Spiritual Disease and Its Cure by Imam Shams-ud-Deen Muhammad bin Abi Bakr bin Qayyim AlJ awziyyah

A sinner is always in the grasp of Satan and his/her own desires. He/she is detained and imprisoned by the worst enemy of mankind. There is no narrower a prison than that of one's base desires, and there are no more dreadful a length of chains than that of passion. How could such a detained and imprisoned heart tum towards Allah and the Last Day? When the heart is chained, all types of ailments rush towards it from every side. The Prophet ti said: "Satan is a wolf for mankind." Just as an isolated sheep is at the mercy of wolves, a person without the protection of Allah ~' is at the mercy of his/her wolf (the devil). The Protection of Allah ~ would only safeguard one when one is righteous and fearful of one's Lord. Divine Protection saves one from the punishment of this world and the Hereafter. Therefore, whenever one's heart is distant from Allah ~. it is subjected to all sorts of ailments, and the closer it is to Allah ~. the more distant it is from all types of diseases. Distance from Allah ~ is classified under many categories; some of them are more serious than others: Carelessness and negligence ( of some obligations) distance the heart from Allah ~- The distancing from Allah caused by a sin is more serious than that caused by carelessness. The distancing from Allah caused by innovation in religion is more serious than that caused by a sin. But the distance from Allah caused by hypocrisy (in religion) and polytheism (associating partners to Allah) is the most serious of them all.