Connection between our Inner/Outer States

The Connection Between Our Inner and Outer States

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to send his peace and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and upon his family, and upon his companions, and upon those that follow him in his way to their best capability until the Yawm al-Qiyamah. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us among them. Allahumma ameen.

In Islam, we as human beings are very dimensional people — meaning that we have layers upon layers upon layers. And the more we study each layer, the more we come closer to the truth that Allah is our Rabb and we come from Him and it is to Him that we return. And everything that we do in this life is for Him subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Allah says in Surah al-Dhariyat:

"And within yourselves — do you not see?" أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ — "Do you not then perceive?"

The beauty behind this is that we see that in everyday life we have that inner and outer state — how we are perceived by the people, and how we are in our private lives, and how our spiritual state is, and how our physical state is. Multi layers. And here I am talking about today that in Islam, it is so beautiful that it addresses the Muslim both spiritually in the inner state, but also the physical state as well. Islam tells us, and reminds us, and teaches us the importance of connecting and matching up the inner state of a Muslim — of yourself — and what people see on the outside. That is very important.

The Inner Must Match the Outer

Imam al-Ghazali actually emphasizes that the ultimate level of truth of tasdiq is when someone's inner matches their outer and their outer matches their inner. One very quick example: the way we stay away from certain things when we are around people, the way we are more aware of the haram and the halal — maybe when we're in public as opposed to when we are in private. This is just one example of whether the inner matches the outer.

So when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us to get back to Him, or tells us how to get back to Him, when we talk about how to match the inner with the outer, we have to emphasize that both are just as important to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The Hadith of the Heart

Nu'man ibn Bashir reported that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said a hadith about a piece of the body — that if it is good, everything else follows:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 52; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1599)

"Verily, in the body there is a morsel of flesh — if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Verily, it is the heart."

When the heart is good and it is connected with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, everything follows through. And the same thing — when your heart is in a good place and you try your best to exert yourself in the physical actions, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees that.

But when the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says this hadith, he emphasizes that no matter how much you do in your life, if your heart is not really turning for the better, then on Yawm al-Qiyamah when our actions are presented — if our hearts were not in them — then maybe the intentions were wayward. Maybe we were doing something for something else. But when someone does something with a clean heart, everything else becomes good. The whole body becomes good, and when the whole body becomes good, whatever the body does physically, it is good.

Is a Good Heart Alone Sufficient?

But is it enough to say that my heart is in a good place and not do what the actions require of a good heart? Allah azza wa jall says in the Quran, in the ayah that talks about goodness:

Meaning that whenever you say that your heart is in a good place — "I believe in Allah, I love Allah, I love his Prophet, and I follow his commands, what he tells me to stay away from, my heart believes in that, I should say la ilaha illAllah, I should know that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah" — but you don't back that up by proving yourself with the actions that are required from a heart that believes in that, then that's not enough for you to say that my heart is good. Because Allah says that goodness itself is not just that.

It's not just saying that I believe in Allah. The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was once asked: "What is something that, if I learn it, I don't need to do anything else, I don't need to say anything else?" The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught this companion: amint billah — say you believe in Allah, make sure your heart's in a good place — but then after that, make sure you follow it up by proving that. Thumma istaqim.

And amazingly, the same word istaqama / yastaqimu is used by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in those beautiful verses in Surah Fussilat, when Allah says:

He is talking about people that say and admit that Allah is my master, Allah is my Lord — thumma istaqamu — and they try to prove it to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, they are steadfast and dedicated and firm in that statement, in that belief — tatanazzalu alayhimu al-mala'ikah — the angels will descend upon them, saying: "Do not be scared, and do not grieve."

But what is the requirement for this great reward? Coming from a good place. Your inner has to be good. Your inner state has to be clean. And your physical actions have to be matching to that inner state. So this is the importance of having a good inner that will lead to a beautiful and clean outward state.

Does the Outer Affect the Inner? — It Is Not One-Way Traffic

But is the opposite also true, or is it just one-way traffic? Is it true that if I just continue in my amal — doing good and staying away from haram — even if my heart sometimes is not there, is it going to lead to a good heart?

Islam, alhamdulillah, is so beautiful that even if someone's heart is not there yet, but they are so dedicated to just keep doing these good things in hope that their heart will follow through — Allah turns our heart into the equivalent of how their actions were. Meaning that if you just keep on pressing and forcing yourself to do these good deeds, your heart will follow.

