Fighting Keena/Malice - Purification of the heart

Analogy of an onion

Onion is something good, we eat it, we fry it and put it in the salan(gravy), we use it in different dishes. It is something that has uses, so the Prophet (saw) did not call onion itself bad but he called its smell bad, the smell is what bothers.

So  Mohaddaseen  wrote that a person might have some good and some bad in him; to hate the bad is what is needed. Hating the bad thing, that is not keena but hating the person himself, wanting bad things to happen to that person, that then becomes keena.

Now this is very hard; to not hold a grudge against someone who wronged you, a person who had been very bad to you, who had hurt you. Yes, it is very hard, but that is the part of tazkkiya, purification of the heart; not to hate a person of imaan because they must have some good things about them, while hating their their bad attributes. To hate the sin but not the sinner.

Analogy of a person who is sick

When someone is sick and is in the hospital, you go to the hospital to visit them.   If that person has some type of viral infection, some type of flu, you cover your face, your nose etc while visiting them. You wash your hands afterwards. You take all these precautions so you don’t catch that infection yourself. But you don’t hate the person who is sick, who has that disease or illness.  This behavior is exactly what the Islam teaches us to adopt towards a person of spiritual disease, a person of sins; to hate the disease but not the diseased person.

If we see in our own lives, when we love somebody we overlook their faults, we overlook their bad traits because we love them, we look at their khayr, and when we don’t like somebody, even their good things become bad points. This is keena, disliking a person, having bad feeling towards a person and wanting bad for them.

Causes of Keena (this is probably a continuation of causes……they started before (I think)…..but audio is missing)

>Disliking someone for no solid reason

Sometimes we strongly dislike someone for no reason. Maybe we just don’t like the way they look, the way they act, in short we dislike people for some petty reasons. ‘I don’t like the way she talks, the way she dresses’.

And this can be towards anyone, even towards a pious person. Worst is to have keena towards somebody who is righteous. Having keena, enemity towards a pious person is a greater sin.

Allah Ta’Ala Proclaims war with those who hold grudge against His Awliya

It comes in a Hadith that if someone holds enmity, bughz for any of the awliyaa, any of the people who are close to Allah Ta’laa, Allah Ta’laa wages a war against that person.

Now these religious people, some Aalim, scholar, these are also human beings, they can also make mistakes, but holding grudges against them will only make us suffer ourselves. Now Allahu A’lam(Allah Knows Best) about the spiritual state of a person. Our Judgement is naqis(weak). We can only judge on what they seem to be, their apparence, and someone whom we are taking lightly may be someone very beloved to Allah. This can be very dangerous. We see it ourselves, that people who have grudges, bad feelings toward people who are close to Allah, they suffer. So this is something we should be wary of with all people, especially those who are near to Allah.

Ahadith e Mubarakah regarding Keena

Keena is explained through the word ghil  or bughz.

·         ‘Do not have hatred for one another’

Don’t have bughz against each other. Bhugz means hatred.

·          ‘The deeds of human are presented every Monday and Thursday and every believing servant is forgiven except those two people who have keena for one another’

Allah Ta’Ala Says ‘ leave them until they have set things right between themselves’. Allah Ta’Ala is not going to forgive them until they themselves fix the relationship or get rid of these bad feelings.

Keena-a two way street

 Another thing we will notice is that keena is usually two way. If you have bad feelings for someone, 9 out of 10 times that person will also have bad feelings for you. And this is human nature that you have a reciprocal relationship with people if you have love towards someone, if you feel good towards someone, if you love someone most likely that person has same feelings for you. If you have bad feelings, most likely that person has bad feelings for you. If you have hasad most likely the other person will also have hasad for you. Same is the case in keena, you buy it yourself. But if you can work on your own heart, on your keena most likely the person who has bad feelings, those feelings will finish as well. This is coming in the remedies part. One of the remedy of keena is to deliberately try to be good to that person, and obviously if you are good to somebody, that person’s own bad feelings will go away too. Like it comes in Surah Rehman that the recompense of goodness is nothing except goodness. So this is what Islam teaches us. You can always demand your right, but if you leave your right, this is ahsaan, to forgive is ahsaan. And if you want to make this world a better place, if you want to make yourself a better person, you have to practice ahsaan, you have to take the higher position although as far as Shariah goes yes you can stand up for your right. But that won’t be excellence.

