Beyond Halal & Haram: Are You Numbing Your Heart?
By Unknown Speaker | 2026-06-08T21:43:56.413213+00:00 | Topic: Tawheed
Introduction
We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is His final Messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the Prophets and Messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them, Allahumma Ameen.
Just Because It's Not Haram Doesn't Mean It's Good for You
One of the main lessons that we are learning in Ramadan is that there is a difference between that which is bad for you and that which doesn't benefit you.
Imam Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahu Allah lists out this incredible compilation of narrations of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam about the way that the shaytan attacks a human being. And it's important for us — as we are in Ramadan where the effect of shaytan is reduced — to increase and fortify ourselves with that which will make his impact on us after Ramadan less effective. So I want you to listen carefully to the stages by which he mentions shaytan attacks a person.
The Six Stages of Shaytan's Attack
He said that shaytan comes to you first and foremost — as the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said — with الشِّرْكُ بِاللَّهِ (ash-shirku billah). He tries to get you to worship other than Allah, to associate a partner with Allah. And if he is unsuccessful at getting you to worship other than Allah, he comes to you with الْبِدْعَة (al-bid'ah) — with innovation — because if he can cause you to innovate in the religion, then he has brought you one step closer to associating a partner with Allah, because you have effectively turned yourself or someone else into a legislator in the deen.
And if he is unsuccessful at getting you with ash-shirku billah or al-bid'ah, then he comes to you with major sins — the most shameless and blatant of disobedient actions towards Allah. So he comes to you with alcohol, he comes to you with fornication, he comes to you with al-riba, with interest and usury.
And if he is unsuccessful at getting you with a major sin, then he attacks you with مُحَقَّرَاتُ الذُّنُوب (muhaqqirat al-dhunub) — belittling the small sins. These are sins that don't in and of themselves qualify as major sins, but you don't take them as seriously, and so you insist upon them regularly. They become a part of your lifestyle, and in your mind, they're not that big of a deal because they're not like those major sins — and I know plenty of Muslims that do those major sins. And in reality, when you're not taking those sins seriously, you're really not taking Allah seriously. What's represented in your insistence upon committing those smaller sins is that you don't see Allah as great as He truly is.
And then he says: if he can't get you with ash-shirk, and he can't get you with innovation, and he can't get you with a major sin, and he can't get you with a minor sin — he gets you with something extremely interesting: كَثْرَةُ الْمُبَاح (kathratul mubah) — excessive indulgence in halal things. Things that aren't necessarily sinful, but indulging those things which bring you no benefit whatsoever. Indulging in the neutral that is not rewardable.
And just to mention the sixth point before we focus on the fifth: he says if he can't get you with any of those things, then he turns your attention from a better good deed to a lesser good deed. So you get obsessed with something very small. SubhanAllah — Ramadan, by the way, that's very obvious, right? A person will insist upon, for example, salatul taraweeh, which is not as rewardable as a fardh prayer in congregation. But: "I've got to catch my taraweeh, I've got to make sure I get my taraweeh." So he turns your attention from a greater good deed to a good deed of lesser importance.
Now here's the thing: he says that if he catches you with any of these things, his goal is to bring you into the category above it. So if you're someone who has a lack of priorities — because you're not able to distinguish between a better good deed and a good deed of lesser importance — then he can eventually pull you into the category of indulging things that are permissible but not necessarily beneficial. And if he can get you in that category where the heart becomes hardened and you're not connecting actively to Allah, then he can graduate you to where you start to do some of the smaller sins and you don't take them as seriously. And then if that seed is planted, he'll graduate you to a major sin eventually. And then you will justify that major sin by innovation — by basically becoming your own arbiter in the deen. And then eventually an outright association of a partner with Allah.
May Allah protect us from all of this, Allahumma Ameen.
Ramadan: A Month of Adjusting Priorities
I want to focus on that fifth category — because Ramadan is not just a month of abandoning the haram. Ramadan is a month of adjusting your priorities. Ramadan is a month of instilling in yourself عُلُوُّ الْهِمَّة (uluww al-himmah) — a higher aspiration, higher goals.
The idea here is that there is a difference between that which poisons you and that which paralyzes you. And that which paralyzes you is sometimes the indulgence of things that aren't necessarily bad, but they're not beneficial. And that actually leads to a very particular condition of the heart — the hardness of the heart.
So let me give you some practical examples. Let's just say that your entire algorithm is halal — nothing haram whatsoever, perfectly halal, not beneficial videos, but halal. For whatever reason, mashallah, you've been able to carve out your space on one of these platforms and nothing pops up on your feed. It's all just halal stuff — nothing that's bad, nothing that's good. If you spent an hour watching all of that, then that is exactly the condition that's being referred to here.
Let's say that you have friends that don't necessarily backbite, but they don't talk about Allah. There's no religious discourse. And by the way, one of the sure signs — as al-Imam Ibn 'Ata'illah rahimahu Allah mentions in his Hikam:
Abandon those who don't inspire you with their state or guide you to the right way. One of the sure signs of a friendship that's of no benefit to you is if religious discourse is awkward in that friendship. If having a beneficial conversation is met with: "Come on, what are you doing?" Those friends you don't even feel comfortable saying salam to — because salam feels foreign. And that in and of itself is a sign of how foreign Allah is to your conversations.
That's why it's important to infuse within your social circles conversations about Allah. Yes, you could talk about sports. Yes, you could tell halal jokes. You could do things that aren't necessarily beneficial — but at least the nature of that relationship should be that the mention of Allah and a beneficial reminder is natural in that relationship. If you can't even have that, that's a sure sign that that social relationship is going to lead to haram.
