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Sunday, March 13, 2005

purification of the heart

This semester, I learned about the chest and all the organs within, mainly lungs and the heart. Every week, we will be having anatomy pracs to which we dissect (read: cut the dead people) layers by layers. From skin on the topmost part of the body till deep to the bone at the back.

Up to this point, we have dissected the lungs and the heart. The smell of those cadaever (medical term for dead bodies) were unbearable to some and unfortunately, the lab coat we wears in the pracs smell of those awful stinky cadaever.

Scissors, sharp knife and blades and even big large saw, all those tools we have used to cut the dead bodies. Can you imagine using big large saw to cut open the bony chest? Sort of like killing people without mercy. Merciless we seem to be but that is what it takes for the sake medical education. The dead can still teach us a lot though.

I used to watch medical students cutting and peering on the heart. The heart of human being was not that big but the surface marking of it was quite unique, I say. I have to orientate many times just to get the correct view of the heart. The heart was slightly shifted to the left in the upside down way. The base of the heart was on top while the apex (that is the other end of the heart) was below. Some sort like a cone which was turned upside down.

Looking over the heart, I reminisced about one sahih hadith regarding the level of iman (fatih) of a believer. There are many levels of iman and the weakest of all were to comdenm the maksiat (evilness) in the heart.

There is another hadith regarding the heart, which the heart was described as the main controller of our daily acts and attitude towards this worldly life.

On the authority of Abu 'Abdullah al-Nu'man bin Bashir, radiyallahu 'anhu, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, say:

"Truly, what is lawful is evident, and what is unlawful is evident, and in between the two are matters which are doubtful which many people do not know. He who guards against doubtful things keeps his religion and honour blameless, and he who indulges in doubtful things indulges in fact in unlawful things, just as a shepherd who pastures his flock round a preserve will soon pasture them in it. Beware, every king has a preserve, and the things Allah has declared unlawful are His preserves. Beware, in the body there is a flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt, and behold, it is the heart."

[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

I used the ponder on those term of heart. In malay, heart mean liver but in English, it means the heart, the one which pumps the blood around the body.

Does the term qalb / heart is a physical terminology or is it a spiritual term? I wonder which one it is.....

There are certain things that we can do to purify our heart. In facing the turbulent storm in this temporal worldly life, the heart begs for purification. Too many evilness lies and embraced our own soul and heart.

al muhasabah - self accountability
al muraqabah - self reckoning
Dzikrullah - the remembrance of Allah

My friend has writtten good article regarding this matter, mainly al-muraqabah and al muhasabah. Click here.

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