Glad tidings of Jannah for ‘a seena be keena’(a heart that is pure of any malice)

·         There comes a long Hadith thatthe Prophet (saw) was with some Sahabah karam(ra) when another Sahabhi(ra) passed, and Prophet saw commented about him that he is a Jannati. Now masha’Allah the Sahaba(ra) were eager to know what made that Sahaba earn those glad tidings from the Blessed tongue of RasulAllah(saw) so one of the Sahabi (ra) went to that passerby Sahabi and took permission to spend some days with him; he wanted t observe him to learn what special act or deed he does which made him a Jannati. So he went and spent a few days with that person and he prayed just the way that person did, he did same work as that person did, during the day he spent the day with him and then after one or two days he said that I can’t see anything special in your deeds so what is it, which amal of yours do you think make you a Jannati. So that Sahabi(ra)said that no I don’t do anything special but he insisted that  there must be something special that Prophet (saw) specifically said that you are jannati. Then the Sahabi(ra) said that it might then be this amal of mine that before I go to sleep every night, I make dua that whatever hatred I have for any believer,it  fades away from my heart, any type of keena finishes. This shows that seena bay-keena (a heart free of malice)leads to jannat.

Do you have keena? Check yourself!

We will be looking at 7 signs;

1)      Looking for faults in others.

Even if you look at it practically, finding faults in other people is not going to make you a better person. You’ll just feel better and if you feel better that means you have keena. Enjoying finding faults in other people is a sign of keena.

Especially getting happy if someone commits a sin is very grave. One thing is you are happy on someone’s problems or shortcomings, that is also problematic but being happy on a someone’s sin, this is even worse, especially when that person has done sincere tawbah. We should be scared that Allah Ta’Ala may leave us to fall in that same sin if we used to taunt others on that sin. So this is something very dangerous.

2)       Informing others about their sins/faults.

In Surah Humazah, it is said;

‘Woe to every backbiter, derider’ (Suran 104, Ayah 1)

So if we find ourselves finding faults in others, like putting a microscope on them to make a mountain even out of a mole, and/or we are looking for some opportunity to tell others about their fauls, this is a big sign of keena!

3)      Disliking when they get praised by someone.

So sometimes if we hear some third person praising them, we don’t like it and we try to pull them down by saying something or another. Like for example, someone  praises her that ‘masha’Allah, she is looking very nice’, and you immediately pop in with, ‘Yeah, but she has gained weight.’ So you try to put her down, you put the person down, that shows that you are not happy with praise.

4)       Getting happy when somebody has difficulties and problems.

 Being happy on someone’s difficulty, this is not the sign of a momin. Quran Shareef says about people that do they not fear the hidden plots of Allah. So what do we mean by hidden plots?It may happen that if we get happy on someone else’s problems, Allah Ta’Ala may also Make us suffer the same azmaish/ test and difficulty.Like sometimes women get happy,that X,Y,Z’S daughter has this problem, she got divorced etc, they look at other people’s kids and get happy that their kids have problems and then their children face same problems. So this is something that Allah Ta’laa can always turn the tide against people.

When we see somebody in a difficulty, response of a momin is that he asks for Allah Ta’Ala’s protection, that Allah Ta’Ala Saves him from such difficulty. A momin should  do shukar about their own situation,ask for Allah’s protection and think that I’m no better than that person, or perhaps I’m even worse, I should be the one deserving such difficulty but Thanks to Allah that He didn’t Put me in such trial and hardship. This shows humble attitude and shukar, this then also finishes the keena inside a person.

5)      Not wanting to say anything positive about that person and/or to that person.

Sometimes people don’t even like to say salaam to that person, no Mubarak, no Congratulations if there is a celebration time. Even if they force themselves to do it with a painted smile, they wouldn’t be happy with their celebration inside. This is also a very bad thing.

Then they would not want to say anything positive about them, rather they would like to say bad things, they enjoy saying bad things about that person.

6)      Viewing that person as inferior.

