do have incredible sunsets. Because the land is so flat. There's no hills.
So you can see this. You can see Houston from Dallas, right? So the sunsets are remarkable. And I remember I was a youth director in Tennessee and we used to go hiking in the Smoky Mountains.
We used to go hiking and we used to look at the waterfalls. It was beautiful. If you've ever been, you know.
And I remember taking some people there and their reaction to the waterfall was like, oh, I could have searched this on Google. After hiking for three hours, they're like, this is it? And this waterfall is like incredible. I mean, to witness something like that in person, it changes you.
Because you realize how small you are. If you slipped and fell, you're done. Your life is over because the power of this natural phenomenon that Allah created is undeniable.
And then a person says, I could have seen this on YouTube. I scrolled past this on TikTok this morning. I didn't have to waste all my time coming here.
(لَهُمْ أَعْيُنٌ لَّا يُبْصِرُونَ بِهَا) They don't see what you see. They don't see what you see. A person whose heart is full of iman, they see the world differently.
Seeing with the Heart of Faith
My mom always taught us this. My mom would, in the smallest ways, you catch a green light that normally is yellow or red. Chicago drivers, you know how it is.
You catch a green light and we'd say something like, wow, we caught a green light. And my mom would say, this is from Allah. Remembering that, bringing even the most simple of realities.
Whatever you see with your eyes is from Allah. What do we say after we eat?
All praise be to the one who fed us and gave us drink and made us Muslims. What's that last part about? We're thanking Allah for food and drink.
Why are we adding that last part? And He made us believers. Well, because the believer understands where the food and drink came from. The person who doesn't believe in Allah, they think the food and drink came from the kitchen.
They think it came from the farmer. They think it came from the supplier. They think it came from the animal.
And even if they're really smart, they think it came from the earth. But the believer knows that food and drink came from Allah. Allah Ta'ala gave us this as rizq.
So, the heart controls your ability to witness anything as being from Allah. That's great news. But what's the danger now? The danger now is the science of or the existence of diseases of the heart.
Diseases of the Heart
And much like when a person is ailing, like right now, I was gonna say I have one ACL, but technically I have two. He put it back. Alhamdulillah.
But it's very weak. When a person is ailing, they are incapacitated. They can't do what they normally do.
I have to walk with a crutch or a cane. Right? Two weeks ago. Sorry.
Four weeks ago. Sorry. Also ACL does math for you apparently.
Six weeks ago, I did umrah. I walked miles and miles. And now six weeks later, it's hurting to stand right now.
I'm leaning on my left leg. You see how amazing it is that when Allah Ta'ala takes away something, everything changes. So the heart that can recognize Allah's blessing around you, conquering any crisis or faith question you have, when that heart is obscured by addictions and sins and desires that are done with no repentance, then the heart is unable to recognize Allah.
Thus you become like an animal. What's the job of an animal? To wake up, eat, use the bathroom, eat some more, walk around, use the bathroom, eat, and sleep. Yes or no? That's a good animal, right? You
don't expect the animal to pray tahajjud.
You don't expect the animal to build something. You don't expect these things from the animal. Allah says, the cattle, the cattle, this is what they do.
But you know what's amazing? Allah then says, bal means what? Bal means no. No. But Allah doesn't make mistakes.
We make mistakes. We correct ourselves. We say, actually... But Allah doesn't do that.
Bal hum adal. Actually the people whose hearts are so removed from recognizing Allah, Allah doesn't even want to insult the cows by comparing these people to animals. Says بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ
Why? Because when a cow eats, sleeps, goes to bed and repeats, they're doing their job. But when humans do that, we're failing. If we perform like a cow, we are failing but the cow is succeeding.
Allah says, we are created, we are designed. You are created for so much more than just consuming and taking in and following your desires. You have such high aspirations and potential and capacity, way above this.
But if the heart is sick, you will never know what you can accomplish. And so we ask Allah Ta'ala to give us purification of our hearts. What are some of the things that we can focus on? I only have a few minutes left.