But again, let's say that you spend an hour in conversation, and at no point is there anything beneficial mentioned. At no point is there anything that softens the heart. No good reflection. This is what this category is referring to.
The World as a Source of Deprivation
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says in the authentic hadith of Abu Hurairah radiyallahu ta'ala anhu:
(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2322; also reported by Ibn Majah, Hadith 4112)
He said: "Verily, the world is cursed. All of it is a source of deprivation — except for the remembrance of Allah, and ma wala." SubhanAllah, this is a hard one to translate. But ma wala would be conditions that are conducive to the remembrance of Allah — the factors are all there for the remembrance of Allah to come organically. "Or a scholar, or a student." Everything else becomes a source of deprivation in our lives if we're not able to transform all of those spaces with those beneficial things.
SubhanAllah, Imam Ibn Rajab rahimahu Allah writes a beautiful treatise — and it's a short one, been translated into English, less than a hundred pages — a treatise on قَسْوَةُ الْقَلْب (qaswat al-qalb): what hardens the heart. He's a beautiful writer rahimahu Allah, who also wrote one of the most beautiful writings on Ramadan — Lata'if al-Ma'arif, the benefits of Ramadan and fasting. So read it when you have some time, inshallah.
What Hardens the Heart
When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is talking about a hard heart, he's not referring to things that are necessarily sinful. For example, the hadith of Ibn Umar radiyallahu anhu in al-Tirmidhi, where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is narrated to have said:
(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2411)
"Don't talk too much without remembering Allah. Because to speak too much without the mention of Allah is how your heart becomes hard. And the person who becomes furthest from Allah is the person with a hard heart."
So you wonder: why is the Qur'an not hitting me right? The lecture is not touching me, but it's touching someone else. The hadith makes someone else cry, it doesn't make me cry. Or not necessarily the tears — but it doesn't humble me. The reminder is not benefiting me. That is hardness of the heart.
What hardens the heart? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is saying: too much speech without the remembrance of Allah. By extension, that means too much listening without the remembrance of Allah. Too much seeing without the remembrance of Allah. Too much indulgence of things that are not the remembrance of Allah.
The Prophet's Balanced Joy
That's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam — who was someone who was بَسَّامًا ضَحَّاكًا (bassaman dahhakan), a joyful person, always with a smile on his face, who caused people to smile, who had a dignified laughter where the back of his teeth would show — he also said:
(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4193; also reported in Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2305)
"Don't laugh too much, because too much laughter kills the heart." Again — smile, laugh, have joy. But our religion is not one that kills the spirit.
Sayyidina Ali gave the most beautiful analogy — which makes particular sense for the fasting person. He said: make laughter a part of your conversation the way that you make salt a part of your food. You put too much salt in your food, you'll have a heart attack. Put enough salt. Put enough laughter, let it be there — but don't let it reach a point that it makes you heedless of Allah. Because at the end of the day, it's a sign of a person who's not serious about life, who's not serious about their journey with Allah.
Fasting is to calibrate you in what is beneficial. And if you indulge the neutral too much — the permissible but not beneficial — then eventually it's going to lead to the next category where a sin's not that big of a deal. You'll start to permit, within the excessive permissible, those small sins, until they become regular and unnoticeable. Because the harder the heart becomes, not only does it become less receptive to the revelation and to the remembrance of Allah — it becomes less perceptive of the transgressions against the laws of Allah. That is the hardness of the heart.
Filling the Cup: Gratitude and Ibadah
How can we conclude this and particularly look at what's been given to us this Ramadan? Because Ramadan is just as much about filling our cup as it is about emptying the cup.
Think about our Messenger sallallahu alayhi wasallam. When Aisha radiyallahu anha finds him doing more in his qiyam — we all know this hadith — she asks: "Why are you praying so much? Allah has already forgiven you for all of your sins." And the answer of the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam is: "Should I not be a grateful servant?"
There is a direct tie between gratitude and ibadah, between gratitude and going beyond the obligations. Gratitude in ibadah means thinking beyond the contract — connecting every blessing in your life that other people pay no attention to, to an immediate, natural form of dhikr that makes that blessing truly blessed in the afterlife for you as well. It is gratitude that transforms all of that.
And Allah is giving you taraweeh, He's giving you Qur'an, He's giving you so much to do — to develop a relationship of gratitude with Him. At the core of it, sins come from ingratitude. Kufr means ingratitude. The ultimate kufr is to deny Allah's oneness — but ingratitude is the source of every disobedience.
The Challenge for the Remaining Ramadan
Here is my challenge to you, as we enter the next three weeks of Ramadan inshallah: try to go beyond asking "is it just haram?" to asking "is it even displeasing to Allah? Is it makruh?" Because if it's not something pleasing to Allah, then I don't want to do it. Try to go from asking "is it just fardh?" to "is it sunnah?"
SubhanAllah, there's a direct connection between these attitudes. You have halal in the middle — then makruh on one side, that which is disliked but not yet prohibited, and haram, that which is forbidden. And on the other side, you have the sunnah and the fardh — the praiseworthy and then the prescribed. There is a direct connection between the person who says "is it just makruh, or is it haram?" and the person who says "is it just a sunnah, or is it fardh?" Even visually, it shows how you're not expanding your full potential as a servant of Allah. And Ramadan is about expanding yourself.
May Allah make us a people that indulge the beneficial and protect us in the process from that which is prohibited and that which is displeasing to Him. And may Allah protect us from that which does not bring us closer to Him. And may Allah increase us in our ibadah, in our worship, in our character, and in all of those things that are pleasing to Him. Allahumma Ameen.