 This shows takabur which we discussed before. Even regarding someone inferior due to their evil deeds and sins is not right. Like we mentioned before that we have to hate the sin and not the sinner.

An incident from the life of Hazrat Isa (a.s)

It is written in some books about Hazrat Isa AS that once Hazrat Isa AS passed by a sinning person and he said that how are you? Sinning person replied that I spent all my life doing sins and disobeying Allah Ta’laa, I don’t know whether Allah will forgive me or not, I’m just expecting His rehmat. Then Hazrat Isaa AS passed by another person who was religious person, he asked how are you? He replied, I spent my life doing good deeds, Allah may Qabul all that, all I I wish is that I don’t end up in an anjam/ending like that sinning person.

You see, what did he do, very subtle point here, he did not say that I don’t want to end up in an anjam like that of a sinner, any sinner, he showed nafrat, hatred to that person, that particular person. Now how would he know the anjam of that person and this is something in the Quran, some people do such a strong tawabah, does’nt matter, you can be 99, you can be 99 years old and you do a sincere tawbah and die the next minute. As long as your tawbah is sincere, Allah Ta’Ala transforms all your sins into good deeds. so this is something, we are not anyone to judge that who will end up where on the Day of judgement (anjam), some Ulema have even written that you cannot say this even to a kafir, as you never know that he might accept islam at the very last moment. So you might address the gunnahgar, generally, not a particular person.

So this is something a person k andar, if you regard someone as inferior because of their sins,this is also  a sign of keena, this is very high level, that never to think of someone as inferior or haqeer  because when you do, that is the sign that you have bad feelings or resentment in your heart. That’s true, if someone is gunahgar, and he faces some difficulty and you say he got what he deserved, that means you should, take the same negative thing and make something positive Allah Ta’laa make him the way or sabab to our hadayat whatever he is facing, if is due to his gunnah, Allah Ta’laa now make this a sabab to 17:40 (check) hadayah instead of feeling good about herself that she got what she deserved so this is sign of keena again.

Next number 5, spreading their secrets and private matters to others, this is something that when a person has keena when you have keena against somebody you do amanat mai khyanat Hadith mai ata 18:00 to 18:01, that whatever you talk about in a majalis, you cannot tell that thing to anyone without their permission you are not suppose to tell it to anybody, now they do amanta mai khyanat, if they find any secret matter, some private thing about that person, they will say it to other people and they will enjoy doing it. So this is also a sign of keena and when they do it they add a little bit of exaggeration and then tell

Next is making fun of somebody and taunting, taunting is also very dangerous cause if you taunt somebody for a gunnah that they did tawbah Allah Ta’laa might turn the tables and make you do the same thing or make somebody in your family do the same thing 18:59 (check) you have to be very careful that how exactly we think of someone, how do we see them, do their shortcomings or gunnah make us happy? Because if such is the case Allah Ta’laa might directly or indirectly Give us or our children the same problems, respectively. So this is something we should be careful of, taunting and making fun of people

Last sign, this is the highest level of keena, that sometimes if a person has keena, they have a revengeful nature, hota when you get hurt, especially when you get hurt, you promise yourself that you will take revenge, this is the sign of keena, this revengeful nature does’nt let you forget  it happens that women say that so and so person said me this or that hota, they would remember the exact wording, the exact dialogue, the exact everything and they would record it in their data bank, that next time I would use it, I would remember, while you doing that, you don’t forgive, one thing is to forgive, you don’t forgive, they will do it with the niyat that I’ll take revenge, whenever I get a chance, when the chance comes, if it’s a time of celebration, they would do something to put it down, if that person needs they won’t help that person, they would try to sabotage any type of happiness or goodness indirectly tou iss mai trying to hurt a person, having this revengeful nature,this is the sign of keena aswell.

