On Softening The Hearts

By Ibn Jawzi

"I feel that occupying oneself with jurisprudence (fiqh) or learning hadiths is hardly sufficient to rectify the heart, unless one adds to this the reading of heart-melting traditions (raqa’iq) and the study of the lives of the pious predecessors. Since they reached the objective of the revelatory texts and transcended the external form of the prescribed duties to taste their inner meanings and intent.

I do not inform you of this save after personal exposure and experience. For I have found that the majority of scholars and students of hadith are mainly concerned with attaining the briefest chain of transmission (isnad) or to increase the collections (ajza’) of hadith narrated by a single narrator or dealing with a single theme or subject. Whereas the majority of jurists are concerned with dialectics and how to win arguments. How can hearts ever be softened by such things?

Previously, some of the predecessors would visit a pious person only to observe his manners and conduct, not to learn knowledge from him. For the fruits of knowledge lie in manners and conduct; so understand this. Therefore combine the learning of fiqh and hadith with study of the lives of the predecessors and pietists so that this may be a cause for your heart to soften.

To this end I have written monographs on each of the famous and noble personalities, detailing their lives and character. I have written one about al-Hasan al-Basri; about Sufyan al-Thawri; and about Ibrahim b. Adham, Bishr al-Hafi, Ahmad b. Hanbal, Ma’ruf [al-Karkhi], and other scholars and pietists. And it is Allah who grants the enabling grace to achieve the objective.

However, actions cannot be rectified with a paucity of knowledge. For their example is like that of a commander and a subordinate, with the soul stubbornly between the two. Only with the combined efforts of the commander and the subordinate can the goal be reached. And we seek refuge with Allah from apathy."

[Sayd al-Khatir pg 302-303]