دل کی اصلاح

It is narrated from Nu'man ibn Bashir (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: "The lawful (halal) is clear and the unlawful (haram) is clear, and between them are (many) doubtful matters whose reality most people do not know. So whoever guards himself against the doubtful matters has protected his religion and his honour, and whoever falls into the doubtful matters (that is, adopts them) has fallen into the unlawful — like a shepherd grazing (his animals) around a reserved pasture: it is likely that his animals will enter it and begin to graze in it. Beware! Every king has a reserve (a private pasture none is allowed to enter). Beware! Allah's reserve is the things He has forbidden (which none may approach). Beware! In the body there is a morsel of flesh: when it is sound the whole body is sound, and when it is corrupt the whole (human) body is corrupt — and it is the heart."

(Bukhari & Muslim)

The standard Islam has set for a person's virtue, nobility and salvation is taqwa (God-consciousness) and abstinence; that is why the aim of every act of worship Islam has made obligatory is likewise the attainment of taqwa. Indeed it is taqwa itself that a person avoids adopting matters and affairs that would place him in doubt, and whoever becomes entangled in such matters without caring whether they are lawful or unlawful has, as it were, fallen into the unlawful. That is, in all kinds of economic and financial dealings and other affairs one should adopt means that are clearly lawful and keep away from doubtful ones. The second important point in this blessed hadith concerns the heart: that the reform of the whole body rests on the body's foundation, the heart, so reforming the heart is most necessary — and without doubt its reform is not possible without faith and taqwa.