Harms of having keena, people who wrote about tazkkiya say keena mael  (dirt)hota hai dil (heart) ka, and such a dirt which keeps on increasing, the more you have it, so when the person has it, mael in the heart, then  the light,happiness, noor or sarur will decrease, a person will end up being bitter, and this will be evident from his/her face, she would be bitter with people, would have negative thinking about people and would stay in her own depressions, when a person thinks bad about other people and has hatred in your heart, dil or heart is suppose to love if you would change that aim and make it hatred or nafrat then the sweetness of heart will fade away, sweetness of imaan and ibadat will finish, you won’t have a forgiving heart, these are the worldly problems and in the Hereafter you are not going to be forgiven by Allah Ta’laa, Hadit says,Sahih Hadith, Layla tul Qadr, we all know the blessings of this Night, Layla Tul Qadr, on this Night, huge sinners would be forgiven, but people having keena in ther heart won’t be forgiven

Ok, what is the remedy for keena? Main thing which I mentioned, which is a remedy to many other problems  is daraguzar, muafi, forgiving forgiving somebody and usually keena happens because of arguments, keena  happens because of hurtful feelings, comments, hurtful behavior  opposite of keena or it’s zid is to forgive. Quran Shareef repetedly stresses forgiveness, to forgiveanother word is hilm. Hilm, in Arabic, in Urdu it means burdbari and a similar word is tahamul, tahamul mizaji, tahamul’s root word comes from hamal,e.g; hamila,  a woman who carries, hamil is someone who carries, so when you carry a burden, there are two types of burden, one is physical burden, you carry your suitcase, bag , they are heavy, burden means you carry something even if it is heavy, you make an effort to carry it, another tahamul is what you carry in your heart, internal, batani tahamul , carrying a burden in your heart, when someone hurts your feelings and usually when somebody has keena they are very sensitive, they get hurt more hurt, will have more inferiority complex, so when you have tahamul, tahamul means you are strong person, you are not sensitive, sensitive is good in some ways, but you are not over sensitive, you will bear it, you will forgive, this is something you have to forgive, Hadith says that when any agnoy or anxiety is faces by a Musalman, make 70 excuses, maybe she was having a bad day, maybe I misunderstood, maybe she didn’t mean what she said, maybe she didn’t see me, she never said salaam to me, maybe she never saw me, matlab to have a list of complaints against somebody, that means you have keena, maybe that person didn’t see you,when we love someone, we make excuses for the, we make excuses for our children that they aren’t feeling well, for our parents siblings, so we should make excuses for the rest, that comes to the next part that we have to make excuses for our Muslim brothers and sisters, when they make a mistake, this comes under tahamul mizaji and also forgiving someone has its own charm, person who forgives that person is polishing their heart, keena is the dirt of the heart and forgiveness is its polish, when you do forgiveness, you polish off your keena, this is in our Hadith as well to do istighfar, ask Allah Ta’laa for forgiveness the Prophet saw used to do it 100 times a day, so we can ask people forgiveness, ask anyone or everyone for forgiveness when you meeting somebody, when you leaving somewhere, sorry if I did anything to bother you. So always asking for forgiveness will help someone else if someone has keena against you, it will end up as well. So this is something you also see in the life of Prophet saw, Prophet saw had a very soft nature, a Hadith says that he who is not reham towards others, Allah Ta’laa does’nt Show reham towards him. So showing reham towards others, forgiving their shortcomings and thinking, Hadith says that every Bani Adam maievery person is a sinner, but the best sinner is the one who does tawbah, so doing tawabah and thinking others do tawbah aswell and so they might be better  tou  not to have keena or any (check) 34:10

