The Book of Heart Softeners

Every so often our daily lives preoccupy us and turn us away from Allah's promise. When we walk out of our homes, turn on the radio, the television or the internet, we are distracted by what we see and hear. As a result of immorality and unashamed disobedience, our hearts grow hard and distant from Allah and His Messenger's call.

We know the message of Islam is true, but we are weak due to the rigidity of our heart, spirit and mind. In times like these, we need something to penetrate it.

The Condition This Book Is For

It is worth naming precisely, because it is not doubt.

A person in this state believes everything he ever believed. He prays, he fasts, he would defend his religion if it were attacked. And none of it moves him — the verses that once affected him pass without registering, and he cannot say when that changed.

The Qur'an describes exactly this: hearts that became hard, or harder than stone, after knowledge had reached them. It is a recognized condition with a recognized cause.

Why Softeners Rather Than Arguments

Because the problem is not intellectual and cannot be solved intellectually. A person in this state does not need to be convinced of anything; he needs something to reach past the part of him that already agrees.

The classical genre of raqa'iq exists for this — narrations about death, the grave, the Hereafter, the mercy of Allah, chosen for their effect rather than their argumentative force.

Who It Is For

Any Muslim who has noticed the flatness and wants it addressed. Best read a little at a time.

Related Reading

• Hearts that Think, See, and Remember — the spiritual heart in the Quran and Sunnah
• Characteristics of the Hypocrites — the characteristics of the hypocrites
• Remembrance of the Most Merciful — Ibn Al-Qayyim on remembrance