What Comes From the Hand, and What Comes From the Heart

🌿 A Plea to the Young: Don't Lose What I Lost

Before the topic begins, a word — especially for the young ones.

Understand the importance of these majalis. Understand what it means when your parents bring you here. At the time, you might think these gatherings, this remembrance of Ahlul Bayt, are having no effect on you. They are just words and stories. But believe me — one day you will look back on your life and say, "Thank God my parents took me to the husainiya. Thank God they took me to the place where I remembered Allah and Ahlul Bayt." This is what will shape you into who you become.

The one speaking to you now was forbidden this. I did not come from a religious family — a normal Lebanese family, with prayers and salah, but no husainiya to go to. For nineteen years I did not even know what majalis were. Nineteen years lost. So I beg you, by the right of Ahlul Bayt: don't be like me. You are the lucky ones. Don't take these gatherings for granted.

🕯 The Verse That Speaks to Your Heart, Not the World

The verse for tonight is from Surat Ali Imran:

لَن تَنَالُوا الْبِرَّ حَتَّىٰ تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ ۚ وَمَا تُنفِقُوا مِن شَيْءٍ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ بِهِ عَلِيمٌ
Lan tanālū al-birra ḥattā tunfiqū mimmā tuḥibbūn, wa mā tunfiqū min shay'in fa-inna-Llāha bihi ʿalīm.
You will never attain birr (righteousness) until you spend from that which you love; and whatever you spend, Allah is aware of it.

Many verses of the Qur'an speak about society, about the rules between heaven and hell, about what to do and what to avoid. But this verse speaks directly to something else: what you accumulate in this world, and what you fall in love with.

Notice the language. Allah does not say "if you give, you may reach righteousness." He says you will not reach it until you give of what you love. Not maybe. Not perhaps. You will not arrive there by any other road.

🩷 One Heart, One Love

Why does this matter so much? Because as you grow, many things will arrive that look like love — a good friend, wealth, a position, a dream. You will even use the word "love" for them. But that is only a materialistic love. The real basis of love in your heart must be the love of Allah and the love of Ahlul Bayt. From that basis, every other love flows.

You love your parents — and rightly so. But ask yourself why. You love them because of Allah. He placed them together out of millions of people on this earth; He formed you through them. That is not coincidence. That is a blessing made especially for you. Every true love you have in this world is driven, at its root, by Him.

And love takes time to mature. There is a difference between ḥubb and mawaddah — mawaddah needs time to develop within you until it shows itself through your actions.

Allah says in the Qur'an:

مَّا جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِرَجُلٍ مِّن قَلْبَيْنِ فِي جَوْفِهِ
Mā jaʿala-Llāhu li-rajulin min qalbayni fī jawfih.
Allah has not made for any man two hearts within his chest.

How many hearts do you have? One. And in that one heart, His love must reign. Whatever else competes with Him for that single heart — that is what He is asking you to give.

⚖️ The Question Nobody Wants to Be Asked

So here is the question for every one of us — for me too. If Allah were to ask you, right now, to sacrifice the thing closest and dearest to you — your house, your wealth, your parents, your brother, your sister, your standing in society, the dream you have been saving for — and He said, "I want it now, for My sake" — how many of us would truly give it?

Because this is what the verse exposes. Some people can give. You may have a cupboard full of shirts and hand a spare one to a friend — I didn't really want that one anyway. Or give away money you can simply earn back. That is giving from the hand, not from the heart. Allah says:

"I do not want what reaches Me from your hand. I want what comes from your heart. That thing that competes with Me inside you — that is what I want."

🪔 Loving Through Him: The Chain of Love

This is why a young Zainab, when her father Amir al-Mu'minin asked her to count, would not. "Say one," he said. "One," she replied. "Say two." She said: "One." Why? "My tongue can only say one — the Oneness of God."

Imam Ali smiled and explained the truth to her: yes, there is only one love, the love of Allah. But it is through that love that He has given us one another — Zainab, Hassan, Hussein, Fatima, the Holy Prophet. Because of the love of Allah, we love them. As the Qur'an commands the Prophet to declare:

قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي
Qul in kuntum tuḥibbūna-Llāha fa-ttabiʿūnī.
Say: if you truly love Allah, then follow me.

Follow whom? The Holy Prophet — who said: whoever loves Hussein loves me; whoever loves Hassan loves me; whoever loves Ali loves me; whoever loves Fatima loves me. And whoever hates them hates me — and to hate me is to go against Allah.

So now you understand birr. It is not what comes from out here, from the hand. Inside you, your heart is always for God. As Amir al-Mu'minin said:

لَا يَجْتَمِعُ الْعَقْلُ وَالْهَوَىٰ
Lā yajtamiʿu al-ʿaqlu wa-l-hawā.
The intellect and the ego (desire) cannot coexist.