What is one example of where the physical actions lead to a change in the inner state? When we fast. When you fast, you stay away physically from the things that make your inside — your inner nafs — happy. You stay away from food and drink, you stay away from what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has prohibited, you stay away from the haram — that takes a physical toll on you. But when you come out of Ramadan, sure, you may physically look better — but what's more important, what's the real result we look at after Ramadan, is whether internally you have changed and increased in your taqwa. You see how physical actions can lead to the inner being clean. This is how it works with the inner and the outer.

This is why it's so important that even the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says: make sure that you're around good company. A person is someone who he flocks with. If you're around the bad, you're going to become the bad. If you're around the good, by the permission of Allah, you're going to be around the good, you're going to be part of the good. Because that's how we are — our physical and outer complexions and experiences affect what's inside.

It's very naïve to think: "You know what, I can be around the haram all the time and it's never going to affect my inside." No way. And it's very naïve to say: "I'm always around the good but my inside is not changing." They don't work like that. Something needs to click — and that's how it is.

The Hadith of the Black Dots on the Heart

And the same thing — the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says: as much as you can be in the khayr and it affects you positively, beware of being around that which is harming for you — it will lead to detriment inside you. As the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says in a very sobering hadith:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3334; Ibn Majah, Hadith 4244)

Whenever a servant — one of us — commits a sin, a black dot appears on the heart. And the more the servant engages in the sin, more black dots appear on the heart — another spot, another nuktah, another dot — another sin — until the heart is dark, filled with black spots. So dark that it is considered something that is not alive anymore.

Ibn al-Qayyim: Where Sin Begins

But how do we prevent a hard heart, or a dead heart, from these spots of sins? Ibn al-Qayyim teaches us — and subhanAllah, he talked about what we would call psychology, he talked about mental health, a long time ago. Our scholars from before have been saying these kinds of things. But alhamdulillah, now we are taking advantage of them.

Ibn al-Qayyim talks about: how do you stop yourself from these bad sins? He said it's not just about the sin — the sin is a manifestation of what happened before. The physical action of the sin is just a manifestation of what happened inside you. When the sin starts, it starts — as Allah azza wa jall says:

"O you who believe, do not follow the footsteps of Shaitan." The footsteps — because he leads you. Even Ibn al-Qayyim explains that a sin comes when an evil thought comes, and evil thoughts come when you are around it, or you are noticing or witnessing something that is evil around you. When you see something haram, your eyes are physically seeing it — but then it takes a toll inside, mentally. When you hear haram gossip, or whatever you may hear, if you don't deal with it, it's going to stay inside of you.

Ibn al-Qayyim says that when a sin comes, it starts by a thought. "Oh, I heard about this yesterday. You know what, let me think about it a little bit more" — you haven't dealt with it. And the thought becomes a sin — now I'm actually talking about the gossip — and the sin then becomes a habit. You will continuously gossip. You are a backbiter. And then when you develop this evil habit, it becomes very hard to take care of. This is why he says: take care of your sins where they start — the thought processes.

And this is why the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was always, always, always aware of what he brought inside his heart — because that is sacred. He was very aware. He was not someone who just allowed anything to come in and thought it was going to be okay. Because what happens is: when we allow anything and everything to come in, we don't know how it's going to corrupt or change our hearts. And whenever our heart is in a certain state, that is what emits from us. If we have a bad heart, it's going to come out in disgusting ways — through our mouth, through our eyes, through our ears, through our hands.

This is why we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect us and grant us a clean heart. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to perform tahannuth — he always used to cleanse himself — and tahannuth was not the same thing as ghusl. Tahannuth is cleaning oneself inwardly, internally. He used to cleanse himself from all the bad things he saw in his society. He used to do that alone in the Cave of Hira.

So when we as Muslims — brothers and sisters — are aware of the physical and the internal connection in Islam, this is when we start to get that symbiosis. When everything matches up and you become the Muslim that you are supposed to be.

And there are examples from the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, which I will give in the second khutbah, inshAllah.

Second Khutbah: Examples from the Life of the Prophet

Alhamdulillah, wa kafa, wa salatu wa salamu ala ibadihi alladhina stafa, khususan ala afdali al-mursalin, nabiyyina Muhammadin, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.

What are some examples we see of the inside affecting the outside, and the outside affecting the inside, from the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? There are two examples, and then we are done, inshAllah.

The Story of Abu Dharr and Bilal

There was an incident between Abu Dharr radiAllahu anhu and Bilal radiAllahu anhu — both companions. But Bilal radiAllahu anhu, as we know, was from Ethiopia, and Abu Dharr was from the Arabian Peninsula. Their colors were different — we know this. And back in the days of Jahiliyyah, there was racism everywhere. This was the common norm — disrespecting someone who was different from you in color. This was the norm. Islam eradicated all that. Islam abolished that. The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam took that concept and threw it behind him — no way, not in Islam, not in my time.