Another thing is showing goodwill towards that person,ahsan, if you show ahsan, good ikhlaq, good adaab, good deeds towards that person, a person who’s human nature is  such, what we did in Surah Rehman that good attracts good, when you do something good, people will naturally love you and this is human nature, people love those who do good to them, if you show good to that person, whatever bad they may  have, that will finish and  naturally when you talk good of someone, then you’ll feel love towards that person so taking care of someone, serving someone,  you’ll naturally become more interested and loving towards that person and that person will also become more loving towards you, so we have these actions, expressions,verbally saying something, you know, saying, expressing, giving tareef, making dua, saying something good to them, so this will elicit good feelings and also pratical, Hadith says giving gifts Arabic expression 40:09 40:10, that exchange gifts, so there is an increase in love, we generally give gifts in return to someone who gave it to us, we do it out of compulsion,in our religion, we do  not do it out of compulsion, do it with love and niyat that Hadith says to give hadya so love between eachother increases, so I am giving this gift with that niyat, don’t look at the gift, is it small, big, expensive etc, give it with the ikhlas and the niyat, that person would be happy, and it actually works, an increase in love is felt,  when someone give you something, maybe you are in a bad mood, they come to your house with a bouquet, flowers and you are like, oh! Heart softens, so gifts daina, we learn it from the westerns, we learn it from valentine’s day, we learn it from mother’s day, parent’s day  etc, but this is already in our religion, that if you want to increase love, give hadya, give gifts,it can be dinner etc, something you cooked in your house, anything, exchanging gifts increases mohabbat towards a person so if you have keena towards any particular person give gifts, something you would like to wear yourself, give those clothes, give something that you yourself would wear,  give something that would be appreciated, this is practical demonstrations, also helping that person, to help somebody in the time of need,that person would always emeber you then that say when I moved to this area, this person was the one who came upto me to help, she was the first person who met me, even just asking is such a big thing, don’t think in a way that I don’t have time why ask then go and ask whether they need any help, breed love in the heart, this will remove keena inside you, so if you have keena towards someone,  fight your nafs yourself and say call that person up, ask k do you need help, give a gift, so benefit that person

Another thing, the last thing, make dua, to make dua for somebody, making dua for people you have keena for, for dua you need to have ikhlas, you would know when making dua that whether you h ave ikhlas or not, and that is very hard, people you have keena or hasad for, asking and making dua that Allah Ta’laa dunya o akhrat ami Give them khairain, it would be hard to say, but force yourself, the advantage of this would be that Allah Ta’laa will remove the keena from your heart, to make dua for that person, sincerely and making dua for yourself that  Allah Ta’laa give me seena bai-keena dain, remove bad feelings within me, people who write about spirituality and tazkkiya they write that make such a dua that Allah Ta’laa transform my bad siffat, khaslatain and characteristics, trait into good ones, this works, make dua for yourself that bad traits within you get finished, last thing for keena, it is generally  for a lot of negative things, having positive thought, we talked about this, remembering  that if I dislike something I dislike these traits about that,I hate the sickness, gunnah, I don’t hate the sick person or the sinner, every person has some good in him and he is musalman, a momin, a believer at the end of the day not to hate that person, at the end of the day, he is a human being (check) 44:02, Hadit says that Prophet saw was once sitting down and there was a janaza passing of a jewish person and the Prophet saw stood up and the Sahabah karam were shocked that this is some jew’s janaza, why did you stand up? he said, ‘is he not a rooh of a human being?’,isn’t he a human being,  being a human being in itself is something that you should honor, so in the end, even for a disbeliever, not hating the human being, hating the kufr, hating the lack of imaan, hating these other things, so never hating a person for their zaat but hating them for their siffat so this is also very important, and also another positive thing (check) 44:49,  just when you love somebody you overlook their shortcomings or bad stuff, if they are your children, you say they are not intelligent enough, if they are your parents you would say, they are quite old, not well so that is why they are acting like this, you see siblings if they are in some sort of tension etc this and that, you make excuses for people in your family just like that make excuses for people towards whom you have keena or bad feelings, make excuses for them that maybe they have some psychological problem  maybe their childhood didn’t go well, they faced difficulties and that is why they have such a nature. Make excuses for somebody, this will have positive thoughts about a person and when you do that you will feel like treating that person better.

 The last thing, this is probably the hardest, this involves making our own imaan and aqeedah strong  when you do this, you realize k Allah Ta’laa is the Giver, Allah Ta’laa is the Taker, Allah Ta’laa is the Distributor of rizq, khaslatoun (characteristics), attributes, Allah Ta’laa is the one Who Gives us things, if we have something good in us is because Allah Ta’laa Gave it to us and if there is something bad in us is because of our own issues problems, therefore (check) 46:03, whatever and when you look at other people, to view them in this way: that Allah Ta’laa is the Distributor of everything, tou when you know this, the bad feelings, the feelings of keena, dislike,enmity would leave your heart so these are the things that if a person can improve the way of thinking then the dirt, the keena of their heart will fade away as well InsAllah Ta’laa