Within you two forces always fight: al-ʿaql, the intellect that should rule, and al-hawā, the ego. And Allah warns:

أَفَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُ
A-fa-ra'ayta mani-ttakhadha ilāhahu hawāh.
Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god?

Whatever their desire loves, they chase — pursuing what makes them happy, not what makes God happy.

🌾 Why Birr? The Land That Does Not Move

What does the word birr actually mean? Linguistically it comes from barara — something vast, precious, sincere, pure, everlasting. It is close to the Arabic word barr, the land — as opposed to baḥr, the sea.

The sea is always moving, restless. But land is steady. You can stand on it; it is vast, it spreads, it holds firm. So birr is like the land: stable and unshaken.

This is why Allah says birr al-wālidayn — kindness to parents. Not just love, but a love that is vast, pure, steady, and stable, no matter what you think. They brought you into this dunya. They are the ones who slept tired, night and day, covering you when you were sick — and still do. So one piece of advice: for those whose parents are still alive, may God prolong their lives; and for those who have lost them, may God have mercy on their souls. Respect your parents. Do that, and you will have ease in this life, ease in the grave, and ease in the hereafter.

🍎 The Apple Tree

Here is the simplest picture of birr, one each of us already knows.

What is the purpose of an apple tree? To give apples. If a tree never gives apples, can I even call it an apple tree? No.

Now watch the tree. In autumn its leaves fall — the dead things drop away. It passes through winter, then spring, then summer. It draws nutrients from the earth, drinks the rain, takes the sun, receives the bees and their pollination — all of this labour, all of this energy, for one purpose: to produce apples.

It did all the hard work. And then imagine the tree were a person, and you walked up and said, "Give me that apple." You did none of the work — give me the apple. And the tree gives it to you. "If this brings you happiness, here — it's yours."

That is birr. After all the toil, when someone needed the fruit, needed the sweetness, the tree handed it over. That is what life is.

🕊 The Greatest Worship: Bringing Joy to a Heart

And why does Allah want this so much? Not only because it helps you — but because you are one ummah, and especially the lovers of Ahlul Bayt are needed to make others happy. Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (a.s.) said:

مَا عُبِدَ اللَّهُ بِشَيْءٍ أَفْضَلَ مِنْ إِدْخَالِ السُّرُورِ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِ
Mā ʿubida-Llāhu bi-shay'in afḍala min idkhāli s-surūri ʿalā l-mu'min.
Allah has not been worshipped with anything greater than bringing happiness into the heart of a believer.

He does not, at this point, speak of your salah or your siyam — important as they are. He says nothing has worshipped God more than bringing surūr to a believer's heart.

Why? Look at Ahlul Bayt. Did anyone worship God like the Holy Prophet and his family? No. But do we remember them because of their worship? No — we remember how they lived in society, how they brought surūr to people, even to those who were their enemies.

You never know what is inside another person. That one beside you could be carrying troubles at home, marriage problems, a heart that has decided the whole dunya has gone black. And then one kalima, one word, one act of goodness gives him hope. Because the God we truly know — Ar-Raḥmān, Ar-Raḥīm — loves all His servants, even those far from Him, and wants them back. He did not create them for hell, as so many imagine. He is more loving to you than your own mother — one hadith says seventy times, another a hundred times over.

🕌 More Beloved Than the Kaaba

So beloved is this to Allah that even the worship rituals bow before it.

Imam Hassan al-Mujtaba (a.s.) was once in i'tikaf in the mosque — where the rules forbid you to leave. He was told one of the followers needed help, and without a second's hesitation he left, even though it meant paying a kaffāra. The people protested: "O son of the Messenger, you are in i'tikaf!" He answered: "I heard my grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, say that to run in the way of my brother or sister to help them is better than any i'tikaf — better even than circling the Kaaba."

And so the hadith declares:

الْمُؤْمِنُ أَعْظَمُ مِنَ الْكَعْبَةِ
Al-mu'minu aʿẓamu mina l-Kaʿbah.
The believer is greater than the Kaaba.

Likewise Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (a.s.), performing tawaf around the Kaaba, saw a man trying again and again to get the attention of his companion. The Imam said, "This man keeps calling you — go and help him." The companion said, "After I finish the tawaf; the tawaf is important." The Imam asked, "Does he need something from you?" — "Yes." The Imam said: "Leave the tawaf. Helping him is better than circling the Kaaba."

🍫 The Three Things That Steal It From Us

So what goes wrong? When you are young, you are still connected to your fiṭra. Scientists studied children between the ages of two and seven and found something striking. They gave a child sweets in a container, rewarding him each time he did right. Then they brought in the father with an empty container. The father pretended to cry — and at once the child stood up, took his own biscuits, and gave them to his father. Children give from what they love, because they have not yet learned what the dunya teaches.