So one time, Bilal radiAllahu anhu and Abu Dharr radiAllahu anhu were arguing about a certain issue. And Abu Dharr, out of the heat of the argument, called Bilal a very offensive statement — he called him "the son of a black woman," referring to his color. And keep in mind, subhanAllah, this kind of language is used almost every day in our times. But back then, that was very heavy. How far have we come? But he said that to Bilal radiAllahu anhu.

Bilal got very offended. He stood up and went to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and complained: "Abu Dharr used this statement against me." The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam then saw Abu Dharr — because obviously when Bilal got upset he complained to the Prophet — and when the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw Abu Dharr, he said:

"Ya Abu Dharr, you surely still have some Jahiliyyah inside of you."

He said: "You surely still have some notions from before inside of you." And Abu Dharr felt so bad. Do you think he meant this? No — it was a heated argument. But what happens when you don't eradicate the evil thoughts inside of you completely? They come out even when you don't intend them to. If you don't deal with the inside, it will come out.

So how did Abu Dharr deal with the Jahili state inside of him? He did something physical. He went to Bilal radiAllahu anhu and sought his forgiveness by putting his face on the floor next to Bilal's feet radiAllahu anhu, and he said: "If you don't put your feet on top of my face, then I am a loser and you are higher than me."

You see how something physical — the humbleness and the humility from physical actions — led to Abu Dharr being cleansed on the inside? Bilal radiAllahu anhu went down — he bent down to the love of Abu Dharr — and Bilal radiAllahu anhu said to Abu Dharr: "The face that makes sujood to Allah, no foot should be on it. I forgive you."

You see how it started from something on the inside, Abu Dharr recognized it, he dealt with it — and the physical action that he did with it dealt with the inside as well. This is the connection between the outer and the inner.

The Man from the People of Jannah

And the last example: when the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was in a gathering like this, talking to his companions, he said: "There is going to be one man entering from the door — from Ahl al-Jannah."

If I said that today — someone coming from this side, Ahl al-Jannah — everyone's going to take the cameras out and start talking, take a picture of him, how does he look, all these different things. But someone was going to come walking through the door — Ahl al-Jannah — and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said it.

So one of the companions, Abdullah ibn 'Umar, saw the man that came in — a normal man — and he followed him. And we probably know the story. He thought: "This man is from Jannah. I'm going to see what he does that's special so I can copy him and be part of those promised Jannah." So he went to his house, stayed with him, gave an excuse — "I need to stay with you, my family..." — and for three days he stayed with him.

After three days, Abdullah ibn 'Umar said: "You know what — I stayed with you for three days, and you know why, because the Prophet said you're from Ahl al-Jannah. But when I stayed with you, you don't do anything special. You don't do extra tahajjud. You don't do extra salah. You don't do extra siyam. You don't do any of that. What makes you so special? Why are you considered Ahl al-Jannah by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam?"

And the man said: "You know what — this is who I am. You stayed with me for three days, you know who I am."

So Abdullah ibn 'Umar was about to leave, and the man said: "Hold on — there is one thing I do though." And this one thing leads him to become Ahl al-Jannah. It is so beautiful. He said:

"Before I go to sleep, I clean my heart of any malice, any hatred, any jealousy, anything against anyone. If someone wronged me that day, before I go to sleep, I get rid of it in my heart. If someone did me wrong, I forgive him, I forgive her. So when I go to sleep, I go to sleep with a clean heart."

That was enough for him to be called Ahl al-Jannah. You see how important it is to go to sleep with a clean heart? Because this is how Allah describes Ibrahim alayhissalam — that he came back to Allah with a peaceful heart:

Do you think Allah wants our hearts back with jealousy and hatred and all these different things? No. Let's clean our hearts — because when you clean your heart, it cleans your outside. And when you have a clean heart, you need to also prove it. You need to back that up with actions.

Final Reminder

This is the perfect example for us to follow, as the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam showed us. But keep in mind that whenever we are in our world every day — keep in mind what you are watching, what you're hearing — even if you're not focusing but you're just listening to it. It might be haram, and you might think it won't have an effect on you. But remember Abu Dharr — that statement came out of him unintentionally because he still had that Jahiliyyah inside.

So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to clean our hearts and make our actions worthy of clean hearts. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to rectify our affairs with good hearts, good iman, and trust in Him. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us tawbah before we pass away. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us shahada when we pass away, and Jannat al-Firdaws al-A'la after we pass away.