Three Keys to Heart Purification
First: Gratitude (Shukr)
What are some of the things that we can focus on? Number one is gratitude. Shukr. This is by all means shaytan's primary vehicle or language at trying to take away our focus from our hearts on Allah.
When he was telling Allah, divulging his plan, he completed his rant by saying to Allah:
He told Allah that my promise and my pledge to destroy and divert people's attention from worshiping and recognizing You, O Allah, is that I will make them not grateful. Gratitude is the solution to so many of the diseases of the heart. All of the diseases of the heart, they focus on other people and away from Allah.
They are obstacles. So for example, hasad. You guys ever heard of hasad before? What's hasad? What's nazar? What's ayin? What's envy? Nazar, I just saw some people shake.
Alright? My mom always used to tell us when we get scared of that, she's like Allah is more powerful than any hasad. Alright? Seek refuge with Allah. Don't let it control your life.
It's real, but don't let it control your life. Okay? I know some people that don't leave their house. Why? Because hasad.
You didn't see the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) living life like this. He read his athkar, he made his dua, he took protection, he didn't post on Instagram every good outfit, right? Some people are inviting this stuff. Stop advertising your blessings, right?
But not on Instagram, okay? So the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught us how to live in hasad.
What is hasad? Hasad is when a person envies something that somebody else has. Imam Al-Ghazali says, in so much that if you could remove it, you would. So if I like something someone else has and if I was in control, I would take it away from them.
The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said that hasad destroys your good deeds just like fire destroys dry wood. Can you imagine? Can you imagine praying all your prayers, fasting all of your fasts, going on hajj, giving sadaqah, and you show up on the day of judgment and nothing's there? And you say, Ya Allah, I promise I did everything. I tried.
I wasn't perfect. And the angels tell you, Ya, but you had an uncontrollable envy in your heart for people. All you did was look at things that people had and say, Why not me? Why not me? Why did they have... Why are they getting married? Why did they get that job? Why did they get that house? Why did they... So the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says, for this person, all of their good deeds become annihilated, destroyed, just like fire consumes dry wood.
Imam Al-Ghazali talks about this. And he says, with all due respect, it seems like a very harsh punishment. Someone has envy and now they have no good deeds? Like there are other sins that are really bad.
Murder, zina, oppression, stealing. These are all really bad sins. But we don't find a similar... Why is the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) focusing on this one deed that is really... It's from the heart.
It's not like a person is going... Because... And this is Imam Al-Ghazali. He's a genius. He said, Because this disease is not between you and a person.
This disease, you are disagreeing with Allah. When Allah gave somebody something and then you said, Why? Why does he have that? Why did she get that? Who are you speaking to? You're not speaking to the person. You're speaking to Allah.
And how destructive is it for a person to disagree with the one who gave them everything they had. Just because he didn't give them that one thing and maybe he'll give it to them later and they're just complaining because of the delay or the timing. So shukr conquers hasad.
Second: Humility
So some scholars say that one of the ways that a person can train their heart to defeat all of these
diseases is by having shukr. Number two. Okay, number one is shukr.
Number two is humility. Humility. When a person has humility before Allah and gratitude leads to humility.
You sit there and wonder, Why? Why do I have everything? You know, we need to ask the question, Why me? We need to ask that question. I'm a big fan of that question, by the way. Everyone asks, Why me? Why me, God? Why me? But we need to change it.
It's not, God, why did you not give this to me? You should say, Oh Allah, why do you keep giving me this? You wake up and you should say, Oh Allah, why me? I miss my prayer and you still let me wake up. Oh Allah, why me? We need to be honest. We can't only become upset when we don't get the things we want.
But then when we get everything we want and we take it for granted, now all of a sudden we don't have any, Why me? When you get in your car today and you drive home and you reach safely, Say, Why me? Oh Allah, And you know what's going to happen to your heart when you ask that question enough times? You're going to have a never-ending list of scenarios that you didn't even realize you took for granted and you will never complain to Allah again.