As a person grows, three things creep in:

• Identity protection. If I give this away, how will society see me? What will I lose of my image? A child has none of this in his head.
• Accumulation. The more we grasp of the dunya, the tighter we hold. Here the answer is zuhud — not that you can own nothing, but that you own the worldly thing and the worldly thing does not own you. You may have the car, the house — that is good — but you don't spend your whole life chasing and polishing them. Zuhud is using this dunya as the soil in which you plant your hereafter.
• Cognitive calculation. A child gives without asking will I get it back? will I lose out? The adult always asks: if I give this away, maybe I'll never get it back.

That is why it is mustaḥab, by the ahadith of Ahlul Bayt, for a father to have his growing child place the sadaqa in the box himself; to bring him to the husainiya to serve the tea, to help roll up the carpet, to do something from a very young age — so that it stays rooted in him.

🌱 The Overgrown Path

As you grow older, it is like walking through the bush. Walk the same path again and again and it becomes easy and clear. But choose another path, and the old one falls into disuse; come back to it later and you find it covered in weeds — you can no longer see where you were going.

This is what happens to the children of Adam. So accumulated with worldly things, they forget the very path they were meant to follow. They forget that birr is good, that ḥasanāt are good, that they could die tomorrow. So Allah gives another chance: "Clear this path now. Go back to your fiṭra. Reconnect with birr."

📿 Birr Is Higher Than Taqwa

The Qur'an places birr even above taqwa — because it is birr that drives taqwa:

وَتَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْبِرِّ وَالتَّقْوَىٰ
Wa taʿāwanū ʿalā l-birri wa-t-taqwā.
And cooperate with one another in birr and in taqwa.

First birr, then taqwa follows. For God does not look at your outside. As the Prophet said:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَنْظُرُ إِلَىٰ صُوَرِكُمْ وَأَمْوَالِكُمْ، وَلَٰكِنْ يَنْظُرُ إِلَىٰ قُلُوبِكُمْ وَأَعْمَالِكُمْ
Inna-Llāha lā yanẓuru ilā ṣuwarikum wa amwālikum, wa lākin yanẓuru ilā qulūbikum wa aʿmālikum.
Allah does not look at your outward forms or your wealth, but He looks at your hearts and your deeds.

And the Qur'an gathers the whole of it into one verse:

لَّيْسَ الْبِرَّ أَن تُوَلُّوا وُجُوهَكُمْ قِبَلَ الْمَشْرِقِ وَالْمَغْرِبِ وَلَٰكِنَّ الْبِرَّ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَالْمَلَائِكَةِ وَالْكِتَابِ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ
Laysa l-birra an tuwallū wujūhakum qibala l-mashriqi wa-l-maghrib, wa lākinna l-birra man āmana bi-Llāhi wa-l-yawmi l-ākhiri wa-l-malā'ikati wa-l-kitābi wa-n-nabiyyīn.
Birr is not that you turn your faces toward east or west; rather birr is to believe in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets.

Then it continues: to care for the needy (masākīn), the orphan (yatīm), the near of kin (qurbā); then to give zakat and establish salah; to keep one's covenant with God; and:

وَالصَّابِرِينَ فِي الْبَأْسَاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ
Wa-ṣ-ṣābirīna fī l-ba'sā'i wa-ḍ-ḍarrā'.
And those who are patient in hardship and adversity.

And it seals the whole package:

أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُتَّقُونَ
Ulā'ika humu l-muttaqūn.
Those are the ones who have taqwa.

From beginning to end: birr is not facing east or west. It is everything — belief, caring for your people, salah, zakat, patience, keeping your promise to God. Complete all of that, and you have completed birr.

🐎 Abu Dharr and the Best Horse

A man came to Abu Dharr al-Ghifari asking for a horse. Abu Dharr went and chose the best of his horses. His servant objected: "He only asked for a horse — you didn't have to give him the best one." Abu Dharr replied: "I am the one who needs that horse. Not in this world — I need it in my grave." Then he asked: "Have you not read the Qur'an — lan tanālū l-birra ḥattā tunfiqū mimmā tuḥibbūn?"

The man never asked for the best. But Abu Dharr gave the best, because he was the one who needed to disconnect from the dunya. That is true love of God.

This is the way of Ahlul Bayt, of whom the Qur'an says:

وَيُطْعِمُونَ الطَّعَامَ عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِ مِسْكِينًا وَيَتِيمًا وَأَسِيرًا
Wa yuṭʿimūna ṭ-ṭaʿāma ʿalā ḥubbihi miskīnan wa yatīman wa asīrā.
And they give food, despite their love for it, to the needy, the orphan, and the captive.

