Your Heart Isn’t Ready for Ramadan Unless…

Your Heart Isn't Ready for Ramadan Unless…

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

As we talk about what a pure heart constitutes, سبحان الله, there is so much emphasis on the heart within the body of a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. A heart that is pure, a heart that is firm, a heart that is focused — and if that heart is proper, everything else is going to be proper.

There is this intentionality about always looking after it, even if all of the outside seems to be healthy — to make sure that you're constantly scrutinizing your heart, your sincerity, your steadfastness. All of that comes back to this one vessel.

The Hadith: Who Are the Best of People?

There is one hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that is profound, especially as it pertains to these next crucial few weeks before Ramadan. It has a few different variations, and while the shorter variation has been mentioned before, there is a longer one which is also authentic and profound.

Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As said: I said to the Prophet ﷺ:

"Who is the best of people?"

It is very telling that this is such a frequent question, uttered by the mouths of the best generation to ever live. They were seeking to be the best people as individuals, and so they collectively became the best generation. May Allah be pleased with them.

So many times you find a companion coming to the Prophet ﷺ on the side and saying, "Who is the best of the best? Because I want to be that person." They were not satisfied with simply being a companion. They wanted to be خَيْرُ النَّاسِ — the best of the best. Even if the rank of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Khadijah, and Aisha seemed so unattainable — they still wanted to be the best.

So the Prophet ﷺ would always respond with quality. Why? Because the Prophet ﷺ could have simply named an individual — and all that would have done was demoralize this person and leave them in a place of complacency: "I'll never be this person." He always responded with qualities ﷺ. So he said:

"A person who has a pure heart and a person who has a truthful tongue."

Now, who is the best companion? Abu Bakr al-Siddiq — the truthful one. He spoke only the truth. And as Imam al-Muzani said about him:

"He did not surpass the companions because he prayed more than them or fasted more than them — but because he had something that settled in his heart."

So the Prophet ﷺ gave the qualities. The best people of this ummah are people who speak truth and people who have purified hearts.

What Is a Pure Heart?

The companions said to the Prophet ﷺ:

"As for the truthful tongue, we understand that, O Messenger of Allah — but what is a pure heart?"

He said ﷺ:

"It is a heart that is God-fearing and pure — one that contains no sin, no transgression, and no envy."

These first two traits — تَقِيّ and نَقِيّ — shape the rest of the hadith. There is a category of taqwa — God-consciousness — which means the heart will never violate what Allah has placed upon it. And then النَّقِيّ — the pure side — refers to how it relates to other people. It is pure in what it holds towards others.

So تَقِيّ — it holds an awe of Allah that does not allow it to fall into إِثْم, into sinfulness, at least not in a knowing fashion. It is so in awe and enamored with its Lord that it purifies itself from what would compromise the integrity of that relationship.

Then the second part — نَقِيّ — refers to baghy (transgression) and hasad (envy). Transgression refers to the hope that someone else will get hurt, or the desire that should the opportunity present itself, you would inflict harm on that person. How can a heart be a transgressor? Because the heart intends. If the heart intends transgression, and the only thing stopping it is that it hasn't found the moment or opportunity to hurt someone — it still holds transgression inside of it.

And حَسَد is a very specific disease of envy — you hate someone for something they have that you wish you had. You hate to see someone else in a position that you feel you deserve. You hate that someone else has a life you feel you should be living. It is in the heart. And it is going to shape a particular type of mindset. It is going to shape your actions, consume your thoughts, and dictate your behavior. It all goes back to that.

The Signs of a Pure Heart

Now here is what makes this hadith very interesting in this particular narration. The companions continued and said:

"Who shows signs of that, O Messenger of Allah?"

You are talking about a deep internal feeling — what are the traces of a person who has that type of quality? Speaking the truth is obvious, but what are the signs? And he responded ﷺ:

"A person who really despises worldliness and loves the Hereafter."

يَشْنَأُ الدُّنْيَا here doesn't mean you hate the world — it means you hate worldliness. They are really turned off by worldly enamor. And instead, يُحِبُّ الْآخِرَةَ — they actually love the akhirah. The concept of the Hereafter is one that pushes them to action, consumes their thoughts, and gets their hearts excited.

Now look at the honesty of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. They said:

"O Messenger of Allah, we do not know of anyone among us who truly fits that description except Abu Rafi', the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ."

