The Gateways of Trust and Generosity

Trust
Take for example the gate of trust. Trust is one of the pathways to the heart. One cannot trust someone without letting them enter their heart otherwise it would cease to be trust because one cannot give trust and be wary at the same time. It has to be complete and for it to be complete it has to be whole-hearted. Now, if a person experiences harm as a result of trusting someone then they might be inclined to not be so trusting with the next person and if the same occurred again then their trust might continue to diminish until they found it very difficult to trust anyone. This is usually the pattern such things follow. However, in terms of what we’re describing here about the heart and the city, about protecting the heart without closing the city, this approach of blaming trust is akin to barricading the gates completely. But it has the opposite effect of what is intended which is to protect the heart and thus inadvertently causes more harm.

One simply targets trust as being the problem rather than one’s own decisions or the actions of people as being the real problem. So what happens is that one of the pathways to the heart is closed off, one of the gates to this noble city is closed, people of trust leave, and those that would enter its environs are prohibited. This results from a persecution of the people of trust or a growing lack of trust amongst the remaining inhabitants of the city causing people to become increasingly wary of each other leading eventually to suspicion. Suspicion is the absence of trust, which is the reason why it is forbidden in Islam because of the deleterious effects it has on almost every aspect of one’s faith. We can continue to describe a host of problems caused wrongly targeting good virtues but the point remains the same, that the gate of trust must remain open but needs to become more refined and selective.

Now, many people through their understanding arrive at this point where they know that in order to protect the heart they need to operate this filter, this policy of discriminating between what is beneficial and what is harmful. However, knowledge of this idea does not necessarily mean one knows how to translate it into practice in which case people tend to simply close the gate to almost everything and hence constrict the heart to the point where it ceases to function properly as this once prosperous city. The key is not only to know that it is necessary to operate this strict policy at all the gates to ones heart, but how to do it, such that, one does not prevent goodness from entering or leaving. If a heart seeks to protect itself through controlling its gates but does so through preventing goodness from entering it because it did not possess the right criteria of discrimination, will actually end up achieving the opposite of what it intended to do which was to protect the heart. What this means is that the key to the protection of the heart is the ability to recognise goodness, good virtues, good characteristics, beneficial knowledge, good actions, and wisdom and enable that to enter into the heart and to reject its opposite. This is achieved through recognising that irrespective of the wrong actions of others one continues to believe in and hence continues to desire good virtues for oneself and others.

Generosity
As with trust, if one was possessed a generous heart whereby the citizens of his heart were a generous people but then one’s generosity was abused, should our response be to blame the good virtue of generosity, or to blame the actions of others? If one believes in good virtues and the good actions that emanate from them, then there should not be anything that alters this view even if one experiences harm through others abusing those virtues and good actions. The virtues were not to blame and thus remain as noble as they ever were. In taking this approach we maintain our belief in good virtues and continue to strive for them, enable them to continue to enter the heart through desiring them for ourselves and others and do not prevent them from entering the heart because what we desire the most is to possess a sound heart. And we continue to desire possessing a sound heart because a sound heart is a virtuous heart that finds close proximity to its Lord, finds the best of companies, finds success in this life and finds success in the next, insha’Allah.

Certainty in Virtue
Finally, there is considerable depth in perception gained through understanding the functions of the heart which insha’Allah this analogy of the heart as a complex city, which needs to be carefully regulated through controlling its gateways, is an analogy that gives brief insight into this idea. But the purpose also for understanding the importance of protecting the heart is that this understanding has to be coupled with practical knowledge of how this protection is enacted and when our actions may actually be causing inadvertent harm. When we realise the importance of good virtues, when we realise that, in fact, through our experiences we inadvertently fought against virtues instead of attributing wrong to our actions or those of others, then we begin to realise that come rain or shine goodness is always goodness and does not bend or alter. When we realise good virtues do not change and are not altered by people practicing its opposite and when our belief in good virtues does not bend nor alter because of experience of people exhibiting bad qualities then we become certain of what is truly good. In this realisation of the absolute nature of goodness we possess something that is unbreakable and unshakeable which is absolute certainty in good virtues. And this is true because all goodness comes from Allah and Allah is not subject to change in the least.

“That was the way of Allah in the case of those who have gone before and you shall not find any change in the way of Allah.” (Qur’an, Al-Ahzab, 33:62)

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Certainty, Futuwwah, Generosity, Trust, Virtues

13 July 2010

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