SECOND REMINDER. Tuesday. POSITIVE THINKING IN ISLAM

SECOND REMINDER. Tuesday.
POSITIVE THINKING IN ISLAM continues. BismilLaahir Rahmaanir Raheem.

Positive thoughts are those that produce good feelings, good deeds, peace of mind, gratitude, tranquility, contentment, and other positive emotional states. These are truthful thoughts about Allah, hope in the Hereafter, the prophets, our blessings, good deeds, and so on. They produce wisdom and enlightenment in the heart.

Negative thoughts are those that produce bad feelings, anger, envy, jealousy, hatred, anxiety, depression, and other negative emotional states. These are thoughts about the world, our wealth, our status, people we do not like or who have wronged us, and so on. The cause of these thoughts is an attachment to the delusions of worldly and materialistic life that cloud the heart and prevent its purification.

Not all thoughts about the world are evil. Thinking about something Allah blessed us with in the world is good. And we have a duty to take care of our worldly affairs, meet our work obligations, pay our bills, fulfill our trusts, and so on. We should think about these things in so far as they are necessary and beneficial.

For example, we may need to think about how we are going to complete a work project. But perhaps at work someone said a mean word to us or did something to annoy us. If we constantly dwell upon that negative interaction, it will only cause harm to us and produce no benefit. It is an unnecessary worldly thought and should be dismissed.

In fact, a step on the road to excellence in Islam is learning to think about only those things that should concern us.

Ibn Al-Qayyim writes:
The most beneficial remedy is that you preoccupy yourself with thoughts of what should concern you and not those that should not concern you. Thinking about what does not matter to you is the door of every evil. Whoever reflects upon what does not concern him, then he will miss what does concern him.
Source: al-Fawā’id 1/175

This means busying ourselves with worldly thoughts only to the extent necessary, and also learning not to worry about matters beyond our circle of influence or control. If we constantly worry or get upset by things we cannot change, that will take our attention away from what we can change.

After understanding the effects of positive and negative thoughts, we then need to direct our thought processes towards positive trains of thought and learn to dismiss negative thoughts before they take us into a downward spiral. Many of the Prophet’s companions considered the skill to direct thought in a positive way as the enlightenment of true faith. May Allah keep guiding us all and protect us from negative thoughts. Aameen.