This world in my hands, God in my Heart

Ust TM Fouzy delivered a very moving speech on the above subject, very enlightening and I would say impactful as well.

The world in my hands refer to our call of duty, that being our task of managing this world since we are the viceroy or khalifah of God on this earth. Meaning to say, we have resources entrusted upon us; wealth, family, trees, water and what have you. Our task is to manage them well, in accordance to His orders but never to have our hearts occupied by them.

Don’t get overly attached to the wealth of the world. This of course does not mean that a muslim has to shun away wealth. We need to work for our livelihood, that is halal. But don’t search for wealth at the expense of religion. A story to beautifully illustrate this is as such; a rich king, adorned with a crown splendid with jewelry, rings of varying colours of shiny gemstones, donning the finest clothing and riding on the most elegant white horse, whilst always escorted by a team of elite guards can be the shaykh and a simple, poor fisherman the student. Reason? Simple, the Shaykh does not feel sad even a tiny bit if all his wealth were to be stunted from him in an instant, neither does he feel any happiness when even more wealth is given to him. As for the student, the poor fisherman, he is pissed off whenever he catches a small fish instead of a big one. Zuhud is not to attach wealth to your heart, zuhud does not mean you have to be poor.

As a caution though, such things are always, always much easier said than done, many people can claim similar things but not many can say so with the truest meaning. That is why our Beloved Prophet SAW chose poverty as a lesson for his ummah, for verily one of the most trying things of the last ummah is wealth. Indeed the fear that many may not pass the test of wealth is very real.

some live for the bill, some kill for the bill...

As for God is in my heart, it entails the intense feeling of love for Him who has created us. How to achieve this? The only branch of islam dealing with love for God is tasawwuf and its practice is tariqah. It is a different experience to know only the external sciences of islam and neglecting tasawwuf, because the experience of love for God is not as strong. We only know as a cliché, that we ought to love Him and his Rasul. But that is not enough. Knowing and tasting is not the same. Tasawwuf leads to tasting (dhawq aka zouk). Personally, life as a muslim without this love is very dry.

God in my heart also does not mean that we neglect our loved ones, our spouse etc. it only means that we love them for the sake of God. This means we have to treat them superbly well,provide them the best upbringing, as exemplified by the Prophet saw. It of course does not deny us the right to enjoy our loved ones’ company. It means that we subdue our egos when dealing with them, meaning to say, control anger etc. that way, our love for our loved ones become strong due to the even stronger bond of the love for God and insyaAllah that relationship is showered blessings upon blessings; the recipe for a loving relationship is the mutual love for God.