My wife's grandfather, may Allah have mercy on him. One time his wife asked him, Why are you always in such a good mood? He was a very happy guy.
He's a Sheikh Abdul Wahid, always in a good mood. And so his wife kind of one time she was upset and he was like, It's fine, right? And she said, Why are you so happy all the time? He said, If I spent every second of my day thanking Allah for things He gave me, I would run out of time before I ran out of things to thank Him for. What is there for me to complain about? And if I complain, let me quietly, privately, respectfully do it to who? Allah.
Not to other people. So have humility. Let your shukr make you more humble.
Third: Repentance (Tawbah)
Number three, and this is where I'll finish, is turn back to Allah. Repent to Allah. A person's damnation into hellfire, a person's failure in this life and the next, is not because they made mistakes.
It's not. Everyone makes mistakes. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) told us this.
Every son and daughter of Adam will make mistakes. If you made mistakes, you are already halfway to the point of getting closer to Allah. Your mistake brought you closer to Allah.
I'll share a narration that blows my mind every time I read it. What you have to do then is repent and try to come back to Allah. Allah said that He can forgive everybody.
There's a laam of nahi here in the Quran. A laam of nahi. Allah forbids losing hope in Allah.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا And then He says, why? Allah can forgive everybody. One time Umar was asked. This is in the tafsir of Surah Al-Hujurat.
It's found in the narration of Imam Ahmed. The Musnad of Imam Ahmed. Umar was asked by somebody.
And this person was kind of short sighted. They asked Umar, they said, who's better? The one who never committed the mistake, they were perfect. Or the one who made mistakes, they stumbled and then they came back to Allah.
Like they tried their best. And Umar said, and he was like, without a doubt, it was the person who stumbled and made mistakes and then came back to Allah. He said, without a doubt.
The person became confused. They said يَا أَمِيرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ What are you talking about? I mean both are good, but how can a person who never made mistakes be equal to the one who made mistakes? Even if the person repented. Umar said, you're not understanding the psychology of tawbah.
He said, do you know how hard it is to come back once you've made a mistake? Do you know how difficult it is? He said, the person that comes back to Allah has displayed through their tawbah a level of repentance that is, it's what people dream about. Those people that are quote-unquote perfect, they dream about tasting the sweetness of repentance. Umar is saying.
And who is he? Umar is speaking from experience. He's saying, you have no idea. If you've never had a night of repenting to Allah for the mistakes you've made, you don't know what you're missing.
You don't know what you're missing. Repentance is the key that will bring you closer to Allah. And it's interesting because even amongst human beings, and I'll finish with this.
When a person repents, when a person fixes their relationship, let's say that Mufti Kamani and I got into an argument. It's not possible. Right? It's not possible.
Best we'll say, Mufti Kamani and I got into an argument. Okay? And let's say that we fought very, very harsh with each other. And we didn't talk to each other for the rest of the day.
And the next day we woke up. I'm not going to act like this is a hypothetical. This happens at Hajj every year.
He finished the Um Ali. He didn't leave me any Um Ali. And I got upset.
So we wake up the next day and we look at each other and we hug it out. You guys know what it means to hug it out? No words, just hugs. Right?
Subhanallah, when you repair from an argument with somebody, when you fix it, when you make islah, you're actually closer than you were before you had the fight in the first place.
Because you guys have climbed that mountain together. You thought you weren't going to make it and you made it. And now you got your arm around each other and you say, look at us.
Closing
There are many more. Unfortunately, I already took up too much time from Shaykh Haifa. So I don't want to take up any more time from the program.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to accept from us and to purify our hearts and to allow our hearts to be clean. And as a result of our hearts being clean, our minds, our bodies, and our souls all recognize the beauty and the greatness and the majesty of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Jazakum Allah khairan.
"Glory be to You, O Allah, and all praises are due unto You. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but You. I seek Your forgiveness and turn to You in repentance."
وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