— giving the food they themselves loved, asking no reward, doing it purely for the love of God.

👰 The Wedding Dress of Fatima

Fatima al-Zahra (s.a.), on the night of her wedding — she who had lived a simple life and never sought comfort, but who, like any bride, treasured her wedding dress — opened the door to a beggar and gave the dress away. The one gift she would wear once, and she handed it to someone in need.

Now go back through history and ask: does any narration tell us what the dress looked like? Was it beautiful, rich, set with diamonds or rubies? No. Because we do not care about the dress. What we care about is the heart that gave it. The heart that gives — that is what matters.

🌳 Give First to Your Family

The verse moved the companions deeply, and they would ask the Prophet about its meaning. He told them: yes, it is good to give — especially what you love — but make sure you always look after the needs of your own family first.

When Abu Talha al-Ansari heard the verse, he owned a great orchard (bustan) in Medina with the finest dates — even the Prophet used to eat from them. He said: "O Messenger of Allah, this verse touched me. I want to give the whole orchard for you to distribute." The Prophet said: "Bārak Allāhu fīk — that is very good of you. But I give the orchard back to you: give it first to your family." And so he gave from what he loved — yet his family was protected.

💧 The Giver Is the One Who Wins

Believe me: when you give, you are the one who wins. The scientists say this — not me, though Islam said it more than fourteen centuries ago, now in the year 1448 after Hijra. When you give, something is triggered within you; psychologists say you release endorphins, and you become happy. You begin to connect — "Is this why I am here? Yes — to help one another."

A man once said: "I had everything — wealth, a big house, a big family. But something inside me felt empty." One sleepless night he drove through town and saw the light of a mosque still on. Something pulled him inside. There he found a man praying qunut, weeping: "Ya Allah, You know my situation. I need Your help. I have only You. My daughter…" The man's heart broke as he listened.

When the worshipper finished, the wealthy man approached. "I heard you praying — can I help?" The man said: "My daughter has a major operation tomorrow. If I cannot pay, she goes on the waiting list — and the longer she waits, the greater the chance she dies." "How much?" "Around ten, twenty thousand." "I'll pay it now — here is a cheque."

"The moment I gave it," he said, "something in my heart moved again. All these years I had looked only at my family and the things I loved, and forgotten there are needy people out there. And the moment I gave, I began to cry." He handed over his business card: "If you ever need more, come to me."

The man looked at him and said: "I don't need your business card. I already have the business card of the One who sent you here. Allah sent you — it was no coincidence. And the Qur'an says: if My servant asks of Me, I am near."

No one knows the soldiers of God except God. When someone comes asking you for help — know that they asked God first, and God sent them to you. It is never coincidence.

🐙 The Octopus That Dies for Its Young

At the bottom of the ocean there is a kind of octopus. When the female is ready, she hatches a thousand eggs — and then stops her whole life to protect them. She stops eating, stops hunting. She stays, polishing the eggs, guarding them, month after month after month, until they hatch. And then the mother dies. She saves the young — and she gives up herself.

🩸 Umm al-Banin: The One Who Gave Everything

Link this to Umm al-Banin.

The octopus dies, but its young live on; its line continues. With Umm al-Banin it was different — she did not merely give herself. She raised those beautiful boys: Ja'far, Abdullah, Aun, and Abbas — in an environment where the love of Ahlul Bayt meant everything. She told them: "Whenever you are in this house, do not call them Hussein, Hassan, or Zainab — call them Sayyidi, Sadati. These are your masters. These are the representation of God on earth."

And yet, at the end of the day, she was still a mother — and the dearest thing to a mother is her children.

You know the sad ending. When the caravan returned to Medina — but it was a changed Medina now. A very, very sad Medina. The Medina that had once held the Messenger of Allah, that had held Amir al-Mu'minin, that had held al-Hasan and al-Husayn walking its streets, known and protected — that Medina was now about to receive the news that would break it.

🌙 The Fruit He Is Waiting For

The lesson of the night is one verse: you will never reach birr until you give of what you love.

Not what falls easily from your hand — the spare shirt, the money you can earn back — but what competes with God inside your one heart. The apple tree labours through every season for a single purpose: to be ready, when someone needs the fruit, to give it away. The believer is greater than the Kaaba; bringing joy to a heart is greater worship than circling it. And the highest givers — Fatima with her wedding dress, Abu Dharr with his finest horse, Umm al-Banin with her four sons — never asked what the gift looked like, only what the heart behind it was.

So go back to the fiṭra of the child who gives without calculating. Own the dunya, but never let it own you. And when someone comes to you in need, remember: they asked God first, and He sent them to you. The fruit He is waiting for is not in your hand. It is in your heart.