How do I purify my heart in Islam?
Tazkiyah is the inner science of Islam. The scholars treated the heart like soil — and purification as the long, unglamorous work of pulling out what shouldn't be growing in it.
3 passages from 2 books in the library
The classical approach.
These passages are drawn from 2 books by Ibn Battuta and Imam al-Ghazali — part of the classical Sunni tradition that carries over a thousand years of reflection on the Qurʾān, the authentic Sunnah, and the consensus of the early community. Nothing below is a paraphrase. The words are the scholars' own, translated from the original Arabic manuscripts.
14th century · Tangier, Morocco
The Riḥlah — a 30-year, 75,000-mile journey across three continents, and the most important travel account of the pre-modern world.
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"I prayed in the blessed mosque, may Allah purify it and increase its reverence, and visited those in al-Baqi from the companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and may Allah be pleased with them."
11th–12th century · Ṭūs, Khurāsān
Reviving the inner life of Islam through the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn — one of the most influential works ever written in any religious tradition.
More on Imam al-Ghazali →
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"The second is that she is not in a waiting period for someone else, whether due to widowhood, divorce, questionable intercourse, or purification from intercourse through ownership of a slave."
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"He should not approach her during menstruation or after its end and before purification as it is forbidden by explicit textual evidence"
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