Abu Rafi' was originally a slave of Al-Abbas, and he was a private believer in Mecca — he embraced Islam even before Al-Abbas. The Prophet ﷺ freed him, and he became one of the great and dedicated companions of the Prophet ﷺ. So the companions were saying: you know that pure-hearted person who simply walks on this earth, who doesn't carry any ill will towards anyone, nor any love for this world — it seems like that simple man, Abu Rafi'. He just comes to the masjid, goes, always minding his own business, doesn't speak much. He's clearly not here — he's clearly focused on something else.

The Prophet ﷺ stayed silent. So they said: "Who resembles that type of person?" And the Prophet ﷺ said: "A believer with good character." Don't complicate this. A Muslim who has good character, a believer who has good character, is operating from a good place. Focus on that. Don't focus on the circumstances, don't focus on a very particular type of person — focus on that.

One Heart Cannot Hold Two Masters

What makes this really important is that the Prophet ﷺ connected your pursuit to the poisons of the heart, as well as how you interact with Allah and the world around you — all in one hadith. And Allah simplifies it by saying:

Allah did not give two hearts to a single person. No human being has two hearts. If you had two hearts, you could seemingly have two contradicting sets of priority, two purposes, two loves, two drivers, two motivators. And Allah is saying: He did not give you two hearts. So when you claim to have those seemingly contradictory purposes, drives, and priorities, you are only lying to yourself. Because Allah did not give you two hearts, nor will Allah allow one heart to hold two contradictory things.

The Prophet ﷺ says in two hadiths — both authentic and very insightful:

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Hadith 3109)

"No heart can carry both iman and envy — faith and envy. There is no such thing as a heart that can truly carry these two things."

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Hadith 3110)

"Faith and greed cannot coexist in the heart of a single servant."

Faith and greed, and faith and envy — connect that, سبحان الله, to that hadith where the Prophet ﷺ mentioned the pure heart: تَقِيّ نَقِيّ — conscious of Allah and pure in regards to everybody else. Conscious of what it wants from Allah and how it is perceived by Allah. Pure — it does not seek to violate or harm anyone else, and does not covet what others have, because it is too busy coveting the sight of Allah.

The Poisons of the Heart Are Connected to Loving This World

What does this have to do with our discussion today? The poisons of the heart are connected to a lack of purpose and priority. Greed and envy are connected to loving this world more than the Hereafter. Both of these spiritual diseases are connected to loving the world more than the Hereafter.

And there is this idea that before you can pursue something great, you have to purge something evil. Look at how Allah describes the Ansar:

سبحان الله — it is all combined in the characteristic of the Ansar. These people in Medina who received the Prophet ﷺ — their hearts had to be prepared before they could receive him. They made a conscious choice: تَبَوَّءُوا الدَّارَ وَالْإِيمَانَ — they chose faith. The Prophet ﷺ was not doing da'wah in Mecca — they chose iman, they called for faith to come to Medina. They wanted it, they desired it, they coveted it. They were done with this dunya, they wanted the Hereafter. So they called the Prophet ﷺ from Mecca: "We want what you are calling us to. We despise worldliness. We love the akhirah — we know very little of it but we love it, and we want it. So come to us, O Messenger of Allah, and we will voluntarily put ourselves at risk because we seek that reward so lovingly from Allah."

And how does Allah describe them? يُحِبُّونَ مَنْ هَاجَرَ إِلَيْهِمْ — they loved those people that were coming to them. سبحان الله. You live in a world now where you see the hatred for refugees, the hatred for migrants, the hatred for people who are always looked at as invaders — as if they brought upon themselves earthquakes and tragedies and tyranny. They are hated. And yes, the sad reality is even when they go to another Muslim country, Muslim refugees in a Muslim country get treated like aliens and invaders. We see it over and over again. There is a disease in the heart here. It is not a resource problem — it is a heart problem. Why are you looking at them this way? Other human beings, other people who say لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّه — and you look at them as if they are an enemy to you?

And Allah is saying: يُحِبُّونَ مَنْ هَاجَرَ إِلَيْهِمْ — these people in Medina loved these migrants from Mecca. And Allah says they did not have any hard feelings towards them, nor did they want what they had. So envy and greed are not present in the hearts of the Ansar. What does that mean? An Ansari is not thinking to himself: "I heard Abu Bakr is a really rich man, I heard Abdurrahman ibn Awf is a really rich man — let me make him my brother, bring him in, and say: 'Hey, you saved some money in Mecca, can you transfer it to your new Medina account, which is shared by your new brother?'" None of that. They were there in Quba — "Come to my house! Come to my house!" — doing everything they possibly could.

