Spiritual Cancer

'A'udhu billahi min al-Shaytan al-rajim, Bismillah, al-Rahman, al-Rahim. Wa laa hawla walaa quwwata illa billahi al-'aliyyi al-'adheem. Wa sallalahu 'alaa Muhammad wa 'alihi at-tahireen.

The topic that I was asked to address in this short segment, is spiritual cancer. And what is meant by that is the concept of a spiritual disease which has set in and is overtaking the soul. Usually when it comes to physical diseases, human beings are pretty aware of when they come in and they are pretty concerned about taking care of them.

Somebody who gets sick, somebody who gets injured, somebody who has internal pain, they usually do something about it because they realize that if they do not, then number one, it is going to usually get worse. And number two, it is going to affect the quality of their life. And we are concerned about our physical life, we are concerned about the physical presence and the way we appear to others, the amount of happiness that we enjoy by using our body.

And so usually when it comes to these types of diseases, people are pretty much, it is pretty much settled and it is something that is pretty much established for people that you have to do something when it comes to physical disease.

There is another class of diseases, though, that a believer understands exists, that unfortunately, for whatever reason, they do not receive the same attention as physical diseases. And this goes back to our belief that we, as human beings do not just consist of our body, which is the physical representation of ourselves in the physical universe because we believe that there is more to existence than a physical universe.

We, as human beings also have a spiritual side and just the same way that a physical body can get sick, a physical body can get diseased, that disease can turn into something like a cancer. The same way a spiritual being, a spirit can also get sick, it can also get diseased and that disease can get worse and worse. The difference, though, is that because people tend to define quality of life, having to do with their material possessions and the material body, they care about it more and although we also care about that, we need a good, healthy body in order to serve God, we have to realize that quality of life consists of more than just that as well.

In fact, according to the wordings of the Qur'an, somebody who has a physical body that might be healthy, that is alive that is walking the earth, but they have a soul which is dead, that person is actually dead, that is according to Qur'anic terminology. One whose soul has become alive with the remembrance of Allah, that is when real life begins.

In Surat ul-Fajr, Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, describes that human being who will be faced with one of the most difficult punishments in the Hereafter which is the punishment of regret. And that human being will say 'Yaa laytani qaddamtu li hayaati' (89:24) - if only I had prepared myself for my life. Prepared myself for my life? What about all those years I spent on the earth? That was also life, was not it? Well, yes, it was supposed to be life, it was supposed to be a mode of existence where you had more than just your physical body intact, but you also had your spirit intact as well. But if you ignore that, you forget about it, then so too, according to the Qur'anic terminology, we will be forgotten (59:16). Our share and our position and our status in the Hereafter will have to do with the status of the soul.

So what we need to do is need to be aware of the existence of the spiritual diseases. We need to be trained to hunt them down and trying to figure out how we can diagnose ourselves and figure out what to do about that, to take care of that, to have healthy souls. It is important that is what is going to determine our position in the Hereafter.

The tendency is because when it comes to physical issues, there is not that much you can do when you are physically sick. Even a small amount of pain in our teeth is enough to keep us awake at night. A small amount of stomach pain is enough to keep us grumpy, so we tend to take care of it. But spiritual diseases are such that we can get busy with other things and they will make us neglectful over these spiritual diseases and that state of neglect is the worst spiritual disease.

According to Imam Ali, alayhi as-salaam, in a hadith. Just the gist of the hadith is that he says that there is a state of intoxication which is even more severe than the state of intoxication that you get from being drunk because when you are drunk, you are not in touch with your senses. Somebody who is drunk and might even get injured and they are just not aware of what is going on. What is that state of intoxication which is even worse?

It is the intoxication of 'ghaflah', of being in a state of heedlessness. We are not aware of the position of our own soul. We are not aware of what is going on with it. We do not realize that all these years have gone by and these diseases have entered, they have found a home and they have established themselves within ourselves they have multiplied and they have overtaken our heart and they define who we are.

How is it that we go about identifying this? It is not impossible, it is not an impossible task. The fact that we are alive right now, shows that Allah has hope that we can do something about that. At the end of the day, it is our actions which reflect the states of our heart so if we are people who are concerned about our actions, we monitor them, we are checking ourselves.

At the end of the day, we are accounting for ourselves, we are looking back and seeing what is going on. We are checking ourselves against the Shari'ah which is the litmus test to know whether our actions are in line or not. Then we shall start seeing some trends.

If, for example, we have a tendency to look at other people with a feeling of superiority, we look down on other people when we go about our day and at the end of the day, we realize that oh that has happened multiple times in the day hat means that I have a problem of 'kibr', of pride and arrogance.

If, as I go out throughout the day, some, we realize that we have a problem controlling our eyes, that means we have a problem of not being able to control our 'shahwah'.

Or if you have a problem with being able to speak with others kindly, our family members we tend to be very good with people outside of the home, but inside of the home, we have take on a different personality, we have a split personality. We have a problem with 'nifaaq'. We have a problem with 'riyaa' in some cases, and we have a problem with our 'ghadhab', our anger in other cases.

This process of monitoring and checking ourselves will be a way of learning and diagnosing but then we need to figure out what the solution is. And that is what we are told in ahadith, that the most useful of knowledge is that knowledge which will point out to you the sicknesses of your soul and how to treat them as well.

And Alhamdulillah that within the teachings of Islam, we are told not only how is it that we should govern our physical existence, but also how we should address our spiritual existence as well, too, for all of these different diseases. Maybe it is depression, maybe it is hopelessness, maybe it is pride, maybe it is anger, maybe it is uncontrolled 'shahwah', whatever it may be, there are rich teachings in rich solutions. We have to go about acquiring that knowledge, asking the scholars and feed that into a process of monitoring and checking ourselves - 'muraaqabah and muhaasabaah, until after time and training, we will be able to eradicate those diseases from within the soul.

And that is when we will start to clear out the way for the light of purity, the light of Allah to enter and for us to enjoy that spiritual life and that spiritual existence, which is known as 'al-hayyaat at-tayyibah', the true life, the pure life.

We pray to Allah that He gives us the 'tawfiq' to actually start this process of caring about our spirit and our soul, of identifying those diseases which are dragging us back, and they will be a source of regret for us in the Hereafter and then to actually go and addressing these and eradicating them and then spreading these teachings to others as well.

Wa sallalaahu a'laa Muhammadin wa alihi at-taahireen.