How to attain Ikhlaas

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By: Shaykhul Islaam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah
Reference: Al Fawaa’id by Ibnul Qayyim: P.221(حفظه الله)
Translator: Nadir Ahmad, Abu Abdul-Waahid

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Ikhlass (sincerity) cannot be combined in the heart together with the love of being praised and the greed for what other people have, except in the way that water and fire are combined.

So if your conscious tells you to seek ikhlaas, then turn to greed firstly, and slaughter it with the knife of despair [1], then turn to the love of being praised and abandon it like how those who adore the life of this world abandon the hereafter. If you are successful in slaughtering greed and in abandoning the love of being praised, then ikhlaas will be easy for you.

And if you ask:

“And what will make slaughtering greed and abandoning the love of being praised easy for me?”

I reply: As for slaughtering greed, then what will facilitate this for you is your knowledge with certainty that there is nothing whatsoever that is desired, except that with Allaah alone are its treasures, none posses them except Him, and the slave is given nothing from them except by Him.

And as for abandoning the love of being praised, then what will facilitate this for you, is your knowledge that no one’s praise benefits and adorns, and no ones dispraise harms and makes one ugly, except the praise and dispraise of Allaah alone. One bedouin said to the messenger of Allaah صلى الله عليه و سلم:

“Indeed whoever I praise is adorned, and whoever I dispraise is unadorned.”

So he صلى الله عليه و سلم said:

“That is [for] Allaah ‘az wa jal [alone].”

So abandon the praise of he whose praise does not adorn you and he whose dispraise does not make you any worse. And seek the praise of He whose praise has all the adornment and He whose dispraise has all the ugliness. And it is not possible to achieve this except with patience and surety, and whenever you lose patience and surety, you become like one who wants to travel across the oceans without a boat.”

Allaah the glorified said:

{So be patient (O Muhammad). Verily, the promise of Allaah is true, and don't let those who have no certainty of faith discourage you from conveying Allaah’s message (which you are obliged to convey).} [Surah: 30/60].

And He, The most high, said:

{And We made from amongst them (Children of Israel), leaders, giving guidance under Our command, when they were patient and used to believe with certainty in Our ayat.} [Surah: 32/24]

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[1] Give up hope in worldly belongings.