And Allah says: before they became that way, they made a conscious decision. Their hearts were made ready to receive the Prophet ﷺ. And سبحان الله — you notice that their hearts were ready to receive the Prophet ﷺ because they cleared out the barriers of envy and greed. And that is exactly what stopped Abdullah ibn Ubay ibn Salul and the hypocrites from receiving the beauty of the Prophet ﷺ — envy and greed. "I want that. I want this. They don't deserve this. We deserve this." And they couldn't see the beauty that was in front of them. You are sitting in the khutbah of the Prophet ﷺ for nine years and you cannot benefit — because you're too consumed by your envy and your greed, by these poisons of the heart. Your heart is not ready for the Prophet ﷺ.

Is Your Heart Ready to Receive the Qur'an?

Qur'an was being revealed in their midst, and they couldn't receive it — because they were too consumed, too diseased. And that concept is present throughout the Qur'an. Are you ready to receive the Qur'an?

"Did We not open your chest, O Messenger of Allah" — to make it ready to receive the Qur'an.

When Allah mentions people being made ready to receive Jannah:

"We remove from their hearts all resentment." You cannot go to Jannah resenting each other. And before you can think about facing one another on thrones in Jannah, you have to be willing to pray next to each other in these masajid. You have got to be willing to say salam to each other and meet your brothers and sisters with no resentment, no hatred, no envy, no ill will inside of you. You are not going to Jannah with these poisons. It is not befitting. Your heart has to be made ready for Jannah, and you have got to start working on that right now.

Lessons from the Prophets

The scholars say: look at the prophets of Allah — why did Allah take away the most beloved things from His prophets? Allah took Khadijah from the Prophet ﷺ. Allah took Ismail from Ibrahim. Why? Because, as al-Qurtubi says, their hearts had to be ready to receive a mission that only their hearts were fitted for — which was prophethood. And for them, Allah cleared their hearts of everything except Allah. The permissible and the prohibited — their hearts had to be full of one thing. Because your heart has to be prepared for the mission that you have. And that is only a mission of prophethood that a select few people were able to bear in this life — and none of us are qualified for.

How to Prepare Your Heart for Ramadan

So what does that mean for Ramadan? How do you have a heart that is ready to receive Ramadan? You have to remove the envy, you have to remove the greed, you have to remove the hatred, you have to remove the grudges — in order to have a heart that is ready for Ramadan.

And سبحان الله — with all of the narrations about Sha'ban, almost all of them being fabrications or extremely weak — there is only one narration that passes through all of the texts. And it is this idea: that Allah looks down at His creation in the middle of Sha'ban, and Allah forgives every single person whose heart does not hold shirk or shahna' — polytheism or spite, hatred. You have got to remove that hatred from your heart in order to get it ready for Ramadan. Before the month of forgiveness, we have to forgive each other in this month. Before we ask Allah — purely dedicated towards Him — "Ya Allah, forgive us" — spend this month cleaning it up. Spend this month doing that plumbing. Because your heart has to be ready for Ramadan.

A Du'a to Purify the Heart

I want to end with a du'a from the Prophet ﷺ — a profound one. Some people will say: "Is there a du'a I can make? What do I do?" First and foremost — you know what you need to do to repair and to reconcile. Get over your ego, remove it. Focus on the Hereafter: what is more beneficial to my Hereafter? Then let your heart be driven by that.

But there is a beautiful du'a narrated by both Umm Salamah and Aisha, may Allah be pleased with them. They asked the Prophet ﷺ for a du'a related to this, and he said ﷺ to say:

"O Allah, Lord of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ — forgive my sins, remove the consuming anger from my heart, and protect me from the trials of misguidance and fitna."

سبحان الله — you are asking Allah to remove it. اغْفِرْ لِي ذَنْبِي، وَأَذْهِبْ غَيْظَ قَلْبِي — remove that anger from my heart. And أَجِرْنِي مِنْ مُضِلَّاتِ الْفِتَنِ — protect me from the trials of misguidance and fitna.

May Allah protect us all. May Allah forgive our sins, remove the consuming anger from our hearts, and protect us from the trials of fitna and misguidance in this world.